ANDY WARHOL | Golden Shoe (Dorothy Kilgallen)

Private Collection
Acquired from the above by the present owner 

New York, Bodley Gallery, The Golden Slipper Show or Shoes Shoe in America, December 1956

This work is in good condition overall. The right vertical edge is slightly deckled. There is an undulation to the sheet. There is time-staining to the sheet and visible discoloration and staining along the edges. Under close inspection, there are small losses and lifting to the gold foil. Also under close inspection, there is some adhesive residue visible in the metal trimming as well as scattered pinpoint brown accretions to the sheet and some very minor, unobtrusive pinpoint surface accretions. The sheet is hinged verso on all four sides to the backing board. Framed under Plexiglas.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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Supremely sophisticated and exceptionally refined, Andy Warhol’s 1956 Golden Shoe (Dorothy Kilgallen) exemplifies the early innovations that came to define the artist’s legacy. Created for his now storied exhibition Golden Slipper Show or Shoes Shoe in America—which riffed on the “ubiquitous biographical directory Who’s Who in America”— at the Bodley Gallery in New York, the present work is a particularly elegant example of Warhol’s series of forty Golden Shoe works, which personify various celebrities that captured the artist’s imagination (Donna de Salvo in Exh. Cat., New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again, 2019, p. 140). From figures such as Julie Andrews, James Dean, Elvis Presely, Truman Capote, and Zsa Zsa Gabor, Warhol meticulously crafted a set of shoes “symbolically imbued with a unique persona,” by carefully applying gold leaf and foil appliqué to his delicate ink drawings in shapes reminiscent of the particular personality of each celebrity (Ibid). Dorothy Kilgallen, a widely-known journalist and television game show panelist, embodied the intersection of fashion, media, and society that Warhol was so infatuated with; the present work’s lusciously curved lines, luminescent metallic accoutrements, and exquisitely detailed trim bespeak Kilgallen’s style and presence. 

By combining his experience in commercial art with his blotted-line ink drawing technique, Warhol’s Golden Shoes anticipate his groundbreaking silkscreen work of the next decade, work which would launch him to the forefront of the Pop Art movement. Explaining the sociocultural insight inherent to the series, Rainer Crone writes that “the technique of applying gold leaf in the portrait of a star or in the shape of a shoe or boot, in its formal constituent relationship with gold star clothing, should be seen as a significant feature of the social phenomenon of stars[…] Warhol's portraits of stars, in 1956, reveal that he was one of the very first artists to reflect on this frequently mentioned relationship between myth and star” (Rainer Crone, Andy Warhol: A Picture Show by the Artist, New York, 1987, p. 68). Wonderfully expressive, Golden Shoe (Dorothy Kilgallen) matches the boldness of its subject, paving the way for Warhol’s innovations to come.