A Pink Cow? Andy Warhol wasn’t afraid to defy normal and exploit imperfection.
Andy understood the importance of standing out. One strategy he used was the Pink Goldfish strategy of lopsiding. Take an approach that made him unique and then triple down on it.
In 1961, the relatively unknown Warhol believed he was about to break through. He had created a batch of paintings inspired by comic books. The only problem was that Roy Lichtenstein beat him to the punch.
Andy needed a new idea.
The interior designer Muriel Latow recommended that he make paintings of money. That idea cost Warhol $50.
Latow then tossed in a second idea gratis for lagniappe.
It was one word…
Campbell’s
A year later Warhol did an entire exhibit of soup can paintings in Los Angeles. Pop art was born.
After soup cans, the subjects became passenger tickets, electric chairs, and flowers. Warhol wanted to defy normal and shake up the art world.
Warhol often asked his friends what he should paint to get an outside perspective. Art Dealer Ivan Karp suggested cows, sharing that they were a “wonderfully pastoral…durable image in the history of the arts.”
He began work on a series.
Warhol recounted Karp’s reaction after seeing the Pink Cow on the yellow background,
“They’re super-pastoral!… They’re ridiculous! They’re blazingly bright and vulgar!”
Warhol would triple-down on the bovines. In one of his gallery shows in 1966, he papered the walls with the cows.
Are you ready to stand out in a pasture of sameness?