Cats Named Sam (complete set)
Cats Named Sam (complete set)
Unsigned Print
Andy Warhol
23 x 14cm, Edition of 190, Lithograph, 1954
£90,000-£130,000
$170,000-$250,000 Market Value Indicator
$170,000-$240,000 Market Value Indicator
¥820,000-¥1,180,000 Market Value Indicator
€110,000-€150,000 Market Value Indicator
$950,000-$1,380,000 Market Value Indicator
¥18,750,000-¥27,090,000 Market Value Indicator
$120,000-$180,000 Market Value Indicator
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Meaning & Analysis
Cats Named Sam (complete set) is a 1954 lithograph portfolio by Andy Warhol drawn from his early artist’s book 25 Cats Name[d] Sam and One Blue Pussy. Each sheet shows a single cat in loose black line with watercolour-like colour, annotated “Sam” in script. The cover carries a hand-lettered title. The set is unsigned and was published in an edition of 190.
In the early 1950s Warhol worked as a commercial illustrator in New York. He produced small books of drawings that he sent to clients and friends as promotional gifts. 25 Cats Name[d] Sam and One Blue Pussy is among the best known. The conceit is simple and deliberately absurd, since all the cats are called Sam apart from a single blue one, which is labelled “One Blue Pussy”.
The drawings use the blotted-line technique that Warhol developed in this period, in which ink is applied to one sheet and pressed onto another to produce a broken, slightly wavering line. Areas of colour are then laid in as soft washes, in raspberry, violet, orange, mint, rust and pale grey. The cats are shown in a range of poses, seated, crouching, stretching and seen head-on. Each is reduced to a few lines and a single colour, with expressive eyes in a contrasting tone.
The cover sheet carries a hand-lettered title, Warhol’s name and a dedication. The Cats Named Sam series shows the sensibility that underlies Warhol’s later work, including the economy of line and the interest in repetition with variation, long before he turned to screenprinting.
