Andy Warhol looks a scream

August 6 would have been Andy Warhol’s 96th birthday. Though he’s not my favorite artist exactly (not sure that I have one?), exposure to his work at an early age absolutely influenced my love of art as an adult, especially mid-century art and modernist movements.

I must have been about 12 when my dad sent me the two images above on post cards. I remember not believing, when my father told me, that Warhol’s shock of white hair was a wig. It was simply within the realm of possibility that an artist would be, could be weird.

Shortly after that I checked out Warhol’s diaries from the library. I was already a rabid journaler myself, scribbling everything down in a padded notebook that featured a teddy bear tea party on the front cover which my grandmother had given me for Christmas. My dad, sensing a budding obsession, bought me a copy of Valerie Solanas’ SCUM Manifesto. Around that same time, I was discovering riot girl music and broadening my art horizons, drawn to anything from the 1960s—be it music, fashion or other aesthetics (this was the era of the Claire's peace sign earrings and cheap metal mood rings.)

Two summers ago, Christopher and I watched the extensive Netflix documentary series based on Warhol’s diaries. Even as someone who knows more than the average person about Warhol’s life, they were informative, and also just fun. I know it’s easy to see Warhol as a hack now — his commercial subject matter, his assembly line techniques. But his art, approachable as it is, was an entry point for a preteen girl in Oklahoma who later went on to make a living writing about art in all its various forms.

A couple of years ago, a Brooklyn-based art collective called MSCHF bought an early ink drawing of Warhol’s, called Fairies, for $20,000. The collective then made 999 exact forgeries of the work, complete with forged certificates of authenticity, and sold all one thousand pieces for $250 each. So, buyers had one-in one-thousand chance of buying a real Warhol for 1/80th of the price. Warhol’s line drawings were made using a different technique than his later mass-produced screenprinted work, but I can’t help thinking he’d approve of this little stunt that built off his own legacy of mimicry.

• Speaking of Warhol’s line drawing, I have always wanted to get a tattoo of his 1957 watercolor and lithograph Hand Holding Flowers. (Can you spot the error in the artwork?)
• The Warhol Museum has more details on Warhol’s line drawing technique, which I always though was interesting. Much of his early work using this technique was made for commercial purposes, including illustrations for department store catalogues.
• Most people are probably family with the album covers Warhol designed for the Rolling Stones and the Velvet Underground, but here’s a gallery of several more.

Paint-by-number kits seem to be making a comeback. I keep getting ads for them on Instagram, and I couldn’t resist buying this kit at Michael’s a few weeks ago. (That kit appears to be sold out, hence the eBay link, but there are many more cute options on the Michael’s website. I’m just waiting for a nice long weekend to start working on mine. Perhaps Labor Day?

In the vein of Warhol’s repetitions, there is a person in Cincinnati who has been collecting different copies of the same original paint-by-numbers kit, all painted by different people. In this image she shared to the Facebook group Maximalist Design and Decor, I count at least 40 of the same paintings, mostly sourced from eBay as well. Too cool.

Recommendations

• We recently started The Americans, a show I have never seen, and yes, I know I am woefully behind on this. We’re about halfway through the season, and obviously the tone and subject matter are different, but it’s been reminding me of the Bob Balaban classic Parents in terms of, well, parents with secret lives.
• We also loved The Regime, a short political satire series starring Kate Winslet, who is perfect. Note the life-imitates-art moment above.
• And this is a few months old but this story on the upbrining of Aaron Bushnell, the Air Force serviceman who self-immolated in protest of the war on Gaza, was powerful. Bushnell was raised in a cult-like religious community in Cape Cod, and journalist Simon van Zuylen-Wood examines how that might have informed his political beliefs and final act.

That’s all for today. I love you, thanks for reading.