At L&M Arts there’s a show of Andy Warhol’s illustrations titled, cheerfully, Who’s Who in Holiday Hats. Framed and hung, in a profusion that calls to mind Allan McCollum’s installations, are two folios of ink and watercolor illustrations: one of the aforementioned hats from a 1964 McCall’s spread, and another from 1955 called A la Recherche du Shoe Perdu. The drawings of the hats, each one named after a historical or literary character, are witty, but the drawings of the shoes are super sweet. Rendered on large sheets of stiff, slightly bruised, yellowing paper, with wavering India ink outlines and translucent candy-colored washes, they feel a bit like pages torn from an illuminated manuscript, one all about shopping and dressing. And the drawings are brilliantly condensed, without a single errant gesture. Warhol the illustrator gives us only what we need to see each shoe.
The show proves to me once and for all that while Warhol had a prescient flair for self-promotion and not-ironic detachment, he was at heart a superb graphic designer. The shoe drawings will be familiar to many museum-goers because they’ve been reproduced on Warhol Foundation-licensed merchandise: a children’s book, tote bags and note cards. But I wish that you all could see them in person, framed, on the wall. The artist has rendered each shoe with tremendous precision and attention. These drawings are small, true gems.