Hasta La Ideas

A rare book of the pioneering pop artist’s legendary photo strips

When Harper’s Bazaar commissioned Andy Warhol to do a layout for a feature on the arts in 1963, the artist turned to photobooths. The project launched a three-year obsession with the machines, resulting in images of himself, people he knew and famous faces of the era, as well as one of Warhol’s first commissioned portraits. Still the most cohesive reference on this period, “Andy Warhol Photobooth Pictures” was published in 1989 by the Robert Miller Gallery of New York to accompany an exhibition of the photo strips.

We recently rediscovered the rare book, a tall octavo that’s the perfect format for showing the long photographic images—various known members of The Factory, as well as many unidentified faces—against clean white backgrounds. The gallery-like design puts the focus on the subjects. Legends like Edie Sedgewick positioned smack in the middle of the page highlight Warhol’s own fascination with these personalities, as well as the Muybridge-like effect of his medium. Rounding out the iconic images with memories of Warhol, his reign as pop art’s king and personal experiences, American artist Gary Indiana leads an oral history through conversation with Tina Lyons and David Rimanelli.

For fans of Warhol, photography and pop art, this engrossing first edition sells from Amazon as well as Peter Harrington.