In Living Color: Andy Warhol and Contemporary Printmaking

From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) depicted the world with the volume turned up. Employing a seemingly endless palette, his work has challenged our perceptions of popular culture, politics, and consumerism for more than fifty years. Warhol was the central figure of American pop art, a movement that emerged in the late 1950s in reaction to the heroism of abstract expressionism. Warhol and his contemporaries sought to eradicate the notion of the “genius artist” and downplay the role of originality in art, adopting mechanical means of generating images such as screenprinting, which theoretically allowed for an endless reproduction of images. In drawing inspiration from the rapidly changing world around them, pop artists sought to be more inclusive in their subjects, and more aware of the day-to-day conditions of contemporary existence.

Spanning three decades of Warhol’s career, this exhibition features some of the artist’s most iconic screenprints, including his portraits of Marilyn Monroe and Mao Zedong, the splashy camouflage series, and the controversial Electric Chair portfolio. Drawn exclusively from the rich collections of Jordan Schnitzer and his family foundation, In Living Color is divided into five sections—experimentation, emotion, experience, subversion, and attitude. In each, Warhol’s work is placed in conversation with other artists of the postwar era, such as Louise Bourgeois, Chuck Close, and Keith Haring, whose work uses color as a tool to shape how we interpret and respond to images.

Support for the exhibition and related educational and outreach programs has been made possible by a grant from the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation.