A ndy Warhol pioneered a combination of avant-garde and highly commercial sensibilities that made him a founder and leading figure of Pop Art. Starting in the early 1960s, his work explored the relationship between advertising, fame and artistic expression through media including painting, silkscreen, sculpture, film and photography. By the time of his death in 1987, he was one of the best-known artists the world had ever seen. His international fame brought Warhol hundreds of commissions from socialites and celebrities and made parties at his silver-painted studio, The Factory, into the place to be through the 1970s. With work that simultaneously satirized and celebrated materiality and fame and a voyeuristic personality with a clear taste for money and fame, Warhol shaped many subsequent generations of artists.
“In 1982 I asked him to create a group of small works for children. Andy responded with the Toy paintings, which I showed in my gallery in Zurich in 1983. Warhol designed wallpaper of Silver fish swimming on a blue background which made the gallery look like an aquarium, and the paintings were hung at eye level for three- to five-year-old children. Adults had to squat to examine the paintings closely, the opposite of me having to lift up my little children when looking at paintings in museums. We even went so far as to charge an entry fee for adults not accompanied by children under six, the proceeds being donated to a Swiss children’s charity.”
In 1983, Zürich-based art dealer Bruno Bischofberger commissioned Andy Warhol to create a series of paintings for children that later became his instantly recognizable Toy Painting series of which both Space Ship and Police Car are a part. Inspired by 1960s wound-up and battery-free toys, which at the time were still sold in Germany, Japan, China and Russia, this series of silkscreened canvases depict some of the artist’s most beloved collection of baubles. When unveiled at Bischofberger's gallery in 1983, the paintings transformed the space into a playful realm. The works hung at a height conducive to a toddler's view, inviting young eyes to explore, while accompanying adults were required to stoop or sit to fully appreciate the artworks. Completely fascinated by the universality of children’s toys and their deeply nostalgic qualities, Warhol remarked, ''Lots of international toys [were] included because a lot of them are the cutest of any I've seen'' (Andy Warhol, quoted in Seth S. King, “Art: An Andy Warhol Show, For Children’s Eyes”, The New York Times, August 25, 1985, p. 70). Silkscreened onto energetic bright colors, each Toy Painting underscores Warhol’s distinct ability to render the elegant and graphical simplicity of each design.
In this series, Warhol elevates children’s toys, an emblem of consumerism, to the realm of high art and in doing so, exposes the artistry and power of the carefully crafted symbols themselves. In his use of recognizable graphics, Warhol transmutes cultural signifiers for his own aesthetic ends. Imbued with an inherent dynamism, the intimately scaled paintings in particular celebrate the infectious spirit of childhood curiosity and creativity.
