The Eleanor D. Wilson Museum at Hollins University has received a significant gift of works from the Andy Warhol Foundation’s Photographic Legacy Program, including many of Warhol’s original Polaroids as well as silver gelatin prints documenting his life and its inhabitants. The photographs encompass a wide array of subject matter from portraits to party scenes to still lifes.
Warhol is both famous and infamous for his work interweaving the worlds of fine art, pop culture, and consumerism. “Warhol turned the camera on all the nuances of his life,” said Wilson Museum Director Amy Moorefield. “He influenced generations of younger artists.”
Selections from the gift to the Wilson Museum will be highlighted along with Warhol Foundation gifts to Roanoke College and Washington & Lee University in a three-part exhibition entitled, In the Event of Andy Warhol, which pairs Warhol’s photographs with contemporary artists who reference or have been inspired by Warhol. The exhibition will debut at W&L’s Staniar Gallery Jan. 9 – Feb. 4, 2012, and then go on display at Olin Hall Galleries at Roanoke College from March 1 – April 1, 2012. In the Event of Andy Warhol will open May 31, 2012, at the Wilson Museum and remain until Sept. 15, 2012. The Wilson Museum will showcase original photographs by Warhol along with works by Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jasper Johns, among others. Stressing Warhol’s Catholic background and the influence of his early graphic work and films, this final part of the exhibition will shed new light on his photographic inspiration.
The Andy Warhol Foundation’s Photographic Legacy Program was launched in 2007 in celebration of the foundation’s 20th anniversary and has donated over 28,500 photographs by Warhol to educational institutions across the United States. More than 180 college and university museums, galleries, and art collections throughout the nation have participated in the program, each receiving a curated selection of photographs and prints.
