In the Bottom of My Garden (Study Drawing)
Andy Warhol was a pioneer in many ways, including his renowned innovation with screenprinting in the early 1960s. His foray into printmaking, however, started a decade earlier and can even be traced to his college days in the late 1940s. Evidence of this is apparent in his “blotted line” drawings from the 1950s.
Warhol’s use of the blotted line technique, where one fresh heavily inked drawing is pressed against a blank sheet of paper to create a corresponding image, is similar to letter press or etching in that the reproductions are made from an inked single source (plate).
Warhol went beyond this. Each next inked impression was often altered, with the addition of line, composition, or color, to create the next work in its journey to finality. Compiled here are a rare group of dual impressions (all adhered by Warhol) that illustrate his early printmaking.
Each work was in the artist’s possession upon his passing (and thus bears the stamp of his estate), was then authenticated by the Andy Warhol Authentication Board (stamped), and was archived with The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts (The Foundation). The Foundation’s archive number for each work is written by hand on the back of the work.
Year: Circa 1955
Medium: Ink, graphite and Dr. Martin’s Aniline Dye on paper (two sheets)
Size: 14.25 x 22.625 in (36.2 x 57.5 cm)
Frame size: 27.5 x 33.5 in (69.8 x 80 cm)
Authenticated by the Authentication Board of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts (stamp on verso), Foundation archive number on verso in pencil, initialed by the person who entered the works into the Foundation archive.
Provenance:
Estate of Andy Warhol (stamped)
The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts (stamped)
Long-Sharp Gallery