Cats in Art: 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy (Warhol)

From my continuing weekly Sunday series of cats in art. I'm using some ideas from the coffee table book, The Cat in Art, by Stefano Zuffi.  

Image credit Wisdom Portal, here.  Image from 25 Cats Name [sic] Sam and One Blue Pussy, Andy Warhol. 1954, offset lithograph, watercolor, and pen-and-ink on paper, 9" x 6", held by The Andy Warhol Foundation, New York.

I just love this eager little orange face and the earnest eyes.  Warhol obviously knew kitties, but moreover, knew how to depict them.  A few simple lines, a splash of orange color, a very simple painting, actually...but magnificent.  This cat Sam has clearly thrown his lot in with humans, and is just itching for some kind of interaction: a pet, a stroke, some play....

The bride ands I "owned" two cats with variations of this name.  The first was a gray and white tabby--a perfect starter cat--that served as a child substitute for the first 8 years of our marriage.  He lived from 1974-1988 and is buried in our yard.

We called him Sam.  See, I maintain that we can never really know the names of our pets...so that's why I always phrase the question this way: "What do you call your cat?"

Our second similarly-named kitty was Sammy, 1997-2013 (likewise planted in the yard), who in fact looked a lot like Andy Warhol's kitty above.  Our Sammy was an orange tabby--no white at all--and was the sweetest buddy in the world.  See my post of a few weeks back wherein I have a photo of Sammy, here.

And just to show that Mr. Warhol was a kitty person, photographic proof:

Image credit Andy Warhol's Cats and Dogs.