Andy Warhol at the University of Wyoming Art Museum, Laramie, WY

Portraits by American pop artist Andy Warhol were featured in a University of Wyoming Art Museum exhibition Iconic Mass Culture: Andy Warhol's Portraits. The exhibition was accompanied by an art talk by David McCarthy, professor of art history at Rhodes College and a pop art scholar who also conducted a gallery walk-through. The exhibition was sponsored by the UW Department of Art and the UW Art Museum.

For the 20th anniversary of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Photographic Legacy Program distributed a collection of original Warhol photographs to 180 academic collections in the United States. The UW Art Museum received 150 Polaroid and gelatin silver prints taken by Warhol during his career. The exhibition presented a selection of photographs with screen print works that include the actress/activist Jane Fonda, American Indian war chief Sitting Bull, the artist Joseph Beuys and ballet dancer Karen Kain, on loan from WESTWOOD GALLERY NYC.

The exhibition explores how Warhol used the formal yet instantaneous Polaroid portraits as one method of creative research, and his informal gelatin silver prints to capture more casual views of his subjects.

Included in the exhibition will be Polaroids of celebrities Pia Zadora, Sylvester Stallone and Wayne Gretzky. Gelatin silver prints include Demi Moore, Barbara Allen and Ann Meara, among others.

Text courtesy of UW Art Museum