In 1982, Bruno Bischofberger, the Zurich gallerist and friend of Andy Warhol, commissioned the artist to create a series of paintings for children.
As a result, Warhol presented a series of silkscreens, the Toy-Paintings, depicting some of the artist’s beloved collection of toys. When they were initially shown in Bischofberger’s Zurich gallery in 1983, the Toy Paintings transformed the space into a kind of playroom: displayed on blue walls adorned with silver fish, the works were hung very close to the ground – perfectly in the line of sight of a toddler, but requiring any accompanying adults to sit or crouch to view them. A humorous act of sabotage by Warhol against artistic dogmas and elitist views in the art world.
Warhol created a series of 128 canvases depicting, for example, parrots, dogs, pandas, monkeys, clowns and robots, etc.
The present work “Parrot” shows less the toy itself, but its packaging with the appropriate label. Warhol gives us his version of this cheap little toy in his typical screen-printed manner in contrasting turquoise and yellow-black. In its everyday banality, it is reminiscent of his early paintings, in which he celebrated the visual aesthetics of Campbell's soup cans and Coca-Cola bottles, paintings that started the Pop Art revolution.
