Cooking Pot 1 by Andy Warhol is featured in The International Anthology of Contemporary Engraving: The International Avant-Garde, Vol. 5, America Discovered, which is a portfolio comprised of 20 influential prints from the American Pop art movement. The subject image is derived from a newspaper advertisement for a four-quart enamel cooking pot, which at the time sold for a whopping 77 cents. Unlike Warhol’s signature style of bold pop art color, this piece is strictly black and white in an attempt to keep true to its source. Cooking Pot 1 is the first print that Andy Warhol ever published. It was printed by Atelier Georges Leblanc in Paris, France in 1962, and it was published by Galleria Schwarz in Milan, Italy.
Cooking Pot 1 as Part of Andy Warhol’s Larger Body of Work
Warhol’s Cooking Pot print is an example of Warhol’s different printmaking techniques and image sources. The print also showcases Warhol’s fascination for everyday, household objects, especially the proliferation of commercial goods brought on by the so-called “Golden Age of Capitalism” in America. Cooking Pot was Warhol’s first published photo engraved print. Warhol found the image for this print from a newspaper advertisement and admired the uniformity and precision that came from modernized mechanical products. This too echoed printmaking, specifically photographic screen-printing, which allowed Warhol to manipulate and replicate pop culture images.