Andy And His Cats 25 Cats Name Sam And Holy Cats

Andy and His Cats: 25 Cats Name Sam and Holy Cats
Marina Bardash Nebro
CUNY Queens College – MA in Art History
December 2017

Andy Warhol, arguably one of the most notable artists of the 20th
century, and perhaps the
most notable artist of the second half of the 20th
century, was not only a prolific and talented Pop
Artist. Throughout the 1950s, Warhol spent his days as a commercial artist, working on
assignments for projects such as magazines, books, and window displays. This era of his life is
often overlooked by scholars and the lay community for a variety of reasons. Once Warhol
entered the Fine Art world through his Pop Art, he tried to minimize his participation in the
commercial art sphere. The antagonism between fine and commercial art still continues to today,
with fine art placed on a higher pedestal and given more importance and attention. Artistic
movements such as the Arts and Crafts movement, as well as the Bauhaus, sought to limit the
distinction, or to remove it altogether. This paper seeks to blur the boundaries between fine and
commercial art, giving the latter its time to shine.
Within Warhol’s oeuvre of 1950s commercial work, there is yet more of a breakdown of
what is covered in his autobiographies, biographies, and monographs. Warhol’s I. Miller shoe
campaign is mentioned in most publications about the artist, as it was his “big break,” so to
speak, in the world of commercial art. This paper looks to pay attention to Warhol’s lesser
studied works, particularly those that fall into the category of “promotionals,” or small artist
books that Warhol used to promote himself as a prolific and talented commercial artist. Of these
eight books, as identified by Nina Schleif in her essay “Clever Frivolity in Excelsis – Warhol’s
Promotional Books,” two are fully dedicated to cats: 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy
(1954), and Holy Cats (1960). They importantly bookend Warhol’s commercial art career, with
25 Cats being his first hard cover “promotional,” and Holy Cats being the final promotional
work before Warhol entered the world of Pop Art. This paper will argue for the significance of
these two works in Warhol’s personal life, as well as in his professional career.

***
Andy Warhol truly viewed himself as an outsider, even claiming, perhaps in jest, that “he
was from another planet… [and] didn’t know how he got here.”1
The feeling of being different
was not only a figment of his imagination, but a reality in the art world. For the first part of his
artistic career as a commercial artist, Warhol struggled with entering into the gallery scene with
peers such as his former roommate, Philip Pearlstein, and other notables such as Jasper Johns
and Robert Rauschenberg. Warhol was not the only gay artist in the 1950s, but he was unique in
that he did not feel the need to hide it. When his old friend, Pearlstein, was accepted to the
Tanager Gallery, Warhol tried to use the connection to his advantage, hoping to get some gallery
time for himself. Because Warhol’s artwork was overtly sexual, displaying men kissing and the
nude male form, Pearlstein ultimately turned him away. Even his fellow gay artists pushed
Warhol to the periphery. Warhol was too “swish” for the fine art community. As his friend
Emile de Antonio would later say, “‘…the major painters try to look straight; you play up the
swish – it’s like an armor with you.’”2
De Antonio, fondly referred to as “De” by Warhol, was
the man that pushed Warhol into the world of fine art. Unlike many, De saw little distinction
between fine and commercial art. While he catapulted Warhol into Pop Art, at the same time, he
helped fine artists such as Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg find work in window
displays.34
The 1950s art world was dominated by abstract expressionism, and the AbEx movement was
marked by its machismo and heightened sense of masculinity. The 20th
century dandy that he
1
Victor Bockris, Warhol, (New York: Da Capo Press, 1997), 115.
2
Andy Warhol and Pat Hackett, POPism The Warhol ‘60s, (San Diego, Harcourt Brace & Company), 12.
3
Jesse Kornbluth, Pre-Pop Warhol, (New York: Panache Press at Randomhouse, 1988), 18.
4
Warhol, Popism, 12.

was, Andy Warhol definitely did not fit into this mold. The commercial art world, however, did
not have these strong pretenses. As Jesse Kornbluth states, “Fortunately for Warhol commercial
art represented an avant-garde that would welcome a talented young draftsman, whatever his
personality.”5
Not only did the commercial art world welcome Warhol with his quirky
personality, but they also celebrated his outsider quality. Unlike other commercial artists of the
time, Warhol severely stylized his depictions of everyday objects. Magazine editors looked past
his inability to “draw a shoe that looks like a shoe,” and allowed him to sell their products in his
own, unique style.6
Warhol thrived in the world of commercial art because the atmosphere was one of
collaboration on many levels. Warhol worked with editors and other graphic designers on the
composition and content of his art. He enjoyed working within the limitations and rules of his
bosses. Warhol would say, “I loved working when I worked at commercial art and they told you
what to do and how to do it and all you had to do was correct and they’d say yes or no... When I
think about what sort of person I would most like to have on a retainer, I think it would be a
boss… because that makes everything easy when you’re working.”7
Even later in his career,
when Warhol became a Pop Artist, he would continue to seek advice and ideas from other
people: “I was never embarrassed about asking someone, literally, ‘What should I paint?’”8
He would hire assistants to help him complete the countless assignments he received, and
would even enlist his friends and family to aid in completing certain projects. Warhol invited his
peers to exciting coloring parties, oftentimes held at the trendy Serendipity café, which would
5
Kornbluth, Pre-Pop, 85.
6
Tony Scherman and David Dalton, POP The Genius of Andy Warhol, (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), 16.
7
8
Warhol, Popism, 16.

later also help Warhol in selling and promoting his work. This group of young men would get
together and help Warhol by coloring in his black and white prints. Warhol gave them little
direction, allowing them to “[follow] their own whims in coloring; their mistakes and accidents
[becoming] part of the books and part of their charm.”9
The mistakes fit in perfectly to the naïve
and quirky quality of Warhol’s aesthetic.
Julia Warhola was a vital part of Warhol’s early commercial art. She would provide the
calligraphic embellishments to all of his works. Perhaps he relied on her for this task because he
was dyslexic, but with his mother’s broken English, her typos were not much better.10
Warhol’s
relationship with his mother was very complex. While he tried to hide her away from the public
eye – she only ever ventured out to his first gallery opening – she was also an important part of
Warhol’s brand. Her folksy, Eastern-European calligraphy matched Warhol’s quirky aesthetic.11
He would use her artwork and the name “Andy Warhol’s Mother” to further his career. Schleif
goes as far to say that he used his mother to “[underscore] his dawning ambition to be perceived
as an artist. The artist’s mother… is an art-historical topos that… was useful in helping Warhol
to develop an identity as a fine artist.”12
Andy Warhol’s promotionals utilized the aid of both his coloring parties and his mother’s
calligraphy. It was common practice at the time for commercial artists to send small gifts to their
magazine editors, but just as Warhol uniquely approached his projects, he also had his own spin
on gift giving. He personalized his offerings, sending “art directors hand-finished work that
looked for all the world like original art… or packages of birdseed, with instructions to plant the
9
Lucy Mulroney, “One Blue Pussy,” Criticism, Vol. 56, No. 3, (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2014), 572.
10
Nina Schleif, “Carefully Unplanned Books in Andy Warhol’s Oeuvre,” Reading Andy Warhol, (Germany: Hatje
Cantz Verlag, 2013), 20.
11
David Bourdon, Warhol, (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1989), 43.
12
Schleif, “Carefully Unplanned,” 20.

seeds and watch as they grew to become birds.”13
Tina Fredericks, the first art editor to pick up
Warhol for Glamour magazine, remembers “eggs, wonderfully painted… in traditional,
complicated, colorful Ukrainian patterns.”14
With the addition of his promotionals, it is no
wonder that Warhol was able to turn heads and make himself known in the world of commercial
art.
***
Andy Warhol’s 1950s persona was strongly linked to his fondness for his feline friends.
Many biographical blurbs about Warhol would include his proclivity towards cats. A 1954
Interiors example, an important date as it marks the printing year of 25 Cats, writes about
Warhol’s contributions to the magazine and his upcoming gallery shows. At the end of the short
paragraph, however, the blurb states, “and after a thorough housecleaning, he has newly acquired
ten cats named Sam.”15
This quote highlights the importance of cats in Warhol’s life, and places
them in the same breath as his commercial art accolades.
Warhol graduated from Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1949 and immediately
moved to New York City with his college friend, Philip Pearlstein. Between 1949 and 1952,
Warhol lived with Pearlstein and a variety of friends and roommates in different residences.
David Bourdon describes Warhol’s living situation as a revolving door of roommates,16
the artist
always having people around to keep him company and to keep him occupied. Eventually,
Warhol was able to move out on his own. One way in which he marked this move was by
obtaining his first Siamese cat. Another way in which this notable change in address can be
13
14
15
Mulroney, “Blue Pussy,” 577.
16
Bourdon, Warhol, 30.

marked is that Warhol’s mother, Julia Warhola, officially moved in with her son.17
Not to say
that Warhol was incapable of living on his own and taking care of himself, but the combination
of cat and mother may represent his need for company, and his yearning for love and comfort in
a world where he felt himself an outsider.
At some point between 1952 and 1954, one cat turned into “eight [or] twenty, depending
on how quickly Warhol could give them away.”18
Without spaying and neutering his animals, it
is no surprise that they multiplied quite rapidly. The matriarch and patriarch of this cat family
were Hester and Sam, both prominent figures that would later play into 25 Cats and Holy Cats.
This multitude of cats can be seen as a parallel of the horde of roommates Warhol lived with in
the early part of the 1950s. Mirroring the “revolving door,” while the number of cats increased,
others would fly the coop – he would give kittens away to friends, and even gift them to
important magazine editors.19
If you can compare cats to cockroaches or rats, Warhol had a true infestation of felines on
his hands. There were cats everywhere. In 1953, Warhol and Julia moved into an apartment on
Lexington Avenue, which later became a sort-of duplex as “the parlor floor… became available”
a year later. He relegated his workspace, his mother’s quarters, and his cats all to the second
floor, while the parlor was utilized for entertaining guests and throwing parties.20
Cats would
spill his ink and mark his works, almost imitating his blotted-line technique in real-time.21
When
Warhol later hired an assistant to help keep up with his work assignments, “half the job… was
17
18
Bockris, Warhol, 102.
19
20
21

keeping the cats from playing with the accessories.”22
The way in which Victor Bockris, an
important Warhol biographer, describes the horde of cats is incredibly vivid: “They roamed
through the paper jungle, clawing and pissing on Warhol’s materials and periodically storming
through the unruly heaps of art work in fits of feline mania… the cats appeared to be ‘like his
surrogate children’… The smell, they said, was something else.”23
Warhol was a collector of art and antiques, and had pieces from artists as notable as Paul
Klee and Constantino Nivola. Even these precious items were fair game for Warhol’s cats, as
they climbed and scratched his Nivola sculptures.24
“Raggedy Andy,” a nickname that referred to
Warhol’s appearance during the 1950s, even let his pets urinate and tear up his clothing and
shoes.25
As Bockris put it, Warhol’s cats “became part of his legend.”26
His cats were truly
integrated into his professional and personal lives, marking their territory on his work and his
person.
25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy
Copy number 4 of 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy greets its reader with a hard cover
image of a pink cat named Sam. Floating in space with no environment to ground him, Sam
appears to be laying on his side, without fear of the viewer. His face is somber, and his eyes
have an empty stare. Above him is the title of the promotional, typo and all, written by the hand
of Andy Warhol’s mother. Below his hind-legs and his tail is his name, Sam. The colophon on
the first page reads:
22
23
24
25
26

This edition consists of 190 copies which have been printed by Seymour Berlin
P.L. G. 8070.
This is copy no 4
Andy Warhol
25 Cats name Sam and one Blue was written by Charles Lisanby
Facing the colophon page is the same image of Sam from the cover, this time colored in a cool
purple with piercing red-orange eyes. This particular edition features 17 images of cats, far from
the claim of 25 in the title. Next up is a coy red Sam, propping himself on his front legs with a
cheeky smile, his fur much unrulier than the first Sam’s. Sam number three is nothing but sweet,
with cascading locks of dark blonde and an endearing grin. Then follow two more pink Sams,
sitting upright and majestic, one with a tail left uncolored by one of Warhol’s coloring party
collaborators. There are fat Sams, baby Sams, grooming Sams, and duo Sams. There are Sams
displayed in all their glory, and Sams depicted as simple profiles (Fig. 1).
The last of the 17 cats is not Sam, however. Without a standard name, he is identified as One
Blue Pussy. Painted in a rich turquoise with green eyes, One Blue Pussy sits on the page with
his head held high in anticipation. He is looking at someone or something; waiting (Fig. 2).27
25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy is a standout example of an Andy Warhol
promotional book. Printed in 1954 by Seymour Berlin, a collaborator who helped on all of his
promotionals, there are many elements that differentiate it from the rest of Warhol’s work. Of
the eight books he produced between 1952 and 1960, 25 Cats was made with the most editions,
close to 190 copies. It is unclear how many actual copies were printed, however, because
27
It must be mentioned that One Blue Pussy can also be interpreted as a double entendre, but this interpretation
does not relate to the focus of this paper.

Warhol did not have a systematized way of numbering his works. As lower numbers are more
valuable than higher ones, Warhol would randomly assign numbers to each of his books, leading
to easy duplication. One of his favorite numbers to assign, for example, was no. 69.28
Of his promotional books, 25 Cats is the first to be completed with the help of Warhol’s
coloring parties. The above description of the book begins with a clarification in number – copy
number 4 – because no two copies were exactly alike. The order of the cats differed, as did the
way in which each cat was colored. The latter is due to the fact that many different people had a
hand in coloring them.
The way in which Warhol used line in 25 Cats is very distinct from his first two promotional
works.29
Whereas his earlier style was very fine and delicate, focusing only on outline, the cats
in this book are given a lot more attention. The Sam featured on the cover and first page is
patterned heavily with consecutive short, parallel lines. The second Sam is textured with curved
groupings of short lines to hint at a fluffier coat. Even One Blue Pussy, with the least amount of
detail, still features these short marks on his face to show shadow on his nose and the texture of
his ear. Similar patterning is seen in his later works such as his Fashion Show Backdrop painted
on window shades a year later (Fig. 3), and The Wonderful World of Fleming-Joffe produced in
1960 (Fig. 4). Interestingly, both works use such texturing to connote the skins of animals.
25 Cats is also the first of Warhol’s works to utilize the iconic calligraphy of Julia Warhola.
It marks the beginning of his eclectic and folksy branding. To quote Alfred Carlton Willers, one
of Warhol’s first love interests, “Andy, Julia and the cats… all seemed to have emerged from a
28
29
Nina Schleif, “Clever Frivolity In Excelsis Warhol’s Promotional Books,” Reading Andy Warhol, (Germany: Hatje
Cantz Verlag, 2013), 92.

European folk tale.”30
From this point forward, Julia would be a close collaborator with her son.
In instances where she did not have a hand in his work, her calligraphy would be imitated,
highlighting her importance and long-lasting impact in Warhol’s aesthetic.
Perhaps the two most notable features of 25 Cats that carry on into the rest of Warhol’s
career are his printing technique and image sourcing process. Warhol always wanted to see his
work in print. Before becoming a successful commercial artist, he was able to make his work
seem manufactured through the technique of blotted line. The process involves several steps.
He would first draw an image. In the case of 25 Cats, he did not simply use his imagination or
model his drawings after the real life Sams, but rather used stock images from animal
photographer Walter Chandoha.31
As Warhol’s career grew, he would continue to appropriate
images from other artists to use within his own work. After completing the initial drawing, it
would then be traced onto a paper with a less porous surface. This tracing would be done with
ink. Before drying, the paper would be folded over and blotted onto the final paper, usually
watercolor paper, creating a mark. Once the full drawing was traced and blotted, a final image
would appear. The process involved a lot of back and forth maneuvering between tracing the
original drawing and blotting out the final image. The process also was semi-spontaneous in
nature, as the wet ink had a mind of its own, leaving unevenly thick and thin lines throughout the
finished product. Mistakes were welcomed and included in the final image. Warhol’s blotted
line was so iconic that its aesthetic was later replicated in his paintings. Art assistant Nathan
Gluck said, “Sometimes the shoe would be painted in poster color and the décor would be
painted by me to simulate a blotted drawing. I remember doing one… in the early 1970s.”32
30
31
Schleif, “Clever Frivolity,” 92.
32

Many art historians have compared the look of the blotted line technique to the style of Ben
Shahn, Alexander Calder, Paul Klee, and David Stone Martin. Jesse Kornbluth argues that Paul
Klee, rather than his American counterparts, was a stronger influence in regard to Warhol’s
blotted line. “American critics have tended to ignore any European influence on Warhol… For
this reason, Swiss painter Paul Klee – whose visionary and whimsical paintings were among the
first Warhol bought when he began collecting – is perhaps a more significant influence than the
politically minded Shahn.”33
With the addition of Julia’s calligraphy, and Warhol’s folksy
branding, Kornbluth’s argument is not so far-fetched.
Apart from being a significant part of Warhol’s commercial and later fine art career, 25 Cats
Name Sam was also integral as part of the artist’s personal life. In her 2014 article “One Blue
Pussy,” Lucy Mulroney argues that 25 Cats was a work that “speaks in the language of camp,”
and is innately related to Warhol’s sexuality.34
She compares the book to earlier works with
underlying queer themes. She claims that the book unified New York’s 1950s gay community,
through Warhol’s coloring parties, and suggests that Warhol was a coterie artist, one whose
“work directly addresses its local [gay] audience rather than a broader and anonymous
readership.”35
Rather than look at the hypothetical impact of Warhol’s work on the City’s entire
gay community, it would be better to take a more intimate look at 25 Cats and its implications in
Warhol’s personal life.
Andy Warhol was an extremely private person where his love life was concerned. Due to
illness throughout his childhood, Warhol became very self-conscious about his physical
appearance. He hated his nose and his complexion, related to a malady from his youth. From
33
34
35

birth, he also experienced “very prominent hemangiomas, or collections of blood vessels, chiefly
on the scrotum… They looked like little collections of rubies, lots of them.”36
Such a crippling
lack of self-confidence inevitably led to Warhol’s privacy and secrecy about his own love life,
but it can also explain his fascination and overt exploration of sexuality through his art.
Throughout his adult life, Warhol experienced crushes on pretty boys, or “unattainables.”37
Perhaps in this sense, Mulroney’s argument holds. In her essay, she references Jonathan
Flatley’s “Like: Collecting and Collectivity.” In this essay, he contextualizes Warhol’s drawing
collections – his cocks, his shoes, his feet – into his larger habit of collecting. In his specific
argument, he speaks about Warhol’s “collection” of drawings of his friends’ genitals – the
genitals of the unattainables. Similarly, the 17 cats in 25 Cats can be interpreted as yet another
collection, representative of the unattainables with which Warhol surrounded himself. Mulroney
states, “these cats produce a space of sociality and affiliation that not only reflects the display
tactics and serial logic of commodities but also… creatively envisions a way of relating that does
not conform to the norms of the nuclear family or a binary model of identification and desire.”38
During the 1950s, Warhol was smitten with a man named Charles Lisanby, a production
designer with many connections to celebrities. Warhol’s infatuation never went anywhere, but in
the early part of the decade, he would constantly hang out with Charles. In 1956, Warhol even
traveled the world with Lisanby, with the hopes of finally being able to consummate his love.
Needless to say, that did not happen. Charles was yet another tick mark on Warhol’s list of
unattainables.
36
Scherman, Genius, 8.
37
38

Charles Lisanby is an important figure for 25 Cats Name Sam because he is credited as its
author. In reality, Charles only helped in titling the book, as Warhol already had the collection
of cat drawings before binding them together in a promotional. Though Charles’ input is
seemingly trivial, Warhol found it important enough to include his name in the credits. This was
an important distinction, as Warhol did not often include the name of his collaborators – Julia
Warhola was only ever listed as Andy Warhol’s Mother, and his assistants and coloring party
friends were never credited.
Not only was Warhol’s personal life embroiled into his promotional work – Charles being a
big part of 25 Cats –, but he brought his promotional work – in the form of his printer – into his
personal life. 1954, the year in which 25 Cats was published, was also the year in which Warhol
met Charles. That winter, Warhol enlisted Seymour Berlin to help him improve his physique.
Berlin was the man who printed all of Warhol’s promotionals. Warhol wished that his workouts
with Berlin would help “improve his appearance” in the hopes of impressing Charles.39
Warhol, an outcast of the 1950s art world, and the quirky one-off in the world of commercial
art, is the personification of One Blue Pussy. Surrounded by all of the other cats who are
grooming, lounging, and cuddling, he sits and waits. These cats may be zoomorphised versions
of his coloring party friends, or his running list of unattainables. His head is held high in
anticipation, looking off at something or someone – Charles, perhaps? He is both part of the
group, as One Blue Pussy is part of the larger promotional, but separate, as his name does not
conform to all the others – Sam.
39

Holy Cats
Holy Cats opens with a pink title page featuring somewhat sinister-looking angels, and
one fat, smiling cat. The misshapen cat’s outline is drawn as a series of dots. The title and
authorship of the book is written within this dotted border – “Holy Cats by Andy Warhol’s
Mother.” The next page is a deep yellow dedication page – “This little book is for my little
Hester who left for pussy heaven.” Again, a happy cat is drawn out of a series of dots, this time
a little less misshapen and wearing a plumed hat. What follows is the imagined story of Hester’s
life in heaven. Of Warhol’s promotionals, Holy Cats is the only one with a solid narrative.
Some pussys [sic] up there love her; Some don’t; Some angels up there love her;
Some don’t; Some like it day; Some like it night; Some don’t like it at all; Some
wear hats; Some wear chapeaux; Some don’t; Some talk to angels; Some talk to
themselves; Some know they are pussycats so they dont [sic] talk at all; Some play
with angels; Some play with bays [sic]; Some play with themselves; Some don’t
play with nobody; And once in a while one of them goes to the devil.
The illustrations on the 19 pages of Holy Cats are notably different from the blotted line
images in 25 Cats (Fig. 5). Drawn by Julia Warhola, it is no wonder that the style is different.
Where Warhol’s cats are based off of stock photographs, giving them a sort of static nature,
Julia’s appear to be wholly imagined. Her cats are lopsided and disfigured, and their faces are
generally anthropomorphized. Even further, she dresses up her cats with fancy hats. The book
also includes images of angels, humans, and other creatures. Julia was extremely religious, so
the strong presence of angels, crucifixes, and heaven can be attributed to her Eastern Orthodox
background. Warhol’s influence is very present, however, especially on the “Some angels up

there love her” page. The cherubs are very similar to those in Warhol’s 1956 In the Bottom of
My Garden promotional book (Fig. 6).
While the drawings in Holy Cats did not undergo a coloring party overhaul – only the
cover features colored-in angels –, the book still utilizes color in an interesting way. Out of all of
Warhol’s promotionals, this 1960 book is the only to be printed on colored paper. For most of
the pages, the colors seem to be paired with the drawings at random. However, on the “Some
like it night” page, black paper was chosen, and the drawing was inverted to white – a clever
play on the content of the story.
The text itself is straightforward, yet filled with humor. It describes, in short and curt
sentences, the personalities and activities of various characters found in “pussy heaven.” Certain
lines, however, elicit a chuckle or two. For example, “Some know they are pussycats so they
dont [sic] talk at all,” takes a step back from the strong personification of cats throughout the
story, and acknowledges the fantastical nature of “pussy heaven.” Another example, “Some play
with themselves,” is paired with a drawing of a smirking cat – tight smile and narrowed eyes –
perhaps hinting at a subversive, double-entendre message. And glaringly, the final sentence of
the book: “And once in a while one of them goes to the devil.” Again, paired with a smirking
cat, one can only ponder why. Why do some cats go to the devil, and why do they seem so sly
about it?
It may seem odd that Warhol would use his mother’s illustrations to serve his own
promotional purposes. As mentioned above, Warhol used his mother’s eclectic, folksy
background and aesthetic as his own brand. The text in the book is written in the classic Julia
Warhola calligraphy. Instead of attributing the book to Julia, he attributed it to Andy Warhol’s

Mother, “so that one would find the product filed under Warhol’s name.”40
Although
opportunities such as Holy Cats, and an earlier 1957 Serendipity show “Cats with Hats”
demonstrate Warhol’s support of his mother’s naïve art, it also always served his own purposes.
For example, Julia’s inclusion of the onomatopoeic “purr” reverberating around her cats, was
coopted by Warhol later on in his illustrations for an unpublished children’s book titled “So.”41
It is unclear who was the mastermind behind Holy Cats. While the illustrations can
definitely be attributed to Julia, as well as the calligraphy, the actual story is up for grabs.
According to David Bourdon, Julia described Warhol as a “harsh taskmaster; she’d be ‘so tired,’
but he’d insist ‘you have to get up and do another pussycat.’”42
With this in mind, perhaps
Warhol pushed his mother to create these drawings for the larger purpose of creating a narrative.
Warhol’s own personal connection to Hester’s death may also play a part in arguing his
ownership of the story.
Like 25 Cats, the themes in Holy Cats are important in regard to Warhol’s personal life.
Death and afterlife are explicit motifs in this book, both of which were subjects on which Warhol
constantly perseverated due to his own maladies and religiosity. Less overt is the theme of
difference. When analyzing 25 Cats on its own, each Sam seems to be unique and different.
Only towards the end, with the arrival of One Blue Pussy, does the viewer realize that perhaps
they are more similar to each other after all. However, when viewing 25 Cats alongside Holy
Cats, the sameness of the Sams as compared to One Blue Pussy is emphasized from the outset.
Holy Cats constantly points out that in “pussy heaven,” there are cats of all kinds – some do and
40
41
42

some don’t. No one is left out due to their difference. If One Blue Pussy were in “pussy
heaven,” he definitely would not have been relegated to the last page, all on his own.
Warhol was a very sensitive individual, and cared deeply about the creatures around him
– perhaps more so than he cared about his fellow human-beings. In Warhol’s Diaries, he
reminisces about his dear cat Hester, and specifically recollects on her death.
I once gave [Bettie Barnes] a kitten and the kitten was crying and I thought it wanted
its mother so I gave him the mother. We had two cats left, my mother and I had
given away twenty-five already. This was the early sixties.43
And after I gave him
the mother he took her to be spayed and she died under the knife. My darling
Hester. She went to pussy heaven. And I’ve felt guilty ever since. That’s how we
should have started Popism. That’s when I gave up caring.44
Here, Warhol concludes that the cold, manufactured, impersonal aesthetic of Pop Art is
due to the deep grief and loss he felt for his dear Hester. If only he had not cared so
much about the kitten’s cries, Hester would have survived.
Grudin explains that “Warhol’s imaginings of animal life were typically
expressed in a tragicomic tone, as though he understood them to be literally utopian –
desirable but unattainable.”45
While never mentioning it in his study, Grudin is perfectly
describing Holy Cats. Filled with chuckle-worthy lines and suggestive kitty smirks, Holy
Cats is comedic while also being a memorial for a dearly beloved pet – tragic. It is
43
For an understanding about the dating of Hester’s death and the publishing of Holy Cats, read Schleif, “Clever
Frivolity,” 130.
44
Anthony E. Grudin, “Warhol’s Animal Life,” Criticism, Vol. 56, No. 3, (Detroit: Wayne State University Press,
2014), 603.
45
Grudin, “Animal Life,” 594.

utopian, in that it describes a world where anything goes, where cats can be as “swish” as
they like – they can play with boys, dress in hats, and perhaps participate in some
naughty activities that send them, not so horribly and with a smile, to the devil. While
Warhol was not able to attain a world such as this in his real life, a world of full
acceptance, the imaginary world of “pussy heaven” was his desirable ideal.
***
The reading of 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy and Holy Cats in sequential
order, from 1954 to 1960, emphasizes crucial details of Andy Warhol’s personal and
professional lives in a new light. A new arrival to New York City, Andy was grappling
with loneliness, insecurity, and the feeling of being an outsider. At the same time, he was
honing his personal aesthetic, the blotted-line technique, as a way of immortalizing his
work in print. 25 Cats brings the personal and professional together through the motif of
cats, highlighting Warhol’s self-doubt and isolation as One Blue Pussy, while
championing his innovative style. By 1960, Warhol was on the precipice of fame, and
though he would always struggle with being self-conscious, he was no longer on the
sidelines, so to speak, in the art world. Similarly, Holy Cats has no lone Blue Pussy, but
rather, features a more accepting plane of existence.
The chronological reading of these two promotionals brings the viewer from the
beginning of Warhol’s commercial career to the moments before Pop Art. By looking at
Andy Warhol’s commercial art career, and specifically at these books, it is evident that
the aesthetics and processes of his “utilitarian” art clearly blend into and fed his future
Pop Art. Fortunately, more attention is now being paid to Warhol’s early career, with

publications such as the Museum Brandhorsts’ Reading Andy Warhol. This paper seeks
to become part of the larger discussion on Andy’s pre-Pop career.
Andy Warhol’s fascination and focus on cats and other animals did not begin with 25
Cats in 1954, nor did it end with Holy Cats in 1960. In college, he created a kitty book,46
and he would later produce a series titled Cats and Dogs in 1976 (Fig. 7). Anthony
Grudin has begun to delve into “Warhol’s Animal Life,” but there still remains a lot more
research to be done. A study on Cats and Dogs would be very enlightening, especially as
a comparison paper to this one.
While the subject of cats is often treated as trivial or interpreted as kitsch, a deeper
study of the felines in Warhol’s life (Fig. 8) proves that cat art can be dealt with in a
serious and academic manner. One of the hopes of this research is to encourage more in-
depth and thoughtful investigations of animals, and more specifically cats, in the history
of art.
46

Fig. 1 Andy Warhol, 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy, (New York: Panache Press at Random House, 1987).

Fig. 2 Andy Warhol, 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy, (New York: Panache Press at Random House, 1987).

Fig. 3 Andy Warhol, Fashion Show Backdrop, 1955

Fig. 4 Andy Warhol, The Wonderful World of Fleming-Joffe, 1960

Fig 5. Andy Warhol’s Mother, Holy Cats, (New York: Panache Press at Random House, 1987).

Fig. 6 Andy Warhol, In The Bottom of My Garden, 1956
Fig. 7 Andy Warhol, Cats and Dogs, 1976

Fig. 8 Edward Wallowitch, Andy Warhol Holding Kitten, 1957

Bibliography
Bockris, Victor. Warhol. New York: Da Capo Press. 1997.
Bourdon, David. Warhol. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1989.
Grudin, Anthony E. “Warhol’s Animal Life.” Criticism. Vol. 56. No. 3. Detroit: Wayne State
University Press. 2014.
Kornbluth, Jesse. Pre-Pop Warhol. New York: Panache Press at Randomhouse. 1988.
Mulroney, Lucy. “One Blue Pussy.” Criticism. Vol. 56. No. 3. Detroit: Wayne State University
Press. 2014.
Museum Brandhorst. Reading Andy Warhol. Germany: Hatje Cantz Verlag. 2013.
Scherman, Tony and David Dalton. POP The Genius of Andy Warhol. New York: HarperCollins.
2009.
Warhol, Andy. 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy. New York: Panache Press at Random
House. 1987.
Warhol, Andy and Pat Hackett. POPism The Warhol ‘60s. San Diego: Harcourt Brace &
Company.
Warhol’s Mother, Andy. Holy Cats. New York: Panache Press at Random House. 1987.

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