Dog Art Today

Tag: cocker spaniel

  • Three Andy Warhol Dog Drawings Sell for over $50,000

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    Dog (Cocker Spaniel) by Andy Warhol, circa 1980s sold for $18,750

    Last night, Christie’s held a live and online auction to benefit the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in New York. The evening featured 354 works by Warhol and raised over $17 million. Interesting to me were the three dog drawings.

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    Dog by Andy Warhol, circa 1980s sold for $18,750

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    Dog by Andy Warhol, circa 1980s sold for $16,250

    You may remember the Cocker Spaniel. I believe it is Ginger, the dog of Warhol’s friend and Interview partner Peter Brant who encouraged Warhol to focus on pet portraits after he saw it.  I wrote about Ginger here and included her in  my “Dogs in Art” short film.

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    Ginger by Andy Warhol, 1976

    Also last night, an Andy Warhol butterfly silkscreen sold for $1,258,500.

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    Endangered Species: San Francisco Silverspot by Andy Warhol, circa 1983 sold for $1,258,500.

    Via CBS News.

  • The Dog Bailout Gift Card as Seen on Oprah

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    Oprah and her Lange Foundation gift card via Oprah.com

    Day 7 of my 12 Days of Christmas, Kwanzaa, Yule, and Hanukkah Gift Guide (for those still counting).  Today, I give you the gift that caused a sensation when Oprah featured it on her Investigation of Puppy Mills show last year…

    The Doggie Bailout from the Lange Foundation.

    $75 will save dog (or cat) from the L.A. City Animal Shelters.  The gift's recipient will receive a photo of the dog you rescued and a story about the pet from founder, Gillian Lange.  The donation goes towards the shelter "bail-out fee", medical care, and other kennel related expenses. You are also invited to stop by the kennel and inquire about specific dogs who are in need.

    Here is an excerpt of the letter Oprah received from Salina, a blind Cocker Spaniel chosen in her honor:

    "One morning last week there was great excitement. … One of the dogs
    had heard an officer say that someone from Lange Foundation was coming
    to choose a dog in your honor. I shared in the excitement, even though
    I knew the dog chosen would not be me. I was old and I was blind. I'd
    lived for many years in the yard of my owner's home. They never paid
    much attention to me. I did have my own doghouse, and that is where I
    spent most of my life, especially when I could no longer see.

    "When the foundation arrived, I tried to look my best as I knew it was
    my fifth day at the pound—my final day. The lady slowly walked up and
    down the aisles. I could sense that she was sad, and I heard her say to
    the kennel man, 'I wish I could take all of them.' She passed by my
    crowded dog run for the third time, and then she stopped and said, 'I
    think I'll take that one … I'll take the blind one.'"

    Oprah was so moved, she immediately wrote the Lange Foundation a check for $10,000.

    With this card, you truly are giving the gift of life.  And after all we have seen, don't dogs deserve a bailout too this year?

    The Lange Foundation also reminds dog lovers to think of them when your are out shopping this season. They are always in need of the following items:

    • Any kind of canned dog or cat food
    • Hills Science Diet A/D (special formula available at vets offices)
    • Hills Science Diet I/D (special formula available at vets offices)
    • Light Food 
    • Leashes and collars
    • Dog and cat beds
    • Cat trees
    • Indestructible chew
    • Toys (Nylabone)
    • Cow Hooves
    • Advantage
    • Frontline
    • Kitty Litter (preferably the clay formula)
    • Veterinary Supplies (call us for more details on what we use)
    • Towels, sheets, and blankets
    • Office supplies

    For more information call: (310) 472-7727

  • Andy Warhol’s Ginger

     

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    Driving by the Weidman Gallery on Santa Monica Blvd. yesterday, I nearly rear-ended a car.  Behold what was in the window, Andy Warhol's Chanel No. 5 poster.  It's over 5 feet tall and it's spectacular!

    It reminded me that I've been meaning to post one of the treasures I discovered while working on my film Dogs in Art, Andy Warhol's Ginger.

     

     

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    Ginger by Andy Warhol, 1976

     

    I've done a lot of research on Andy Warhol's dogs via the Web, and I've never seen this image before.  I like to think I am debuting on the Internet today.  Btw, I found it in the book Best in Show: The Dog in Art from the Renaissance to Today by Edgar Peters Bowron, Carolyn Rose Rebbert, Robert Rosenblum, and William Secord.

    The painting was done originally for Peter Brant who owned the beautiful Cocker Spaniel and was Warhol's friend and Interview partner.  After seeing the finished work, he encouraged Warhol to focus on pet portraits as a new revenue stream.  This lead to Warhol using stuffed animals as subjects (not toys but taxidermy).  Not exactly what Brant had in mind, I bet, but creative none-the-less.  Read more about Warhol's dog (and cat) paintings in Vincent Fremont's 2006 article on Artnet.

     

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    More Warhol Chanel No. 5 bottles via Andy Blog.

     

    Looking at a Warhol I have never seen before, as well as drooling over his Chanel No. 5 poster in the window, reminds me anew how brilliant Warhol was with color.  Sometimes I get desensitized to his mega-talent because his images are so iconic.  They are almost hard to see anymore, because I can view them in my mind's eye without really bringing a fresh look to them.

    Ginger is just perfect and so are the Chanel silkscreens.  All the hype aside, Warhol really was a true genius. 

    If you're in Los Angeles, stop by the Michael Kohn Gallery for their current exhibition of Andy Warhol's black and white photographs from 1976-1987.  I'm trying to find out if there are any dogs in the show.  I will let you know.

    In other news, color lovers – like Rebecca Collins — will enjoy two great color links I found today:

    ColorFlip.com by Rafael Rozendaal is a mesmerizing Friday time waster via Angie McKaig's blog (she's the CEO of the Pampered Puppy, but this blog is more web biz than puppy bling.)

    And Katherine Tyrrell's recent super-comprehensive post, Describing a Color Space – There's More Than One Color Wheel, on her informative Making a Mark blog.