Andy Warhol's cats: 15 minutes of feline fame

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In the 1950s, Warhol lived with several dozen cats and his mother, Julia, in a New York apartment. In 1954, he privately published a limited edition artist's book of hand-colored lithographs called 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy. That is indeed a typo in the book title but who cared when New York was about to be turned on its head by modern art. To mess with your mind even more, there are only 16 cats called Sam in the book, which is filled with vibrant colors and calligraphy by his mother.

At this time in his life, Warhol - who died in 1987 - was working as an impoverished freelance children's book illustrator. When his mother learned about Andy's dire situation, she moved from Pittsburgh to New York in order to help her son. 25 Cats was one of their projects. Original editions of the book are almost impossible to find but a small number of copies from a 1987 Random House reprint are available. Prices start at around $75. Warhol and his mother also privately published a second cat book, Holy Cats, which tells the story of Hester's adventures in heaven. Original copies are priced between $3,000 and $5,000 but again there is a much cheaper reprint from the late 1980s. Prices for reprints start around $50.

Warhol wasn't the only artist who loved cats. Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, and Frida Kahlo were in the same pea green boat. We recommend reading Artists and Their Cats by Alison Nastasi - a book that gathers photographs of 50 famous artists with their beloved feline friends. There's Dali's pet ocelot Babou, and John Lennon and Yoko Ono's menagerie of cats including Salt and Pepper.