Lot Details
Lot 1134
ARTCHIE STRIPS Brigid Berlin's inscribed copy of Artchie Strips with the original legal waiver signed both her and Andy Warhol.
[Staten Island: self published, 1970]. Artchie Strips in the original color printed wrappers, with an inscription to a blank page within: Bridget you were the first one/thank you. Love Artchie Strips, under which is drawn a picture of a penis, a play on Berlin's famous Cock Book. 10 x 8 inches (25 x 20 cm); 24 pages, photographically illustrated. Accompanied by a similarly sized original ink and watercolor psychedelic drawing of a face signed Brigid Polk which is affixed to the original (and likely homemade) typed legal release provided to Brigid Berlin and Andy Warhol waiving any "claim or cause or action for libel or invasion of privacy" resulting from Artchie Strips, the document dated 16 September 1969 and signed in ink by Berlin as "Brigid Polk" and Warhol as "A. Moroney." Also present is a note gifting the book from Brigid Berlin to co-executor Rob Vaczy. The items housed in custom cloth clamshell case. Artchie Strips very well preserved overall but with a few short edge tears and abrasions to verso, the typed document with creases and some minor edgewear.
Brigid Berlin, Andy Warhol, Max's Kansas City and The Rolling Stones are the subject of Artchie Stips a scarce fanzine/comic prepared by an elusive figure in the Factory orbit, and here present with Berlin and Warhol's signed release for inclusion. Artchie appears to be Archie Dukeshire, short-lived husband of Jackie Curtis who was also featured in her play Vain Victory in 1971, and who reportedly died scuba diving shortly thereafter. Archie is also likely the fellow appearing in screen tests for Andy Warhol's Chelsea Girls in 1966 (and who's name on the film box is illegibly recorded as "Reikerhove" or "Reikerhue" a highly plausible misreading of Dukeshire). Berlin and Warhol figure prominently in the 'zine, which opens with Artchie riding the Staten Island Ferry and receiving the inspiration use telepathy to transport himself to "a loft known as the Factory pulse central of the Andy Warhol World... Any way I am here with my camera & tape." The comic continues with Artchie meeting Brigid Berlin and Andy Warhol who, camera in hand, says "Why don't you get nude I'll take some [photos] of you." Never camera shy, a montage of nudes of Brigid and Artchie end the sequence. It is on the verso of the last page of this opening strip that Artchie has inscribed the book to Brigid. The Max's Kansas City "episode" follows next with photographs of Jane Fonda, Candy Darling, and Andrea Feldman, who had performed in Warhol's Imitation of Christ (1967), Trash (1970), and Heat (1972) before her August 1972 suicide. The final section of Artchie Strips presents The Rolling Stones in conversation in their Plaza Hotel suite and backstage at Madison Square Garden before images of them on stage.
We trace few extant copies of Artchie Strips and none with a primary association such as this copy. We note a follow up comic Somewhere in Plasticville, 1972, which seems to precede the reported scuba diving death of Archie, although that is also unverified. Craig B. Highberger's Superstar in a Housedress: The Life and Legend of Jackie Curtis reports that Jackie Curtis was married to Archie Dukeshire from October 28th to 17 April 1972.
The drawing present here does not appear to relate to the comic, but its attachment to the typed waiver suggests it created contemporaneously with the publication and is thus a good example of Berlin's artwork of the late 1960's. The short release laid-in, signed with tongue-in-cheek nicknames by both Berlin and Warhol is an almost humorous contract of the period, suggesting Artchie Strips to be quite the enterprise in need of protecting the "Auther (sic) of the strip, the Publisher of the strip, its officers and agents, and distributors of the strip" from those pictured within. It begs the question, did The Rolling Stones also sign such a release?
C Estate of Brigid Berlin
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