Andy Warhol Golden Shoe Collage, ca. 1956
GUEST: I have a print by Andy Warhol that was a birthday present to my Great Uncle Clint. My uncle is from Abilene, Texas. In 1951 or so, he went out to New York City, um, 'cause he was an artist.
APPRAISER: Mm-hmm.
GUEST: And he went out there to do window treatments for places at like Bonwit Teller. And while he was doing that, he met Andy Warhol, and they became good friends. The lore of my family is that my great uncle actually gave Andy his first job doing window treatments for Bonwit Teller...
APPRAISER: Mm-hmm.
GUEST: (laughing) Cannot verify that.
APPRAISER: I see, okay.
GUEST: Andy Warhol gave this to my great uncle for his birthday. And you can see in the top corner, it says "Happy Birthday, Clint."
APPRAISER: And do you know about what year that, that would have been?
GUEST: So I think it was in the mid-'50s.
APPRAISER: Okay.
GUEST: Uh, 'cause he-- my great uncle was out in, uh, New York between '51, and then came back around 1967.
APPRAISER: And his full name was...?
GUEST: Clint Hamilton.
APPRAISER: And what kind of art? You said he was also an artist.
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: Did he-- what kind of art did he do?
GUEST: He did collage. It's been in my family since my great uncle had it. He passed it down to my mom, um, who then gave it to me for my wedding in 2018. We wanted to give it a nice frame to keep it safe.
APPRAISER: Well, Andy Warhol was born in Pittsburgh, and he graduated from the Carnegie Institute of Technology, which is now Carnegie Mellon, in 1949.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: And then, of course, like many artists, moved to New York. And so he was established there by 1950. Mm-hmm. And you're absolutely right that he got involved with window display.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: And it was at Bonwit Teller and also Tiffany. He was also a freelance graphic artist.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: His first real claim to fame was for Glamour magazine. And he had to illustrate climbing the ladder to success. And so he used shoes as the symbol.
GUEST: (laughs) (gasps) Oh...
APPRAISER: And that actually was so successful that it was, uh, made into an eight-page spread in the magazine.
GUEST: Oh.
APPRAISER: And whoever the editor of the magazine was mistakenly changed his name from Warhola to Warhol.
GUEST: Oh.
APPRAISER: And he decided to keep Warhol from then on.
GUEST: (laughs)
APPRAISER: He became really renowned by 1955...
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: ...and around the early '50s, he started doing watercolors of shoes.
GUEST: Mm.
APPRAISER: In 1955, he decided to change his style a bit and become much more elaborate. And he began producing works like the one you have.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: And this is actually not a print; it is an original work of art. The outline of the shoe is pen and ink with gold leaf. And then he's applied collage with an embossed foil. So this is a series that he, he did, and they were very popular, and many of them were dedicated to various celebrities.
GUEST: Hm...
APPRAISER: So, for example, Zsa Zsa Gabor.
GUEST: Oh...
APPRAISER: He did an, an amazing one with all kinds of flourishes because of her jazzy personality and her elaborate clothing.
GUEST: Yeah, yeah.
APPRAISER: Uh, he even did one of a swashbuckler's boot for Elvis Presley...
GUEST: (laughs)
APPRAISER: ...that had sort of erotic undertones.
GUEST: (laughs)
APPRAISER: So in 1956, there was a gallery called the Bodley Gallery, in New York.
GUEST: Mm, mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: And they did a show of these shoes in gold. The show was called "Golden Slipper." There were 40 of them in the, in the show. We aren't sure, really, of all the works that were in it, and whether or not yours was is-is hard to say. I judge that the-the date for this work is circa 1955 to '56. One of the pieces was dedicated to Julie Andrews. And so Julie was in My Fair Lady at the time.
GUEST: Mm.
APPRAISER: And so she and her husband came to the show. The shoe that he chose to dedicate to her was more like a glass slipper...
GUEST: Uh-huh.
APPRAISER: ...or like something a princess-- princess would wear.
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: And when the shoes were there at the gallery, they were for sale...
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: ...and the prices ranged from $50 to $225.
GUEST: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: If this work were in a-a gallery, I think it would sell somewhere in the neighborhood of $125,000.
GUEST: (laughing) Oh, my God. Oh, my God! Wow, that's incredible. (laughing): Oh, my God! (catching breath): Oh my God. Wow.
APPRAISER: For insurance purposes, I would, uh, feel that it should be appraised at $150,000.
GUEST: Oh, my God. Okay. (laughs) Whew, okay.
APPRAISER: The one that was dedicated to Julie Andrews was at auction in 2015. It actually sold for $1.1 million.
GUEST: Oh, my God.
$125,000 Retail
$150,000 Insurance
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See Warhol's Shoe Design for Julie Andrews
See the golden shoe sketch that Andy Warhol designed for actress Julie Andrews, and see its whopping six-figure value!
See Andy Warhol's Shoe Series
Andy Warhol may be known for his colorful silkscreen prints of celebrities and soup cans, but the Pop artist also designed a beautiful illustration series of shoes!
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