WARHOL PRE-POP

The fact that 221 drawings by Pop Art icon Andy Warhol are being sold at auction is undoubtedly a sensation. Dorotheum is offering an extraordinary selection of works on paper by one of the most important artists of the 20th century in its online auction, “Andy Warhol: The 1950s Drawings from Daniel Blau,” on 27 March 2025. The starting prices are set at a very reasonable level, making the auction particularly exciting for all art enthusiasts.

221 Andy Warhol Drawings from the 1950s

Before Andy Warhol became an icon of Pop Art, he established himself as an illustrator in 1950s New York. Having studied Fine Art in Pictorial Design at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, he was drawn to the metropolis, where he quickly gained recognition and received numerous accolades. His clients included Tiffany & Co., The New York Times, I. Miller Shoes, Bonwit Teller, Columbia Records, Fleming-Joffe and NBC. By the 1960s, Warhol was already world-famous.

However, a look at his work from the 1950s reveals the roots of his creative work and offers fascinating insights into his artistic development and technique. This is further demonstrated by the 221 works on paper that will be auctioned at Dorotheum on 27 March. The Drawings show an indefatigable Warhol who artistically processed his entire environment. They also demonstrate his close connection to the fashion and advertising world, which had a lasting impact on the artist’s style.

A New Look at Warhol’s Early Drawings

The German art collector and gallery owner Daniel Blau discovered these early originals in 2011, hidden deep within the Warhol Foundation archive. After Blau brought these works to light, he initiated the first major traveling exhibition From Silverpoint to Silver Screen – Andy Warhol 1950s Drawings a few years later.

The exhibition made stops at the Louisiana Museum in Humlebæk, the Teylers Museum in Haarlem, and the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung of the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich. Further exhibitions followed, including a comprehensive presentation at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Le Locle, which historically contextualized Warhol’s illustrative practice. Another significant exhibition took place at the New York Academy of Art, linking Warhol’s 1950s drawings with the creative environment of New York.

In 2020, the mumok in Vienna highlighted Warhol’s curatorial practice as part of ANDY WARHOL EXHIBITS: A Glittering Alternative, including his early presentation formats and drawings. In 2022, the Kunstsammlung Jena placed his works in dialogue with the art of New Objectivity in the exhibition Follow George Grosz.

What Do Warhol’s 1950s Drawings Tell Us?

Warhol’s works from this period oscillate between fashion illustration, commercial graphics, and homoerotic depictions. They reveal early influences that later recur into his famous portrait series of icons such as Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor.

Particularly fascinating are his drawings of the 1950s drag scene, which expose his interest in subcultural imagery.

Many of his works were inspired by photographs and magazine images. Lot 15 references such a source: a drawing of Andries Zwart and Jan van den Heuvel, two Dutch boys who were selected in 1951 as motifs for the Kinderzegels charity postage stamps. These stamps supported social projects and were featured in the LIFE magazine issue of 14 January 1952 under the title Dutch Kids Pose for Postage and Their Faces Go Around the World.

The magazine not only showcased the stamps but also photographic portraits of the children. Warhol’s drawing is an exploration of this visual material.

Warhol’s Commercial Illustrations and Their Evolution

Much of Warhol’s commercial work began with preliminary studies and sketches as exemplified with Lot 72, an ink with tempera drawing on paper. This piece relates to his collaboration with Reid Miles for the album cover of Blue Lights by Kenny Burrell. At the time, album covers often featured provocative images of women—so-called cheesecake photography. However, Warhol and Miles developed an alternative visual language. Instead of a clichéd pin-up motif, they chose an illustration: a reclining woman making direct eye contact with the viewer. The minimalistic depiction reflects the subtle atmosphere of Burrell’s music and highlights Warhol’s ability to use commercial illustration as an artistic medium— an approach that was later consistently applied in his Pop Art.

The Blotted-Line Technique

Many of Warhol’s early drawings were executed using the so-called blotted-line technique, a hybrid method combining drawing and printmaking. Warhol experimented with this method during his studies at the Carnegie Institute of Technology and perfected it in the 1950s for his commercial work.

Warhol began with a pencil drawing on non-absorbent paper such as tracing paper, which he placed on a more absorbent sheet. He then applied ink to individual sections of the lines and pressed them onto the underlying paper.

This resulted in the characteristic broken, delicate lines that define Warhol’s illustrations. He often enhanced these with watercolours or added depth through gold leaf. This technique enabled him to reproduce a template in multiple variations, allowing him to present clients with different versions of a motif—an early precursor to his later serial image production in Pop Art. Many of his works exist as an original ink drawing and its mirrored monotype. A beautiful example of this is his Angel with Trumpet from around 1955.

A Fresh Perspective on Warhol’s Beginnings

These drawings—ranging from portraits and still lifes to male nudes—reveal a lesser-known but equally compelling aspect of Warhol’s oeuvre.

Blau sees in these works references to European art history, particularly Egon Schiele, Jean Cocteau, Henri Matisse, and Gustav Klimt. In addition to this exceptional body of work, on 28 March 2025, paper works by George Grosz, Markus Lüpertz, Per Kirkeby, and Neal Fox from the Daniel Blau collection will also be auctioned. The Warhol drawings from the 1950s offer a re-evaluation of his early career and shed new light on the origins of one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.