Cow 11 by Andy Warhol is a vivid screenprint featuring a close-up portrait of a cow rendered in fluorescent pink. The animal’s head fills nearly the entire frame, outlined with a sharp magenta contour that amplifies its sculptural presence. Its dark eyes and textured muzzle contrast strikingly against a neon yellow background, creating a jolt of Pop energy. The halftone texture—visible around the cow’s face and neck—adds a photographic grit that grounds the otherwise surreal palette. As a result, the print transforms an ordinary agricultural animal into an unforgettable Pop icon.
Origins of Warhol’s Cow Series
The Cow series, which Warhol developed between 1966 and 1976, deliberately subverted expectations. He had already shown a fascination with unconventional subjects through his soup cans, passenger tickets, and electric chairs. Each of these explored mass culture in unexpected ways. Likewise, his Flowers series demonstrated his ability to turn even natural subjects into Pop objects. If flowers could be Pop, Warhol reasoned, then cows could be too.
Still, the art world often associated Warhol with celebrity and commercial imagery rather than pastoral themes. Cow 11 emerged during the final days of the Whitney Museum’s Warhol exhibition in 1971, marking a shift in how viewers understood his practice.
The Inspiration Behind Cow 11
In the early 1960s, Warhol and his friend Ted Carey visited the Leo Castelli Gallery and met art dealer Ivan Karp. Karp responded strongly to Warhol’s straightforward works, and Warhol appreciated his direct, upbeat approach to art dealing. Their rapport shaped Warhol’s next direction.
Warhol often asked friends to suggest subjects. Karp proposed cows, calling them a “wonderfully pastoral… durable image in the history of the arts.” Warhol embraced the idea, but only after translating it through his signature Pop vocabulary. “I don’t know how ‘pastoral’ Ivan expected me to make them,” he joked, “but when he saw the huge cow heads—bright pink on a bright yellow background… he was shocked.”
Committed to repetition and mass production, Warhol even printed the design as wallpaper, covering gallery walls with rows of luminous cow heads.
A Pop Interpretation of the Pastoral
“They’re super-pastoral!” Karp eventually exclaimed. “They’re ridiculous!” he added, calling them “blazingly bright and vulgar!” Cow 11 radiates fluorescent color meant to surprise the viewer. Warhol’s assistant, Gerard Malanga, discovered the close-up photo of a Jersey in an agricultural magazine, which he and Warhol then transformed into a Pop emblem. In addition, Warhol’s intense color choices made Cow 11 as visually memorable as works in his Marilyn Monroe or Campbell’s Soup series. To Warhol, cows deserved attention as much as celebrities or consumer goods.
Cow 11 in Warhol’s Larger Body of Work
Cow 11 exemplifies Warhol’s talent for revealing the extraordinary within the ordinary. The image invites viewers to reconsider familiarity and to see simple subjects through a fresh lens. Much like his Flowers series, Cow 11 transforms nature through commercial aesthetics, turning a pastoral symbol into a Pop object that could repeat endlessly without losing its impact.
Warhol’s Cow prints were produced in New York by Bill Miller’s Wallpaper Studio, Inc. This particular impression is signed and comes from the Collection of OK Harris, one of Warhol’s major dealers in New York City.
Image Credit: Andy Warhol at the Whitney Museum, April 1971. Photograph by Jack Mitchell.
