Andy Warhol's Sketches of Angkor

In June 1956, Andy Warhol was still a quite obscure New York illustrator — he had held his first solo exhibition ever, ​“Warhol”, in 1954 (at the Loft Gallery, New York), when the much more seasoned production designer Charles Alvin Lisanby (1924−2013, the first and only Production Designer ever inducted into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame) invited him to join him in one of his many around-the-world trips. Recalled Lisanby: ​“Every summer since 1951 [I travelled] all over Europe, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey… We [Andy and Charles] were the closest friends and whenever I went away for two months he was really unhappy. So this particular year, 1956, he said, ​‘why don’t I go too,’ and I said ​‘okay’… I wanted to go to Japan. I had collected Japanese prints since I was sixteen. But what impressed me most was Angor Wat... It blew my mind…”

For the 1956 journey, the itinerary was: June 16, depart from New York; June 16 – 17, San Francisco; June 17 – 19, Honolulu; June 21-July 3, Tokyo; July 3 – 5 Hong Kong; July 5 – 6, Manila; July 6 – 7, Djakarta; July 7 – 11, Bali; July 11 – 12, Singapore; July 12 – 14, Bangkok; July 14 – 17, Siem Reap, Cambodia; July 17 – 21, Bangkok; July 21 – 25, Colombo, Ceylon; July 25 – 26, Calcutta; July 26 – 29, Kathmandu, Nepal; July 29 – 30, Benares, India; July 30-August 2, New Delhi; August 2 – 3, Agra, India; August 3 – 4, Aurangabad, India; August 5 – 9, Cairo and Luxor; August 9 – 11, Rome; August 11, change flights in Amsterdam; August 12, arrive in New York.

While never changing into a bathing suit and always wearing a cap — he was afraid of sunburns –, and even if if he was much less sexually adventurous than Lisanby, Andy Warhol did enjoy Asia, from the quirky scene of Tokyo — according to Nathan Gluck, ​“he bought a Japanese pornographic book… It was something he had bought in Japan, and it had these little flaps you lifted, and there was the pornography. But, you know, he had all kinds of things” — to the serene boldness of Angkorean art.

After Hong Kong, Formosa, Djakarta and Bali, the pair arrived in Cambodia where they met the Davises, a couple made of American illustrator and World War II correspondent for Life Magazine Floyd MacMillan Davis (1896−1966) and famed painter Gladys Rockmore Davis (1901−1967) [1], who guided him through Angkor. The trendy New-Yorkers and globe-trotters — they had covered the Liberation of Paris, and had lived in Cannes in the 1930s, with Pierre-Auguste Renoir as a neighbor –had been exposed to the beauty of Angkor by then-famous — in the field of commercial and advertisement photography — American photographer Lionel Green.

Lionel Green, Ruins of The Bayon Temple, gelatin silver print, c. 1940 (©Getty Images, ref. 84.XP.709.287 in the Getty Museum) 

In Angkor, Andy Warhol did a lot of sketching, all with Bic pen on paper, yet we know only a few of them, now part of the New York Anton Kern Gallery collection. Then it was Bangkok — where he became fascinated with the Siamese lacquer patterns –, India, Egypt, Europe. To quote the 2012 Exhibition Catalog at James Madison University (Virginia, USA), ​“the influence of this trip on Warhol, who had previously never been outside Pittsburgh or New York, was profound. Characteristics like the flat, simple contours and cropping of Japanese prints, the use of gold in Siamese furniture and the delicacy with which mystical and fantastical fairies are rendered in Netherlandish children’s books, all contributed to Warhol’s now-dubbed ​“Pop art.” 

[1] In 1956, The New York Times reported that at her art show at the Midtown Gallery,“from a stay in the Orient Gladys Rockmore Davis has brought back some vivid impressions of Balinese dancers […] She has made full use of the brilliant colors of the costumes, the swaying rhythm of the performers and the sharp contrasts of light and dark in the outdoor performance.” 

Gladys Rockmore Davis, Balinese Dancers (1956).