Andy Warhol: Drawings 1942 - 1987
Kunstmuseum Basel
May 5 - July 19, 1998
The traveling exhibition, which begins in Basel, is the first retrospective presentation of Andy Warhol's graphic works. The 230 drawings on display represent all periods of the creative activity of this popular and exacting artist. The early works from the 1950's made use of the possibilities of commercial design and, lacking any inner contradiction, raised them to "high art". The drawings executed between 1960 and 1963 are among the fundamental works of pop art, a period which the exhibition also documents with some of Warhol's paintings. A large area is devoted to the important late drawings produced between 1972 and 1987 and seldom revealed to the public.
Andy Warhol was one of the founders of American pop art and is the most single-minded of its representatives. He became famous for the silk screen prints which he had been creating since 1962. Warhol's art took up the advertising messages of the society of the mass media, the images of products in super markets, film stars, all of these recurring symbols and icons: works of an enormous inner energy which appear to passively propagate themselves. Although Warhol radically distanced himself from the "elite" culture of drawing, he was active throughout his life as an incredibly skilled and diligent draftsman. Because many of Warhol's drawings were not made for the purpose of being sold, thousands have appeared in his estate.
"Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art." This provocative statement is, in fact, least applicable to his drawings. But it formed the basis for Warhol's thoroughly American art - for the art of an American of European parents who had emigrated from present-day Slovakia. Warhol's father worked in Pittsburgh on construction sites and as a miner. His mother sold self-made paper flowers and the traditional hand-painted Easter eggs from her native country. When Warhol finally moved to New York in 1949, his mother immediately followed him. She actively participated in the work of her much-admired son and, as Warhol had entrusted her with everything which had to do with calligraphy including his signature, she "signed" his name on many of his works.
In 1972, the Karl August Burckhardt-Koechlin Fonds enabled the Kupferstichkabinett of the Öffentliche Kunstsammlung Basel to acquire six outstanding Warhol drawings dating from 1962. The collection, which was later substantially enlarged, led to the contact with the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh where Warhol's estate is housed. Together with it, and in collaboration with the Andy Warhol Foundation of the Visual Arts in New York, it was possible to realize this retrospective exhibition of his drawings. Most of the works are on loan from the estate in the custody of the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in New York. Other lenders have contributed works to strengthen specific accents. In Basel, additionally, some of Warhol's important paintings as well as selected serigraphs have been juxtaposed with the drawings.
The exhibition rooms of the Kunstmuseum Basel allow the visitor to become thoroughly acquainted with the three major phases of Warhol's drawings and paintings. Part 1 in the mezzanine displays the numerous charming and diversely-playful early works from the 1950's. An internal staircase leads to Part 2, four rooms on the first floor with the 1990-1963 drawings which were fundamental for pop art. A 1960 painting on loan from Pittsburgh, one of Warhol's earliest images of a soup can, supplements this group. The second and third parts of the exhibition are joined by a spacious hall displaying three large canvases from the Öffentliche Kunstsammlung Basel, executed between 1962 and 1967, and two paintings dating from 1980-1986. Warhol's late drawings, created between 1972 and the time of his death in 1987 and following an interruption devoted to film, are exhibited as Part 3 in seven rooms at the rear of the first floor. It includes examples of some of his silk screen prints for which his drawings provided the preliminary linear structure.
The catalogue of some 280 pages, with texts by Mark Francis and Dieter Koepplin, includes color or duotone reproductions of all 230 drawings. The volume measures 31 cm x 24 cm. A hardcover edition has been published by Shirmer/Mosel Verlag. An English edition will be published in 1999.
KUNSTMUSEUM BASEL
