The car was recovered with the artworks intact. I always think that he enjoyed the buzz and the controversy that the painting created.”īoth Nosepicker and Living Room were nearly lost in the late 1970s when they were left in the Warhola family car, which was stolen. I think it kind of sets the stage for what he did later on with the soup cans. I was always impressed with that story of how he enjoyed some publicity, he enjoyed notoriety that resulted from a work of art. “My uncle had such confidence at that point, which is amazing. “Everybody was talking about this particular painting, the painting of the nose picker,” Warhola recalled. It’s impossible to overstate the historical value of these early works, which demonstrate how superstardom is born from the fringes of humanity through a tireless work ethic and a consummate desire to transcend convention.

In 1962, the Arts and Crafts Center named Warhol its Artist of the Year. Tenacity empowered Warhol to resubmit it a few months later to an elite summer group exhibition at the Arts and Crafts Center of Pittsburgh, where its impudence met an audience ready to eschew the normative and embrace the future. And then it was also ‘the Lord gave me my face,’ and I've heard Philip Pearlstein (an artist who became friends with Warhol at Carnegie Tech) say the title was, ‘God gave me my face, but I picked my own nose’,” said Warhola.Īmbition fueled Warhol to submit the portrait to the 39th Annual Exhibition of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh in January 1949, where it was rejected because of its perceived “offensive” subject matter. “I've heard it in different ways, but the most often I've heard it as ‘the broad gave me my face’, which implied his mother in a kind of slang way.

Warhola, an illustrator and artist, said Warhol toyed with the name of the playful portrait. But I think that people will be extremely excited.” But it's way too soon to make any prediction about what they'll sell for. “I think they do belong either in a museum or an institutional-type collection. “We've kept (the prices) intentionally low (because) we hope that institutions will be able to bid on these works,” said Manley.

Self portrait painter