Andy Mouse (complete set of 4)

A mouse with Warhol's face

Andy Mouse is a hybrid: Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse with the face and big glasses of Andy Warhol. Keith Haring first drew the character in 1985 in paintings, and in 1986 he turned it into a set of four large screenprints, each about 38 inches square. The prints pack overlapping mouse figures, dollar signs and Haring's cartoon motion lines into dense fields of red, yellow, white and black.

In one of the four images Andy Mouse appears on a dollar bill. Haring explained the idea himself: putting Warhol there was 'like treating him like he was part of American culture, like Mickey Mouse was. That he himself had become a symbol, a sign for something complete, universally understandable.'

The edition was small for Haring: 30 numbered sets plus 10 artist's proofs. Haring signed, numbered and dated each sheet, and Warhol signed each one too, in pencil at the lower left. A dealer's essay reads that second signature as Warhol's endorsement of the way he was portrayed.

The prints grew out of the paintings. One of them, Andy Mouse, New Coke, dated July 24, 1985 on the reverse, puts the character against a New Coke label, the product launched that same year. The print set drops the soda and keeps the money.

The subway artist and the Pop king

Haring was born May 4, 1958, in Reading, Pennsylvania, and grew up in nearby Kutztown, learning to cartoon from his father and from Dr. Seuss and Walt Disney. He moved to New York in 1978 to attend the School of Visual Arts. From 1980 to 1985 he made hundreds of chalk drawings on blank black advertising panels in the subway, sometimes as many as forty in a day.

He idolized Warhol. Accounts of when they met do not agree. Haring's own recollection, quoted in a 1989 interview, is that a mutual friend brought him to the Factory and that Warhol warmed to him after a show soon after Haring's 1982 SoHo gallery debut; Warhol's diaries record him at that show's closing party on November 13, 1982. Catalog essays written for later sales place the meeting at Haring's second show at the same gallery, in 1984. Either way, the two became friends, went out together and traded work.

'You see, whatever I've done would not have been possible without Andy,' Haring said. 'Had Andy not broken the concept of what art is supposed to be, I just wouldn't have been able to exist.' Both men also loved Disney. 'I've always wanted to work for Walt Disney,' Haring told an interviewer in 1984. Warhol, asked his favorite Disney character, answered Minnie Mouse, 'because she can get me close to Mickey.'

New York, 1986

1986 was Haring's busiest year in public. In April he opened the Pop Shop in SoHo, a store selling T-shirts, toys, posters, buttons and magnets with his images, its interior painted floor to ceiling in a black-on-white mural. Much of the art world criticized it. Warhol backed it, made a T-shirt for it and, in Haring's words, 'practically convinced me to open the Pop Shop when I started to get cold feet.' One account says the Andy Mouse prints were partly a thank-you for that support.

The same year Haring painted the Crack is Wack mural, now a landmark beside the FDR Drive, made a mural with 900 children for the Statue of Liberty's centennial, and was the subject of more than 40 newspaper and magazine articles. In June 1986 the Andy Mouse screenprints were shown at a gallery in Santa Monica, California, alongside earlier work by both artists.

Outside the studio, 1986 opened with the Challenger disaster on January 28 and saw the Chernobyl explosion in April. A collector buying an Andy Mouse set that year was buying a portrait of a living artist, made with his blessing.

From $56,400 to $1.2 million

Warhol died on February 22, 1987, after gallbladder surgery, not long after the series was finished. Haring was diagnosed with AIDS in 1988, set up the Keith Haring Foundation in 1989, and died of AIDS-related complications on February 16, 1990, at 31. Andy Mouse became a portrait of a friendship that lasted only a few years.

The auction record of the complete set traces Haring's rising market. In December 2001 a set numbered 'AW 3/5', described as on wove paper, sold for $56,400 against an estimate of $20,000 to $30,000. On April 24, 2015, set 17/30, on Lenox Museum Board, sold for $629,000 at auction in New York against an estimate of $300,000 to $400,000. A prints specialist called it 'a brilliant culmination of Haring's entire oeuvre.'

On September 29, 2023, set 20/30, bought from a New York gallery in 2010 and offered from a private collection, sold for $1,209,600 at auction in New York, just above its $800,000 to $1,200,000 estimate. One market-data page also lists sales in June 2021 and September 2022, but publishes only pound-converted hammer figures for them, so those are not listed here as prices.

The paintings run higher. Andy Mouse, New Coke, a 1985 acrylic on unstretched canvas nearly ten feet square, sold for $1,833,000 at auction in New York on May 13, 2008.

How to read a set

A full set is four separate sheets, each signed, dated and numbered by Haring at the lower right (for example '20/30 K Haring 86') and signed 'Andy Warhol' at the lower left. Catalog descriptions give each sheet as about 38 by 38 inches; one gives the image as 36 by 36 inches on a sheet of 37 7/8 by 37 7/8 inches.

Besides the 30 numbered sets and 10 artist's proofs, at least one set carries an 'AW' number ('AW 3/5'), which a 2001 catalog listed apart from the main edition of 30 plus 10. The standard reference is Klaus Littmann's 1997 catalog of Haring's printed work, which illustrates the series on pages 64 and 65.

The four sheets also trade one at a time, so a buyer should check that all four in a 'complete set' share the same edition number. The sales listed on this page are for full sets.

The numbers

Medium

Screenprint in colors, in four parts

Support

Lenox Museum Board; one 2001 catalog entry describes wove paper

Dimensions

Each sheet about 38 x 38 in. (96.5 x 96.5 cm); one entry gives image 36 x 36 in., sheet 37 7/8 x 37 7/8 in.

Edition

30 plus 10 artist's proofs; an AW-numbered impression (AW 3/5) is also recorded

Signatures

Signed, dated and numbered by Haring, lower right; signed by Andy Warhol, lower left

Catalogue raisonne

Littmann, Keith Haring, Editions on Paper 1982-1990 (1997), pp. 64-65

Current owners

Private collections; the buyers of the recorded sets have not been made public

Timeline

1. May 4, 1958

   Keith Haring is born in Reading, Pennsylvania.

2. 1978

   Haring moves to New York and enrolls at the School of Visual Arts.

3. 1980

   Haring begins chalk drawings on blank subway advertising panels, which he keeps making until 1985.

4. Nov 13, 1982

   Warhol's diaries record him at the closing party of Haring's SoHo gallery debut. Later catalog essays date the pair's meeting to 1984 instead.

5. Jul 24, 1985

   Haring dates the painting Andy Mouse, New Coke, one of the first Andy Mouse works.

6. Apr 1986

   Haring opens the Pop Shop in SoHo, with Warhol's public support.

7. 1986

   The four-print Andy Mouse portfolio is published in an edition of 30 plus 10 artist's proofs, each sheet signed by Haring and Warhol.

8. Jun 1986

   The Andy Mouse screenprints are exhibited in Santa Monica, California.

9. Feb 22, 1987

   Andy Warhol dies after gallbladder surgery.

10. 1988

    Haring is diagnosed with AIDS.

11. Feb 16, 1990

    Haring dies of AIDS-related complications, aged 31.

12. 1997

    Littmann's catalog of Haring's complete printed works illustrates the series, pp. 64-65.

13. Dec 2001

    A complete set numbered AW 3/5 sells at auction for $56,400.

14. May 13, 2008

    The painting Andy Mouse, New Coke sells for $1,833,000 at auction in New York.

15. 2010

    Set 20/30 is bought from a New York gallery by the collector who later consigns it.

16. Apr 24, 2015

    Set 17/30 sells for $629,000 at auction in New York.

17. Sep 29, 2023

    Set 20/30 sells for $1,209,600 at auction in New York.

The world in 1986

• Jan 28, 1986

  The Space Shuttle Challenger breaks apart shortly after launch, killing all seven crew members.

• Feb 25, 1986

  Ferdinand Marcos is ousted from power in the Philippines and goes into exile in Hawaii.

• Apr 26, 1986

  A botched safety test at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Soviet Ukraine causes the world's worst nuclear power accident.

• 1986

  Haring paints the Crack is Wack mural beside New York's FDR Drive.

• 1986

  Haring makes a mural with 900 children for the Statue of Liberty's 100th anniversary.

• Oct 11, 1986

  Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev open their two-day summit in Reykjavik.

• Nov 1986

  The Iran-Contra affair breaks after a Lebanese magazine reports U.S. arms sales to Iran.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Andy Mouse (complete set of 4) is number 27 of 100 in the art entries of the FLOAT 100. 88 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (28 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Warhol signed every sheet in the edition, so each Andy Mouse print carries two signatures: the artist's and the subject's.
• Warhol died on February 22, 1987, not long after the series was finished.
• The complete set sold for $56,400 in 2001 and $1,209,600 in 2023.
• Warhol once said his favorite Disney character was Minnie Mouse, 'because she can get me close to Mickey.'
• Haring said Warhol 'practically convinced' him to open the Pop Shop when he got cold feet in 1986.
• The painted version, Andy Mouse, New Coke, puts the character on a New Coke label, the soda launched the same year it was painted.