In 1950s New York, before becoming one of the most recognizable artists of the twentieth century, Andy Warhol was already a successful and highly regarded commercial illustrator. During this period, he created seven handmade books filled with his own drawings and whimsical texts as a way to attract clients, maintain personal connections, and cultivate friendships. These playful works revealed his affection for cats, food, shoes, handsome young men, and glamorous women.
Produced in extremely small editions, the books have since become prohibitively rare collectors’ items. TASCHEN’s XL-format facsimile reproductions faithfully recreate seven of these volumes in meticulous detail. With titles such as Love Is a Pink Cake, 25 Cats Named Sam, and À la recherche du shoe perdu, the books showcase Warhol’s refined draftsmanship, boundless imagination, and humor filled with layered references and wordplay.
The collection becomes a delightful experiment in style and genre. A Is for Alphabet devotes a page to each letter while pairing the illustrations with awkward three-line verses about strange encounters between people and animals. In the Bottom of My Garden functions simultaneously as a children’s book and a coded celebration of homoerotic desire. In Wild Raspberries, Warhol parodies the format of a cookbook through an extravagant collection of absurd recipes.
This vibrant portfolio is accompanied by essays that contextualize Warhol’s illustrations and place his 1950s work within the broader arc of his artistic development. Rarely seen photographs of the artist and examples of his commercial illustration work offer insight into his early creative process and the transformation from commercial designer to artist.
These little-known yet highly sought-after early works remain as inventive, charming, and original today as they were in the optimistic atmosphere of the 1950s. Featuring an introductory essay by Warhol scholar Nina Schleif alongside contemporary images and photographs of Warhol himself, this carefully produced facsimile captures the moment when the commercial illustrator evolved into Andy Warhol the artist.
© The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.