MYTHS: MICKEY MOUSE, 1981
Mickey Mouse was issued, along with nine other screenprints, in the celebrated portfolio Myths. For the series, Warhol appropriated from film and popular culture to create his pantheon of American icons in the 20th century, Mickey Mouse perhaps being the most quintessentially American. The original idea, suggested by his manager Frederick Hughes, was to create a series inspired by Walt Disney. Warhol had admired Walt Disney from an early age, citing him as a formative influence on his development as an artist. The Disney Animation and Animators exhibition at the Whitney Museum, which Warhol had visited in the summer of 1981, was also almost certainly a creative catalyst for the project. Although Warhol based the majority of his prints on polaroids, Mickey Mouse was rendered directly from the cartoon strip.
