Andy Mouse 1 is a 1986 screenprint on paper and collaboration by Keith Haring and Andy Warhol. This work is signed by both artists, Warhol on the left of the composition and Haring on the right. The Andy Mouse series explores the iconic status and commercial success of both Walt Disney and Andy Warhol, and their influence on pop culture and Keith Haring’s art, alike. Wonderfully tongue-in-cheek as a collaborative team, Haring and Warhol amusingly comment on the use of popular culture imagery for profit.

This manner was a major theme of the pop-art movement, a reaction to the affluence that emerged after World War II, that shifted the eons-old paradigm from the trope of the starving artist to modern artists that had the potential to bring in big bucks and achieve the same level of cultural significance as movie stars.

“I learned a lot of things from Andy in the five years we were friends. He prepared me for the ‘success’ that happened to me when I knew him, and taught me the ‘responsibility’ of that success,” (The Keith Haring Journals, 164).

Depicting Andy Mouse, blue in color and decked out in his unforgettable glasses in the fashion of his favorite pair of his 60’s era, Andy Mouse 1 is the first screenprint of the Andy Mouse portfolio. The character wears Warhol’s deadpan expression and poses to twiddle his thumbs behind his back, like his likeness. Upon a bright red background, Andy Mouse appears to contemplate amidst a pile of radiating cash, indicated by gestural markings and suggesting what is to come in the rest of the portfolio.