Between 1955 and 1957, Warhol was the sole illustrator for shoe manufacturer I. Miller and made new drawings of shoes each week for ads in the New York Times. À la recherche du shoe perdu celebrates the central role shoes played in his early career and imagination. The title is a riff on Marcel Proust's famous novel À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time, or Remembrance of Things Past). The captions, with their distinctive cursive lettering, were transcribed by Warhol's mother, Julia Warhola (or by assistants who imitated her handwriting). Warhol and his friends hand-colored the sheets at coloring parties.
Gallery label from Andy Warhol: Campbell's Soup Cans and Other Works, 1953–1967, April 25–October 18, 2015.
