Andy Warhol "Limited Edition Prints" by the USPS and Fred Collins

Two limited edition prints here. One is a limited edition print of sorts (a United States postage stamp) affixed to another print on an envelope. It is an individually hand-painted print mailed on the first day of issue for the Warhol stamp used to mail it. August 9, 2002. 

For some bizarre reason, it was reported the Warhol 37 cent stamp was unveiled at the Gagosian Galllery on Madison avenue. WHAT? Jeez, I wonder if "Go Go" had any Warhol works in the back room? Gauche! 

Fortunately another source says the stamp was first presented at the Andy Warhol Museum where it most certainly belonged. The stamp was originally a photo booth portrait, and it appears the Warhol Museum owns the original. It was actually a passport photo from the 1960s. The artist first made his own prints of the image in 1964 which were sold for "a few hundred dollars." A later edition (The Red Series) from 1965 were apparently given away. Read the story of one disputed print HERE in the Daily Mail. The average print run of a United States commemorative stamp is around 50 million. That is a lot of tiny Warhol works, but still limited. The annual limited edition Christmas stamps double that number and then some. 

How many were mailed on special envelopes like this one? Only Fred Collins knows. Mr. Collins made his living creating and selling first day covers. His website currently shows one available for $12.95, which seems quite fair considering it was painted by hand. The stamp carried a 37 cent face value and still does. It isn't a "forever" stamp, but is forever worth exactly 37 cents worth of postage. Didn't even change over the last eighteen years of economic turmoil. Or whatever. I don't know if Mr. Collins work fluctuates. Collins seems to have escaped any validation from the art world…but among "first day cover" collectors he is highly regarded.

The source for Fred's drawing was a photograph taken by Burt Glinn of Magnum Photos in 1965. Andy pops out of a sewer with Edie Sedgwick! She wore her hair "Warhol-style" but hers was real. Also shown is Chuck Wein. He "discovered" Edie at the office of their mutual shrink. Wein was played by Jimmy Fallon in the 2006 film Factory Girl! Right now, one has to pay a streaming service three bucks to see it.

Homemade Handmade Folk Art Amateur Stereograph Stereoviews of E. C. Allen and Andy Warhol 3-D

Let's face it. 3-D motion pictures are just an excuse to ignore a plot and they always have been. Not only are documentaries filmed under the sea the only ones worth seeing, the technology really isn't much more effective than the primitive ones with Moe repeatedly sticking his fingers towards the camera followed by a quick cut to Larry reacting. (OWW!) As I've said before, the best one ever made is the trashy Frankenstein movie Andy Warhol foisted, and that is only because it was so bad. (But the TRAILER is great! See below)


It is really nothing new. Here are a handful of somewhat unusual Handmade and hand-tinted amateur stereographs taken and assembled by one E. C. Allen in 1914. Allen apparently roamed the American South, shown are four from St. Augustine, Florida and one of a steamboat taken in Memphis.


Allen wasn't very good actually, but he was ambitious and in the right place. Primitive but interesting, and if you cross your eyes are you are almost there!


Handmade Stereograph Photographs by E. C Allen 1914 Collection Jim Linderman

Dull Tool Dim Bulb Discovers Andy Warhol Missing Link?

My discovery which questions whether Andy Warhol learned to draw soup cans from a small Heinz tracing book he would have had access to as a child seems to be striking a nerve. Quite possible, and I will lay out the details here as a few folks have asked.

I found a small booklet in an antique mall which was originally published by the Heinz company in Andy Warhol's home town the year before he was born. The book encouraged young children to TRACE THE IMAGES contained for "fun" when the intent was clearly to imprint impressionable young minds with the Heinz logo and brand. Tracing paper was bound into the pamphlet on top of each Heinz product. The book has a date of 1927 and was published in Pittsburgh, PA. Pittsburgh was also Andy's home town and he was born one year later in 1928. As such, the small book, one of a series called "Heinz Kindergarten Books" would have been readily available to the young artist.

The images here come from the Heinz book number 6, so the series was well established and local Pittsburgh residents would have surely picked up the premium, which was free, for their children to play with. Although not as famous as his Campbell's images, Warhol did produce art with the Heinz logo, just like the branding experts at H. J. Heinz apparently hoped he one day would! As the similarities are quite striking, and the location and dates too much of a coincidence to ignore, I believe Mr. Warhol may have played with books from the series and remembered it some 40 years later when he began using similar (in fact, nearly identical) images in his work. I am not speculating that Mr. Warhol traced this copy, as thousands of children would have had the book, but he clearly would have had access to another copy.

Have a look, consider it yourself...and contact the art historians! Greg Allen on his blog has added some history on the book series and discusses the impact product advertising has on young minds.

The images were originally published a month ago on Dull Tool Dim Bulb, I am re-posting them along with a few additional scans. Just for the record, a Heinz Tomato Ketchup drawing by Warhol done in 1962 ( and quite similar to the very ketchup bottle shown in a tracing here from 1927) sold for over one million dollars at Christie's in 2009.

Where Warhol got the Heinz ?

Hand-drawn tracings from 1927 Heinz Kindergarten Book "Pictures to Trace" Collection Jim Linderman

The Art of Old Time Religion

To say the least, the use of Christian religious iconography in a sincere manner has not been the stuff of contemporary artists or art collectors. On the contrary, and in the last few decades in particular, artists have taken delight in lampooning the depiction of all things bible. You can probably name a few of them without thinking, as opportunistic politicians frequently use their work to raise funds. Whether their motivations were born of genuine artistic skill and talent, or merely a way to appear clever and attract attention is up to the viewer and critic. For my collection plate donation, the most appealing and interesting "contemporary religious art" came from studio Warhol. Sincere or not, his last supper paintings which I saw beautifully installed in NYC were striking, modern and beautiful. All the more "controversial" pieces from the era appeared lame, obvious and contrived by comparison. They do even more so today.

As I discuss in the introduction to Take Me to the Water: Immersion Baptism in Vintage Photography and Music 1890-1950 (Dust-to-Digital) there is a notion that sincere religious artists, regardless of medium, often work harder when they are depicting renditions of their faith. The gospel singer strains to reach a higher note, the mural painter uses precision when attempting to achieve God's perfection and the glazier never leaves loose leaded panes in a piece behind the pulpit. Whether these practitioners of religious craft use iconography to preach or to make a living is moot... it could be both.

The most prolific "religious" artist of this century is certainly Howard Finster, the late folk artist from Georgia, who created nearly 50,000 individually numbered works before having the brush (and Sharpie) pried from his cold fingers. It has been a common understanding that despite his seemingly sincere attempts to convert heathens though his work, a collector of his eccentric paintings who has actually been saved has not yet come forth to testify. Rather, his work has been appreciated for the most part by smug non-believers who found his work quaint rather than convincing.

I started collecting religious ephemera as an outgrowth of folk art and vernacular photography. My own beliefs don't exist beyond a rudimentary trust in the scientific method, but I do believe OTHERS believe, and that makes the material fascinating. Elaborate obsessive doodles of outsider art, shaking and sweating evangelists and tax-dodging street corner churches have always seemed a sort of performance art to me. Who determines what is saved, sacred or sane? It's all fine with me even if not fine art...and when it isn't any good, it is at the least still interesting because it was a good try. I may lean solidly towards the smug side of art appreciation, but there is always a story with each work I find. Faith or fraud, the fevered brow produces some pretty interesting product.

Running the gamut from silly to sacred, eccentric to evangelical (I could go on) there is a wealth of spiritual flotsam sitting in the shoe boxes of history, and I will present it one day at a time on old time religion. Objective reporting seems to be a disappearing along with newspapers, but I aim to be journalistic. If a preacher sullied the farmer's daughter and left town with a sack of money, so be it. Just like Jesus said, no one is perfect, and it seems particularly true in this milieu. One thing we CAN give thanks for is federal prosecution of mail fraud. Whether the material presented is pathetic or profound, it exists in great big abundance. One doesn't look far for a message of faith in this country. From rear bumper fish to door-knocking Jehovah's, we are looking at one big industry here...and big industry makes lots of things that take up space. I certainly do not need to prosthelytize. All manner of bible salesman, radio preachers and lobbyists have beat me to it. But I can dig up some cool things and probably dig up a few things folks would rather have buried too. Let's see!

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