About the Exhibition 

As the most successful New York commercial illustrator before turning artist, this retrospective highlights the vast artistic styles Warhol mastered. Inspired by the artist’s quote: "How can you say one style is better than another? You ought to be able to be an Abstract Expressionist next week, or a Pop artist, or a realist, without feeling you've given up something. I think that would be so great, to be able to change styles. And I think that's what's going to happen, that's going to be the whole new scene." This exhibition explores Warhol’s early works and features some of his most iconic pieces. 

This collection is generously on loan from the University of Southern Indiana, The Evansville Museum Art Committee, and the members of the Evansville Museum.

Tory Schendel Cox 

The Virginia G. Schroeder Curator of Art

List of Works:

Soup Can Drawing

Pencil on Paper 

When Warhol first exhibited Campbell’s Soup Cans in 1962, the canvases were displayed together on shelves, like products in a grocery aisle. Warhol said of Campbell’s soup, “I used to drink it. I used to have the same lunch every day, for 20 years, I guess, the same thing over and over again.” Towards the end of 1962, shortly after he completed Campbell’s Soup Cans, Warhol turned to the photo-silkscreen process. A printmaking technique originally invented for commercial use, it would become his signature medium and link his art-making methods more closely to those of advertisements. “I don’t think art should be only for the select few,” he claimed, “I think it should be for the mass of the American people.”

On Loan from Private Collectors 

Two Cherubs from the In the Bottom of My Garden Series 

Watercolor and Ink

From the period before Andy Warhol became a pop art icon, he was known primarily as a successful commercial illustrator and art collector. In 1956, Warhol made a portfolio titled In the Bottom of My Garden, which was an illustrated book of fairies and putti frolicking in a garden. Inspired by the children’s book, Flower Fairies of Autumn, Warhol’s rendition featured fornicating pink cherubs romping across an empty plane. These early images incorporated Warhol’s trademarked irregular blotted lines and flat use of color, which he learned at college while training as a commercial artist.

On Loan from Private Collectors

Marilyn Monroe

Lithograph 

In 1967, Warhol established a print-publishing business, Factory Additions, through which he published a series of screenprint portfolios on his signature subjects. Marilyn Monroe was the first one. He used the same publicity still of the actress that he had previously used for dozens of paintings. Regarding his screenprint portfolios, Warhol noted, “The more you look at the same exact thing, the more the meaning goes away, and the better and emptier you feel."

On Loan from Daniel Mason and John Nordgauer

Carol Coleman (Teal & Pink)

Lithograph 

In 1986, the Carnegie Museum of Art partnered with the Factory to release certified prints for sale from Warhol’s socialite series. Depicted in this work is Carol Owen Coleman.  Coleman was the late daughter of Kenneth and Jane Blaffer Owen, a prominent New Harmony, Indiana, couple. Kenneth was a descendent of Robert Owen, a Scottish industrialist who founded New Harmony’s utopian society. The Coleman family commissioned the portrait in 1976 through Fred Hughes, Warhol’s business manager and a friend of Carol.  

Teal, On Loan from Daniel Mason and John Nordgauer

Pink, On Loan from The Vyvoda Family Trust

Mao Zedong

Screenprint

In this example from his Mao series, Warhol melded his signature style with the scale of totalitarian propaganda to address the cult of personality surrounding the Chinese ruler Mao Zedong (1893–1976). This towering work mimics the representations of the political figure that were ubiquitously displayed throughout China. Warhol’s looming portrait is impressive because of the duality of its realistic qualities and its plastic artificiality. In contrast to the photographic nature of the image, garish colors are applied to Mao’s face like makeup. The gestural handling of color in the portrait shows Warhol at his most painterly.

On Loan from Private Collectors

1987 Beethoven Series 

Screenprint on Lenox Museum Board

Andy Warhol created the 1987 Beethoven series shortly before his death. This series is unique as it departs from the celebrities and grocery items for which Warhol became known for. The source image was taken from an 1820 portrait by Joseph Karl Stieler. In the original oil on canvas, the composer stares ahead with focused eyes as he writes another composition. This portrait is the most iconic image of Beethoven, deliberately chosen by Warhol for that reason. The 1987 Beethoven series captures the defining characteristics of the composer by placing a sheet of music over his portrait. The melody that is imprinted onto the page is Beethoven’s Sonata No. 14, better known as the Moonlight Sonata. 

On Loan from the University Art Collection, University of Southern Indiana, Evansville, IN

Mickey Mouse from the Myths Portfolio

Screenprint 

The Myths Portfolio is one of Andy Warhol’s most sought-after collections. Andy Warhol’s Myths collection contains ten screen prints of iconic mythical figures, including Santa Claus, Superman and Howdy Doody, among many others. From the 1960s on, Andy Warhol exhibited an unerring sense for the powerful motifs of his time – contemporary images that capture the modern imagination as completely as the gods and goddesses of ancient mythology once did. 

On Loan from The Vyvoda Family Trust

Interview

Magazine 

Interview is an American magazine founded in late 1969 by artist Andy Warhol and British journalist John Wilcock. The magazine, nicknamed "The Crystal Ball of Pop", features interviews with celebrities, artists, musicians, and creative thinkers. Interviews were usually unedited or edited in the eccentric fashion of Warhol's books and The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again.

On Loan from Daniel Mason and John Nordgauer