Andy Warhol steals SUPERMAN!

[Klar Ken T5477]

Your the man in Kandor! Holy cow! :shock:

[Spaceman Spiff]

Both of these images were the subject of a post by Super Monkey a few months ago: Superman in the Fine Arts

There was some discussion there about how the original artists should have been paid for their artwork.

The "up, up, and away" Superman image is a Swanderson from page two of Action Comics #430 (December 1973).

[Klar Ken T5477]

At least Roy Lichenstein acknowledged his Joe Kubert and Russ Heath combo/collage  swipes from DC war mags in his "Jet Ace" and admitted as such.

[The Starchild]

Playing devil's advocate here, one could argue that at the time Warhol did his swiping, comics weren't thought of as "art" as much as they were "product."  At least in Warhol's mind.

In a very sad sense, it's a compliment to Curt Swan that his portrayal of Superman was so definitive and correct that the existence of an artist wasn't even considered.  It wasn't a drawing - it was Superman.  Swiping Curt Swan's Superman was like swiping a Coca-Cola or Campbell's Soup can.  A piece of America.

But I certainly agree that Curt and Kurt should have received recognition and money for what was basically overpriced recolorings of their work.

[Klar Ken T5477]

But there was POP Art - which emerged on the art scene in the early 60s just prior to The Batman (66) Tv show.  With "camp" and "pop art" being the latest craze, the arts and advertising communities went wild.  Even DC had Go-Go checked covers  and Marvel was a "Marvel Pop Art production". :shock:


Lichenstein's take on DC's Mlle. Marie - the Kubert/Heath/Sparling(?) school.

Artist Mel Ramos did a take on a Bob Kane (Robinson? Sprang?) Joker and even Newsweek posted a Sman ad on subways! (have ad but no bandwidth -  will travel)


Still....darn shame. Well, there's always art history books to be written! :twisted:

[Klar Ken T5477]

Vintage 1966 article on Pop Art from Newsweek here:

http://www.lichtensteinfoundation.org/newsweekapr66.htm

[nightwing]

The JHU article (that I'm having so much trouble linking to) has a couple of passages I'll paraphrase here.  One was that Warhol was a devoted fan of comics dating back to a childhood illness when they kept his spirits up, the other was that "Warhol was the first to assert that originality was not a key requirement of making art".

Or something to that effect.  The implication being that Warhol didn't feel any "guilt" about "swiping" the art.  Indeed, the clear signal here, despite his "fondness" for them, is that he considered comics to be things beneath consideration when it came to rights of ownership or attribution.

An interesting irony.  Artists like Kurt Schaffeberger busted their butts for decades trying to produce exciting, novel art that was as unique as possible and for them the act of swiping would have been a source of great shame.  Meanwhile Warhol made tons more money than Kurt ever dreamed of by stealing the work of another (superior) artist and turning the very act of theft into some kind of "performance art."  ("I know I stole it...if you were really cool, you'd understand that's the whole point")

What do you want to bet the Warhol estate would sue any of us into the poorhouse if we reproduced his works without permission?  

The only reason Warhol passes as "art" is because what's followed has ben even worse.  Reprehensible as plagiarism is, it still beats floating a crucifix in a jar of urine and calling it art.

[TELLE]

There has been quite a bit of literature published over the last 20 years on the intersection of comics and so-called fine-art.  Journals like the Journal of Popular Culture, Print, and the International Journal of Comic Art (http://www.ijoca.com/) have dedicated space to this issue.  One of my favorite articles from the Comics Journal http://www.english.ufl.edu/comics/scholars/TCJ_Index.html discussed the matter under the rubric, "Who is the better artist, Jack K or Roy L?"  (quoting from memory).  Kirby (and the EC artists) were judged inferior in that article, if I remember.  I think that many caroonists and comic scholars (even those with fine art or literary pretensions/reputations) today would beg to differ with that verdict, which I think was intended as something of a provacation to the insular comic fan world, but still valid in some sense.

Here is a list of some other articles, from the Comic Research Bibliography:
http://www.rpi.edu/~bulloj/comxbib.html

Canemaker, John. 1991. Popeye meets Warhol. Conde Nast Traveler 26(Jul):90-91.

Collins, B. R. and D. Cowart. 1996. Through the looking glass: Reading Warhol's Superman. American Imago 53(2; Summer):107.

Gidal, Peter. 1971. Andy Warhol Films and Paintings. Vista/Dutton.

Kurtz, Bruce D. (ed.). 1992. Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, and Walt Disney

[exhibit catalogue with essays by Bruce Hamilton and Geoffrey Blum]. Phoenix Art Museum / Munich: Prester

Saltz, Jerry. 1999. Imitation Warhol [Takashi Murakami's manga / anime influenced fine art]. Village Voice (August 25). online at http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/9934/saltz.shtml
[/list]