New exhibit featuring gift of 153 Warhol photographs opens today

A new exhibit, featuring works by Andy Warhol opens today at the Allen Memorial Art Museum.

Titled "Andy Warhol: Prints, Paintings, Photographs," it features a gift of 153 photographs made to the museum from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

It will be on view in the museum's Ripin Gallery through Aug. 10.

About 200 works -- prints, paintings, photographs and objects -- will be displayed, spanning Warhol's career from the 1950s to the 1980s. Iconic images from the Allen's collection, such as Jackie Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor, as well as the series of Mao Tse-Tung and the Electric Chair, will be shown alongside the new additions.

The gift was made in conjunction with the 20th anniversary of the Warhol Foundation to provide greater access to Warhol's artwork and process.

The AMAM was one of 183 college and university art museums across the country that received donations from the foundation. The 104 Polaroids and 49 gelatin silver prints depict a variety of subjects, from black-and-white prints of New York and Hong Kong street scenes, fashion shows, sporting events, still lifes and nudes to Warhol's well-known Polaroid portraits, including images of "Superstar" Jane Holzer, athletes Dorothy Hamill and Rod Gilbert, musician Ric Ocasek and artist Keith Haring.

Details about Warhol's process of creation can be learned through study of his photographs. As Jenny Moore, curator of the Foundation's Photographic Legacy Program, stated: "Through his rigorous -- though almost unconscious -- consistency in shooting, the true idiosyncrasies of his subjects were revealed. Often he would shoot a person or event with both cameras, cropping one in Polaroid color as a 'photograph' and snapping the other in black and white as a 'picture'."

"It is very exciting to be able to add the medium of photography to the Allen's already strong holdings of Warhol's works," says AMAM's Curator of Western Art Andria Derstine. "Photography was of primary importance for Warhol's artistic practice, as he sought to transform newspaper and other popular images into prints and objects. With such a large number of original photos entering our collection, scholars and students will be able to learn first-hand about the importance of the camera for Warhol."

This large group of new works joins the Allen's pre-existing collection of Warhol's art, established in part by legendary Oberlin College art history professor Ellen Johnson, who was close friends with Warhol in 1960s New York. The expanded holdings provide a unique opportunity to view a wide range of the artist's body of work.

One of the earliest pieces in the show is a 1955 drawing of a shoe, hand-colored by Warhol during his time as a commercial artist working in New York City. Also on view will be large print portfolios featuring Warhol's art as part of a set of works by artists from the 1960s-70s.

On May 2 at 4 p.m., a Curator's Tour of Andy Warhol: Prints, Paintings, Photographs will be led by Derstine. The event is free to the public.