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Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
ANDY WARHOL Silver paint brush from The Factory.
Rectangular paintbrush with plastic handle covered in silver paint, circa 1966. 240x508 mm; 9 1/2x2 inches.
Provenance: Gifted by the artist, New York, to Norman Dolph, New York, during a visit to Warhol's Factory studio at 231 East 47th Street, New York; thence by descent to the current owner.
Warhol's (1928-1987) 1960s years at The Factory on East 47th Street were known as the Silver Era. In 1963, artist Ray Johnson took Warhol to a "haircutting party" at the artist and designer Billy Name's apartment, which had been decorated with tin foil and silver paint, and Warhol asked him to do the same scheme for his recently leased loft in midtown. Silver, fractured mirrors, and tin foil were the basic decorating materials loved by early amphetamine users of the sixties. Name covered the whole Factory in silver, even the elevator, thus heralding the Silver Era. Warhol's obsession with silver can be seen from his iconic 1963 Elvis paintings (see lot 217), to installations like his Silver Clouds, 1966, consisting of a room of floating metallic balloons.
Dolph visited the Factory frequently during the mid-1960s and was often hired to DJ parties there (he had founded one of the first mobile DJ businesses in the U.S.). Through his DJ gigs at The Factory and elsewhere he had been approached by Warhol to work with him in producing the first recorded album of The Velvet Underground & Nico (1966-67).
