We’ve recently come across an issue of Time magazine from January 1965, featuring a cover by Andy Warhol, using photostrips of teenagers to illustrate a story on the subject in the issue. From Publisher Bernhard M. Auer’s letter:
The cover illustration was done by Pop Artist Andy Warhol, who has made his name and fame by getting his literal renditions of Campbell Soup cans into leading art galleries. Warhol, 33, worked in a five-and-ten as a kid in McKeesport, Pa. For this week’s cover, he took seven youngsters–aged 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19, and all relatives of TIME staffers–to a Broadway arcade, where they posed for pictures in one of these old five-and-ten type camera booths. These pictures were Warhol’s starting point for the cover illustration. We asked him to use the same techniques for the accompanying “self-portrait.”
In the following issue, readers responded to the article, and to Warhol’s art. Here are two such letters:
Sir: Andy Warhol’s cover illustration portrays the antics of monkeys in a sideshow. One might infer that today’s teenagers make a joke of the responsibility inherent in their premature sophistication.
D. R. HUNNEMAN III, New Haven, Conn.
Sir: Your Andy Warhol cover is evocative and refreshing. The squares, unfortunately, won’t pay attention to how he’s manipulated his patterns, and thus will miss the rhythm and wit.
R. C. JONES, New York City
I really enjoy the work of the Andy Warhol, very colourful, though also more black and white. Behind every picture of him there is also a story, which in this case, are the stories of these teens.
Lovely cover.