Andy Warhol

Ice Cream Dessert

1959

© 2023 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Licensed by DACS, London

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Not on display

Artist: Andy Warhol 1928–1987
Medium: Ink and dye on paper
Dimensions: Image: 695 × 428 mm
frame: 910 × 750 × 28 mm
Collection: ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland
Acquisition: ARTIST ROOMS Acquired jointly with the National Galleries of Scotland through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008
Reference: AR00255

Online caption

For Warhol food was his “great extravagance” and he had a very sweet tooth, claiming that “all I ever really want is sugar”. This image of an extravagant ice-cream has been depicted in the same way he would complete a fashion illustration - with his blotted-line technique and vivid colours. The ice-cream was almost certainly from the fashionable Serendipity 3 café where Warhol would host colouring parties in the 1950s. He would encourage his friends – some of whom would have helped him create the original illustrations - to colour the works with an inventiveness that adds to their whimsical nature. This process looks forward to the production methods of Warhol’s legendary studio, the Factory, in the 1960s.