Panda Drummer (Clockwork)

With its whimsical lines and playful subject, Andy Warhol’s Panda Drummer (Clockwork), 1983, celebrates childhood delight. The work is part of the artist’s series ‘Paintings for Children’, a suite commissioned in 1982 by the Swiss dealer Bruno Bischofberger. Bischofberger asked Warhol to make paintings on the theme of children’s toys, objects the artist himself regularly purchased from flea markets and antique shops for his large collection. Indeed, all the toys that Warhol painted were objects he owned. Many of these were later published as a Pop Art board book, a nod to Warhol’s work in the 1950s as a children’s book illustrator. For the flattened illustration of the windup Panda, Warhol drew from the toy’s packaging, here rendered in yellow and red against a dark blue ground; the majority of works in the series were composed of three overlapping colours. Like his celebrated silkscreens of Brillo Boxes and Campbell’s Soup cans, the Toys demonstrate Warhol’s enduring fascination with consumer culture and, as with these earlier works, they too evince the same deadpan aesthetic. Beyond what could be directly observed, Warhol refused to explain his artistic choices, and this obfuscation was central to both his practice and persona. When asked why he decided to make art for children, his response was characteristically evasive: ‘It’s just that the show’s for children’ (A. Warhol, quoted in S. King, ‘ART: AN ANDY WARHOL SHOW, FOR CHILDREN'S EYES’, New York Times, 25 August 1985).