In this short blog, our archive team explore Andy Warhol's illustrations for a 1961 cookbook.
Before Andy Warhol rose to fame as a Pop artist in 1960s New York, he was a jobbing commercial and advertising artist. Here we have some images from ‘Amy Vanderbilt’s Complete Cook Book’, featuring simple black line illustrations by a 33 year old ‘Andrew Warhol’.
It was published a year before his first solo art exhibition in 1962, which featured his now-famous Campbell soup cans and made his name.
Amy Vanderbilt (1908 – 1974) was an American cookery writer and etiquette maven, who found success with the television show ‘It’s In Good Taste’ and the radio programme ‘The Right Thing To Do’ in the 1950s and 1960s.
The recipes contained in ‘Amy Vanderbilt’s Complete Cook Book’ may not appeal to more contemporary tastes – coffee jelly or champagne-basted turkey anyone? – but cookbooks obviously appealed to Warhol: two years before he had collaborated with Suzie Frankfurt on a cookbook entitled ‘Wild Raspberries’, which featured 19 illustrations by him and recipes such as ‘Omelet Greta Garbo’ (‘Always to be eaten alone in a candlelite [sic] room’.
The cookbook is just one of many fascinating and revealing items held within our archive collection, which is open to everyone. Please email us to book an appointment to come and take a look.
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