Andy Warhol's Pre-Pop Art (1950 – 1960)

Andy Warhol's Pre-Pop Art period (1950–1960) shows how the young artist developed his serial drawing method based on everyday images. The children's stamps of 1951 and the Life article about Jan and Andries served as an unexpected source of inspiration. Warhol used their portraits to experiment with pen and ink, blotting paper, and mirror images — techniques that would form the basis for his later Pop Art work.

1) Andy Warhol's encounter with two schoolchildren on postage stamps

As already mentioned in the stamp blog article '1951 Children's Stamp Issue a World First' of August 1, 2026 , the American magazine Life Magazine featured four of the five schoolchildren in the 1951 children's stamp issue with black-and-white images on January 14, 1952 (thus shortly after the issue was released).

Life magazine's attention to this children's stamp issue is primarily determined by the fact that these schoolchildren are very ordinary, unnamed, and famous people, as is customary on stamps featuring royal heads of state.
In the article 'Speaking of pictures' with the subtitle 'Dutch kids pose for postage and their faces go around the world', only the profession is mentioned as the only personal peculiarity of the fathers of the children: Jan's father is an employee of the telecom organization AT&T, Andries's father is a fisherman, Jacob's father works at a shipyard, and Erna's father is a firefighter. It is striking that the children, acting as 'postal officials', sold their 'own' stamps to the public.
Particularly striking to art academy student Andy Warhol was the article depicting both boys with a strongly personal quality. He drew a double portrait of Jan and Andries facing each other.

2) Make public and sell

In 2011, German art collector and gallery owner Daniel Blau discovered drawings by Andy Warhol from the early 1950s in the archives of the Andy Warhol Foundation. Blau received permission to research these early drawings by the artist and make them known to the world through, among other means, traveling exhibitions including Teylers Museum in Haarlem in 2013 and the sale of the drawings at Blau's auction on March 27, 2025.

221 drawings were sold through Blau's auction house. The drawing of Jan (5 cents) and Andries (6 cents) was offered at 2.000 euros and subsequently sold for no less than 14.125 euros. In other words, the artist's drawings from his Pre-Pop Art period sold for an astronomically high amount.

A mirrored print of the double-portrait drawing has been made (Andries' drawing is to the right of the 6-cent stamp and Jan's to the left of the 5-cent stamp), just as the boys are depicted in the press release regarding their viewing direction.

A few years later, Warhol made prints of both boys again. One print shows Jan and Andries, with their faces almost touching; the other print shows both boys in less detail but separated from each other. Andy Warhol's sexual orientation plays a role in the design of both boys in the images.

There are advantages or disadvantages to printing. Wet ink drawings are created over a short or longer period of time.
Consequence 1: Lower or higher chance of the ink drying.
Consequence 2: No or chance of partially invisible prints.

A detail of a print has been greatly magnified, making the irregularity of the line segment clearly visible due to the smudged, stippled, and/or fine nature of the ink line, which has, as it were, bled onto the absorbent paper.

During lectures at the art academy, Warhol took notes with pen and ink. To prevent smudging, he used blotting paper. The mirrored imprint of his notebook gave him the ideal and ingenious idea: instead of your notebook, make a mirrored imprint of a drawing. In doing so, Warhol turned necessity into a virtue (Vrij Nederland, June 7, 2013).

Description (NRC July 17, 2013): “In the line drawings with a lot of white, vibrations and deviations are present. Warhol’s hand remains vividly visible and palpable throughout!”

3) Pre-Pop Art drawing method

The drawing method consists of four phases:

1. Warhol starts by placing a photograph under a reasonably transparent and non-absorbent tracing paper. On this, he traces the main lines of the image with a pencil.
2. Next, he traces all the pencil lines in black with pen and ink, leaving an ink line on the paper. Absorbent blotting paper is placed on the 'wet ink drawing', onto which a mirror-image print (negative) of the pencil drawing is deposited.
3. The line created on the blotting paper is either fairly straight or ragged/fuzzy in texture. Depending on the amount of ink, the line spreads more or less in width, but also determines the greater or lesser intensity of black, resulting in a blotchy line. Each print (monotype) differs slightly from all the previous ones.
4. At the request of his clients, Warhol found the subjects he chose in newspaper and magazine photographs, and even in two Dutch children's stamps. His own interests in romantic and homoerotic fields also strongly determined the selection of his printed drawings.

4) Serial prints / monotypes

By repeating points a, b & c of the drawing method every time, Warhol was able to produce multiple identical prints with great ease. It is worth noting, however, that each print differs slightly from all previous prints in its irregular and lively lines.
With watercolor, the printed drawing takes on a different, more attractive appearance. With gold leaf, depth is even suggested.
With the primitive printing technique of every 'wet ink line drawing', a unique monotype is created without the use of a printing press.

5) American Pop Art art movement, including screen prints

This easy-to-execute, popular printing method from Warhol's Pre-Pop period became the starting point for his later professional and more artistically responsible serial Pop Art. This American Pop Art movement elevates everyday popular consumer goods/objects to art. Andy Warhol is the most important and best-known Pop Art artist.

He made a name for himself with, among others, Campbell's soup cans, portraits of Marilyn Monroe, and the Four Reigning Queens featuring Beatrix, Elizabeth II of England, Margaret II of Denmark, and Ntombi Twalas of Swaziland in screen-printed versions. In 1985, they were the only reigning queens in the world.

6) From Andrew Warhol to Andy Warhol

Andrew Warholy (1928 – 1987) arrived in the industrial city of Pittsburgh as an emigrant from Slovakia with his parents around the turn of the century and studied there for four years at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (1945 – 1949). After his studies, he left for New York as a commercial graphic designer of illustrated advertisements under the shortened name of Andy Warhol.

7) Record sleeve (1987)

After the Pre-Pop Art period (1952–1962), he made an international name for himself with Pop Art as a painter/artist and photographer/filmmaker.
In 1987, singer, guitarist, composer, and lyricist Henk Hofstede of the Amsterdam pop group 'The Hits' delved into his childhood memories and, in the song 'In the Dutch Mountains', painted a picture of childhood in the 1950s and 1960s in the Netherlands. For the album cover, he used a fictitious sheet of stamps featuring four children's stamps, which (incorrectly) refer to the younger versions of the four band members.

All Andy Warhol illustrations were created by me in the same way as by the artist himself.