Andy Warhol - Contemporary Art Day Sale New York Friday, November 16, 2012 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    DJT Fine Arts, New York
    Sale: Seoul Auction, Korea, Contemporary Art, December 15, 2011, lot 160
    Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

  • Catalogue Essay

    I’m doing shoes because I’m going back to my roots. In fact, I think maybe I should do nothing but shoes from now on.
    ANDY WARHOL

    (Andy Warhol quoted in P. Hackett, ed., The Andy Warhol Diaries, New York, 1989, p. 306).

    Diamond Dust Shoes, 1980, is part of an iconic series of works by Andy Warhol that epitomizes his fascination with glamour and celebrity, and returned the artist to one of his original professions as a commercial illustrator for the I. Miller shoe company. Bob Colacello, editor of Interview Magazine, recalls the origin of Warhol’s shoes series, describing, “A big box of shoes was sent down to Warhol to be photographed for an ad campaign. An assistant turned the box upside down and dumped the shoes out. Andy liked the way they spilled all over the foor so he took a few Polaroids…”. Warhol’s artistic creativity and eye for composition immediately piqued at this moment.

    Like in other works from the series, Diamond Dust Shoes, 1980, contrasts the glittering green, pink and purple shoes against a black background, ensuring that they are the focus of the viewer’s eye. Sparkling, pulverized glass was used by Warhol as an alternative to diamond dust, as the powder of real ground diamonds turned out to be too chalky in the artist’s opinion. Diamond dust had been popular with Warhol ever since he first used it in his Shadow series in 1979, as it connoted his favorite subjects
    of movie star glamour, high fashion, and money. “The merger of women’s shoes and diamond dust was a perfect ft… Andy created the Diamond Dust Shoe paintings just as the disco, glam, and stilettos of Studio 54 had captured the imagination of the Manhattan glitterati. Andy, who had been in the vanguard of the New York club scene since the early 60s, once again refected the times he was living in through his paintings” (V. Fremont, Diamond Dust Shoes, exh. cat., New York, 1999, pp. 8–9).

  • Artist Biography

    Andy Warhol

    American • 1928 - 1987

    Andy Warhol was the leading exponent of the Pop Art movement in the U.S. in the 1960s. Following an early career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol achieved fame with his revolutionary series of silkscreened prints and paintings of familiar objects, such as Campbell's soup tins, and celebrities, such as Marilyn Monroe. Obsessed with popular culture, celebrity and advertising, Warhol created his slick, seemingly mass-produced images of everyday subject matter from his famed Factory studio in New York City. His use of mechanical methods of reproduction, notably the commercial technique of silk screening, wholly revolutionized art-making.

    Working as an artist, but also director and producer, Warhol produced a number of avant-garde films in addition to managing the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground and founding Interview magazine. A central figure in the New York art scene until his untimely death in 1987, Warhol was notably also a mentor to such artists as Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

     

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193

Diamond Dust Shoes

1980
synthetic polymer, silkscreen inks and diamond dust on paper
40 x 60 in. (101.6 x 152.4 cm)
Stamped by the Estate of Andy Warhol and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. on the reverse and numbered 099E UT.057.

Estimate
$200,000 - 300,000 

Sold for $194,500

Contemporary Art Day Sale

16 November 2012
New York