Patents on the soles of your shoes...: Andy Warhol

Showing posts with label Andy Warhol. Show all posts

Sunday, March 29, 2026

Andy Warhol - Green Coca-Cola bottles (1962)

According to the Whitney Museum of Art in New York City, where Andy Warhol's famous Green Coca-Cola Bottles (1962) are located:

"Andy Warhol’s Green Coca-Cola Bottles (1962) is a defining Pop Art piece representing mass consumerism, conformity, and democratic access to consumer goods. Using silkscreen printing, the painting features 112 identical, bright green Coke bottles on a white background, highlighting the ubiquity and standardization of American culture".

According to Andy Warhol:

“What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the president drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the president knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.” (Warhol, 1975)

References
-Warhol, A. (1975). The Philosophy of Andy Warhol. New York, NY: Harcourt Publishing Company.
-Warhol, A. (1962). Green Coca Cola Bottles. Painting, acrylic, screenprint, and graphite pencil on canvas. The Whitney Museum. Of American Art, New York, NY.
https://whitney.org/collection/works/3253

Saturday, August 6, 2022

In print! Patents on the Soles of Your Shoes (Volume III)

Available at Amazon.com and Amazon.fr

Among the more than 200 patents cited in Patents on the Soles of Your Shoes, Volume III unexpectedly brings together two early to mid-20th century superstar shoe designer inventors: Israel Miller and André Perugia. Friends and business partners, one on each side of the Atlantic Ocean, the timeless designs and inventions they created brought much-needed comfort and fit, mostly to women’s shoes. Their designs were also illustrated by Andy Warhol, whose drawings were commissioned, in the 1950s, for advertisements in the New York Times. As a result, this volume not only contains photographs of Warhols’ whimsical shoe drawings, Volume III also contains an extensive inventory of the star shoemaker patents. An inventory, illustrated with patent drawing thumbnails for easy identification, as well as augmented with QR Codes, connecting the volume’s inventory to source patents. Two illustrated bilingual glossaries are also included, covering shoe styles and heel types, together with many additional inventions. Historical and contemporary inventions, such as Bluetooth®, Peugeot pepper mills, and Saint Gobain magical glass; plus more inventions, for families, children and pets.

List price: $40.00
6" x 9" (15.24 x 22.86 cm)

257 pages, Full color
ISBN-10: 1542406358
BISAC: Reference / General
ISBN-13: 978-1542406352

Tuesday, September 3, 2019

Interlude - Warhol's Samcats

Andy Warhol's divine Samcats were printed in a small edition of books. The Samcat prints included below appear in Book #69, which includes the following preface:

This Edition consists of 100 copies which have been printed by Seymour Berlin. This is copy 69. 25 cats named Sam and one Blue was written by Charles Lisanby. Mr. Andy Warhol

To my absolute delight, sixteen Samcats and the Blue cat were on video-exhibit at the Andy Warhol: From A to B and back again retrospective show, at the San Francisco MOMA (May 19 - Sept. 2, 2019). The pictures below were taken with my Iphone as they looped on screen.

Reference

SFMOMA - Andy Warhol: From A to B and back again. Retrospective show May 19-Sept. 2, 2019

https://tinyurl.com/y6n9c4rk

Thursday, July 11, 2019

Interlude - Who's eating a burger?

Extracted from Jørgen Leth (1982) documentary 66 Scenes from America

If you would like to test drive the Impossible™ Burger 2.0, click here to find restaurants near you!

References
Impossible Foods Inc.
https://impossiblefoods.com/
Jørgen Leth (1982) 66 Scenes from America [66 Scener fra Amerika]. Documentary (42 minutes). The Danish Film Institute.

https://youtu.be/Wk_74UU0ACQ

Sunday, July 5, 2015

Oh, patents! The I. Miller and Sons shoes (3)

The Canadian patent CA270663 titled Shoe shank is another I. Miller and Sons patent addressing shoe and boot comfort.

You are probably wondering what a shoe shank (cambrion or cambrillon in French) could possibly be! The shoe shank refers to the section of the sole at the instep and in particular to the rigid piece inserted at the level of the instep, beneath the insole of a shoe or boot sole. This rigid piece or shoe shank is designed to prevent excessive flexibility of the instep. Thus, it is generally designed to stiffen the shoe or boot, and to support the foot’s arch.

The I. Miller and Sons patented shoe shank presents certain innovative properties, in particular, the capacity to yield a bit while providing the necessary rigidity to the shank. The yielding of this shoe shank is designed to better accommodate the way the bone structure of both arch and heel move during walking, and thus to provide more comfort to wearers when walking or standing.

To achieve the novel combination of rigidity and movement, designed for greater comfort, the invention discloses a device comprising two strips or plates with “slideably overlapping” U-shaped extensions, positioned end-to-end, and further equipped with means to prevent lateral movement. Thus, under pressure the two extension parts slide, without shifting laterally, providing more resiliency to the sliding extensions than to the rest of the strips. The result is a shoe or boot that yields to the wearer’s foot when moving, and greater comfort as the shank is thus more consistently designed according to the bone structure and dynamics of the wearer’s instep.

Below, two figure drawings, extracted from CA270663 titled “Shoe shank”, are included. Figure 1 shows the two parts of the shoe shank slidably connected, while Figure 2 shows both parts unassembled.

Although it is impossible to see the shoe shank, that is, this particular patented and anatomic comfort feature of the I. Miller and Sons shoes, another fabulous Andy Warhol shoe perdu is also included below!

Andy Warhol - Shoe bright, shoe light, first shoe I've seen tonight

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What is perhaps becoming clearer is why the I. Miller and Sons shoes were so successful! Looking back, it appears that Andy Warhol captured their known beauty and that the patents disclosed the innovative manufacturing attention to functionality.... and comfort! What a winning shoe combo!

Sunday, June 28, 2015

Surprise!... The I. Miller & Sons shoes were patented!

Indeed...even if they are now expired, many patents were associated with the I. Miller & Sons shoes that Andy Warhol was hired to advertise! Whether it was the shoe upper structure, the shoe soles, the shoe shank, the shoe heel, the manufacturing lasts or various protective coatings, the shoe(s) perdu(s) were definitely patented!

It appears that the inventor was Charles Miller who assigned some of his patents to I. Miller & Sons. However, Charles Miller died in the process, and thus many of the patents were actually granted to Ida Gordon Miller, Executrix of the Charles Miller Estate. This is stated on the original patent documents granted to Ida Gordon Miller (e.g.; US2138385 & US2111935 , both of which were also assigned to I. Miller & Sons).

Both design and utility patents were granted, and a few patents were also filed in Canada. A couple of patents were assigned to Charles Miller by Max Feinstein (e.g.; US 1693398 and US 1693397)

Andy Warhol - My shoe is your shoe

So, indeed, the shoe(s) perdu(s) were very patented shoes!

In fact, I. Miller & Sons was a large and very popular shoe manufacturing company. When the founder, Israel Miller, died in August 1929, the company was worth 8 million USD, with 16 retail shops in New York City, 200 agencies across the US, and 2 shoe manufacturing factories! [JTA, 1929]. In 1929, this was considered a small empire.

The following is a hyperlinked list of the utility and design patents retrieved in connection with I. Miller and Sons shoes, using different search engines: EspaceNet at the EPO, Google Patents and FPO (Free Patents online). Remember that various available patent search engines often retrieve different results as each has negotiated varied access to the patent databases belonging to different patent offices worldwide. Additionally, different results are sometimes obtained due to incomplete or inaccurate data input, or OCR (Optical character Recognition) error when the documents were scanned.

Utility patents

US2138385 A - Elastic top shoe filed March 5, 1935 and granted on November 29, 1938

US2111935 A - Shoe filed Jan. 7, 1935 and granted on March 22, 1938

US 2163696 A - Method of making cemented shoes filed Nov.. 19, 1934 and granted on June 27, 1939.

US2072838 A - Last and last attachment filed Nov. 12, 1934, and granted on March 2, 1937

US2134196 A - Protective cover for shoes filed March 9, 1936, and granted on Oct. 25, 1938

US2069964 A - Shoe and tongue therefore filed April 8, 1935, and granted on Feb. 9, 1937

US2102804 A - Method of applying protective coatings to shoes another other aspects filed Jan 21, 1935, and granted on Dec. 21, 1937

US1807792 - Shoe, filed Nov 1930 and granted on June 2, 1931, to Charles Miller and Arthur Livers

US1693398 A - Therapeutic shoe filed July 7, 1927, and granted on Nov. 27, 1928

US1693397 A - Shoe last filed March 3, 1927, and granted on Nov. 27, 1928

CA284349 A - Shoe last

CA273434 A - Demonstrating shoe sample

CA270663 A - Shoe shank

CA270661 A - Shoe heel

Design patents

USD86397 - Design for a shoe, filed December 29, 1931, granted March 1, 1932, to Charles Miller

USD86925 - Design for a shoe, filed Feb. 5, 1932, granted May 10, 1932, to Charles Miller

USD86393 - Design for a shoe, filed Dec. 29, 1931, granted March 1, 1932, to Charles Miller

USD86796 - Design for a shoe, filed Feb. 18, 1932, granted April 19, 1932, to Charles Miller

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References

Herrmann, F. (2014) Design and utility patents - What's the difference? at Patents on the soles of your shoes

http://patentsonthesolesofyourshoes.blogspot.com/2014/08/design-patents-and-utility-patents.html

I. Miller, shoe manufacturer, dies (Aug. 15, 1929) Jewish Telegraphic Agency
http://www.jta.org/1929/08/15/archive/i-miller-shoe-manufacturer-dies
I. Miller & Sons

http://dlxs.lib.wayne.edu/d/dhhcc/bios/millershoes.html

Saturday, June 27, 2015

Found... Warhol's shoe perdu (3)

Andy Warhol An autobiography A alice B. Shoe.

Drawing from the series À la recherche du shoe perdu, a portfolio of 18 lithographs, hand-colored at parties.

Friday, June 26, 2015

Found... Warhol's shoe perdu (2)

Andy Warhol - Shoe of the evening, beautiful shoe

Another selection from a portfolio of 18 offset lithographs. The captions of the prints with distinctive cursive writing were written by Andy Warhol's mom, Julia Warhola.

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Interlude...Found. Warhol's shoe perdu.....(1)

On the third floor of the NYC MOMA …

Andy Warhol À la recherche du shoe perdu c. 1955

Andy Warhol’s À la recherche du shoe perdu…!

Between 1955 and 1957, Warhol was the sole illustrator of the shoe manufacturing company I. Miller. The shoe drawings were published as advertisements in The New York Times each week. Above, one drawing of a portfolio of 18 offset lithographs...