Andy Warhol: Stars of the Silver Screen

For immediate release

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

The Andy Warhol Museum announces Andy Warhol: Stars of the Silver Screen, opening June 16, 2017. The exhibition explores Andy Warhol’s fascination with Hollywood, fame, and stardom through artworks and hundreds of archival objects from The Warhol’s vast collection of the artist’s personal items.

Warhol’s interest in celebrity and Hollywood stars was ignited while attending cinemas with his older brothers in gritty, industrial 1930s Pittsburgh. He reveled in the glamorous actors, elegant costumes, and sophisticated settings of movies from Hollywood’s golden era.

Warhol’s lifelong infatuation with fame can be traced from his earliest movie star scrapbook he started when he was a young boy to a Frank Sinatra biography that was on his hospital bedside table when he died in 1987. As a child, Warhol wrote to Hollywood studios for fan photos and enjoyed movie magazines, surrounding himself with celebrity images. This practice continued throughout his life, and he eventually accumulated a profusion of photographs, movie posters, and other memorabilia.

The hundreds of archival objects from The Warhol’s collection on view range from the artist’s celebrity scrapbooks and Hollywood film posters to magazines and souvenirs. Artworks on display include paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, publications, film excerpts, television episodes, and video diaries. Part of Warhol’s Pop style had its genesis in images of the stars, and this exhibition examines some of the inspiration behind the work that kick-started the current age of global celebrity culture.

The exhibition on the museum’s second floor features celebrity drawings and Pop portraits, including Grace Kelly, Elvis Presley, Jane Fonda, and many others.

The sixth floor showcases photographs of Warhol Superstars and Factory regulars, film posters, and film and video, such as Screen Tests, Andy Warhol’s T.V., and segments from Warhol films including The Chelsea Girls, San Diego Surf, Lonesome Cowboys, and more.

Among the films, celebrity photographs, Pop paintings, and archival materials are some of Warhol’s early collage works, such as his movie star composites. Warhol’s 1962 Female Movie Star Composite is a collage in which Warhol cut and glued strips of various celebrity facial attributes to create one image. Also included are several sewn photographs from 1986 that feature grids of four matching photographs of Hollywood celebrities sewn together to create a multiple effect.

Exhibition-related programs will be announced at a later date.

The exhibition is curated by The Warhol’s Curator of Film and Video Geralyn Huxley and Archivist at Large Matt Wrbican. Andy Warhol: Stars of the Silver Screen is generously supported by Cadillac.