Diamond dust material and effects

Diamond dust material and effects is presented as a practical artistic choice whose appeal rests on the tension between expense and visual novelty. The diary records a striking estimate for using the material in paintings, then follows its proposed application to pop imagery and a Tiffany’s holiday-card design.

Cost and Material

While working with Rupert Smith at the office, Warhol considered the cost of diamond dust at five dollars a carat. If the material were real, he estimated, the dust alone would cost thirty to forty thousand dollars for each painting. The calculation makes the surface treatment more than a decorative flourish: its use could become a major part of a work’s expense. The diary does not resolve whether that estimate describes the material actually used, but it records the cost as a concrete condition of the project.

A Treatment for Pop Imagery

Warhol also considered diamond dust for images being gathered for a New Myths series for Ron Feldman: Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and the Shadow. After work on the backgrounds, he proposed that the images would need something different, such as diamond dust. The idea links an expensive material to instantly recognizable popular figures. Rather than changing the subjects, the proposed treatment would distinguish their presentation through the surface itself.

The Nine-Card Diamond

For John Loring at Tiffany’s, Warhol worked on Christmas cards for the following year, a commission connected to the company’s advertisements in Interview. His design called for a set of nine cards, each showing part of a diamond; when the cards were assembled, the fragments would form one complete diamond. The plan made the material and the image reinforce each other: diamond dust would appear on a design whose pieces together depicted a diamond. Warhol also recalled that, in the 1950s, he had left drawings at Tiffany’s and someone had stolen them, placing this new commission against an earlier memory of loss at the same company.