Lot #852: ANDY WARHOL - C: a Journal of Poetry - Original silkscreens

   

Artist: Andy Warhol (American, 1928 - 1987).
Title: "C: a Journal of Poetry [Vol. I No. 4, September, 1963]".
Medium: Original silkscreens.
Date: Composed 1963. Printed 1963.
Dimensions: Overall size: 14 x 8 5/8 in. (356 x 219 mm).
Pricing:
  Starting Price: $4,000
  Reserve Price: N.A.
  Auction Sale Price Estimate: $6,000/8,000
Lot Note(s): Covers designed by Andy Warhol and printed by Warhol and Ted Berrigan. Edition reportedly of c240. Slick coated wove paper. Printed to the edge of the sheet. Overall good condition; the usual chipping to the extremities; the work is intact. As to the impressions and their quality, in this instance Warhol took quite a number of Polaroid photographs of Edwin Danby (the sitter) and Gerard Malanga (standing behind him). He then created a silkscreen from them for the covers. The clarity and resolution of the images vary from copy to copy of the production, either as a result of the screen getting clogged by re-use or as a result of deliberate manipulation by Warhol. In our object the images on the front are clearly two individuals but the resolution is limited and the image presents almost as an abstraction; the rear cover, which is an image of the two poets kissing, is in our object virtually entirely abstract, perhaps intended as the “end” of the print run by Warhol. Literature/catalogue raisonne: Paul Marechal, “Andy Warhol: The Complete Commissioned Magazine Work, 1948-1887, Catalogue Raisonne,” no.334, pg. 305, illustrated. London: Prestel, 2014. Provenance: The estate of a prominent New York City (Brooklyn) collector.
Comment(s): Highly important, very scarce, and rarely seen: only one sale is recorded in 'Gordon's Print Prices" from 1978 to 2019, the realized price being $10,625 at Phllips New York, 4/29/2013, lot #32.These (in) famous covers were the first time that Warhol used Polaroid photographs as the basis for designing his silkscreen portraits. He would later return to this method which became his standard procedure for making portraits beginning in 1970. "C: a Journal of Poetry." New York: Lorenz Gude, 1963. First and only printing: (28) pp. Tall, narrow 4to.Stapled memo. Edited by Ted Berrigan. Introductory essays and notes by Frank O’Hara, John Wieners, and Ted Berrigan, poems by Edwin Densby. Warhol images copyright © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. [30594-3-4000-NA]