Fine Art PR Publicity Announcements News and Information
Fine Art PR Publicity Announcements News and Information

Milwaukee Art Museum Organizes First U.S. Museum Exhibition of Warhol’s Late Works

This week, the Milwaukee Art Museum premieres the first U.S. museum exhibition to explore the late work of Andy Warhol. Organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum, Andy Warhol: The Last Decade opens September 26 and runs through January 3, 2010 before a national tour. Created amidst the bustle of his Pop celebrity, the works show vitality, energy, and a renewed spirit of experimentation.

“Warhol is as misunderstood as he is famous,” said John McKinnon, Milwaukee Art Museum assistant curator of modern and contemporary art. “This first-of-its-kind exhibition demonstrates his skills as a master painter and fervent collaborator.”

Andy Warhol CamouflageWarhol created more new series of paintings in his last decade than any other phase of his 40-year career. It was a time of extraordinary artistic development and dramatic transformation. Collaborations with Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francesco Clemente, and Keith Haring were central to his pursuit of new ideas, and stimulated the artist to return to painting by hand. The exhibition includes nearly 50 works lent by private collectors and institutions, several of which are monumental in size.

Two concurrent special presentations in the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Collection Galleries round out the Warhol experience: In Andy Warhol: Pop Star, prints from the Marilyn and Mao portfolios make a rare appearance, alongside works on loan to the Museum from local collectors; and Figurative Prints: 1980s Rewind, (through November 29, 2009) features more than 30 works by contemporaries of Warhol, including Eric Fischl, Susan Rothenberg, and Julian Schnabel.

Andy Warhol: The Last Decade is guest curated by Joseph D. Ketner II, Lois and Henry Foster Chair in Contemporary Art, Emerson College, Boston. The exhibition is coordinated at the Milwaukee Art Museum by John McKinnon.

ABOUT THE MUSEUM

The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 20,000 works spanning antiquity to the present day. With a history dating back to 1888, the Museum houses a Collection with strengths in 19th- and 20th-century American and European art, contemporary art, American decorative arts, and folk and self-taught art. The Museum includes the Santiago Calatrava-designed Quadracci Pavilion, named by Time magazine “Best Design of 2001.” For more information visit www.mam.org

Image: Andy Warhol, Camouflage, 1986. Acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen, 80 1/4 x 76 1/4 in. (203.8 x 193.7 cm). The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc