ART: From Humble Origins

• UK illustrator Neil Stevens designed these prints inspired by vintage flight and baggage tags.

Beautiful, right? Especially when one considers how little we pay attention to tiny "throw-away items" like baggage tags.


Now: Compare them (conceptually) to 3 Warhol paintings of  (much-enlarged) matchbook covers from way back in Fall 1962 (when making art from humble objects was RADICAL):

                                                          

Note: These Warhol paintings were not silk screened (i.e., they were painted by hand). [Unfortunately, though, their beauty does not really translate in photographs; I have seen each in person.] Materials used: "acrylic, pencil, Letaset, and sandpaper on linen."  During the show's opening in Fall 1962 (at the Stable Gallery in New York--the show in which Warhol's Marilyn paintings also made their debut), a guest allegedly used the sandpaper strip on one of the paintings to light a match (presumably for a cigarette). Details can be found here.  {Or...wait to buy my book.}   

Measurements for the Warhol paintings: 

• Close Cover Before Striking (Coca-Cola): 72" x 54 1/4" 
• Close Cover Before Striking (Pepsi-Cola): 72" x 54"
• Red Close Cover Before Striking: 16" x 20"                                      

Do contemplate the experience of beholding (in 1962) a lowly matchbook cover transformed (with no discernible alteration to the design) into a large 6ft x 4ft painting hanging on the wall of an art gallery.      It was one of a series of (still-relevant and evolving) artistic innovations that helped to transform the way we look at and respond to the world around us.