More than Fifteen Minutes of Fame: Warhol's Prints and Photographs

Andy Warhol (1928-1987) once observed “everybody will be world-famous for fifteen minutes.” Almost thirty years after his death, Warhol is still celebrated as the most legendary American artist of the Pop Art movement. By introducing commercial screenprinting techniques into fine art printmaking and painting, Warhol created globally recognized, iconic artworks that continue to impact art and culture today.  Exhibition highlights include the artist’s screenprints, Vegetarian Vegetable from Campbell’s Soup II (1969) and Electric Chairs (1971), as well as selected Polaroids and black-and-white photographs of celebrities popular in the 1980s, such as Pia Zadora, Sylvester Stallone, Bob Colacello, Caroline, Princess of Monaco, Mariel Hemingway, and others. Thanks to important recent donations from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, this exhibition features Warhol works shown at the museum for the first time, including six color screenprints acquired in 2014: Sunset (1972), Joseph Beuys (1980/1983), Alexander the Great (1982), Brooklyn Bridge (1983), and Annie Oakley and Sitting Bull from the series Cowboys and Indians (1986).

This exhibition of 35 works from the collection of the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University was conceived by Marilyn Symmes, the museum’s retired Director of the Morse Research Center for Graphic Arts and Curator of Prints and Drawings, and realized with the help of Christina Weyl, Curatorial Assistant.