Warhol's Whiskers

Andy Warhol drew these hep cats during his commercial-art phase, before he became the cat's meow of Pop art. Now, rediscovered and reprinted by Panache Press, they're catnip for holiday shoppers.

BOB COLACELLO

Like all his work, Andy Warhol's commercial illustrations from the fifties are undergoing a major reevaluation—upwards—since his untimely death. Now Panache Press, the new Random House imprint headed by former Bendel's boss Geraldine Stutz, is publishing a boxed set of facsimiles of the two small handdone limited-edition books he presented as presents, called 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy and Holy Cats by Andy Warhol's Mother. Stutz, who worked with Warhol on his very first assignment (drawing shoes), says they reveal "how all of Andy's attitudes were developing.. .one sees the childlike wonder and the enormous sophistication and the wit." One also sees the roots of Warhol's Pop art— key elements from multiples to the Factory system. Friends helped him color the cats, and his mother copied out the calligraphy, complete with mistakes (another Warhol trademark) like the missing d in Name. "She barely spoke English," according to his old friend Suzie Frankfurt, "and didn't have an idea what what she was writing really meant." That was probably just as well. The books can be read as extended double entendres: "Some [cats] play with boys. Some play with themselves. Some don't." In that catty spirit, they're perfect Christmas presents for Warholaphiles, and pussy lovers.