News and Media

Published: Oct 8, 2009

SAVANNAH, Ga. — The SCAD Museum of Art presents the exhibition: “A Warhol Trio: Photos, Prints and Silver Clouds,” Oct. 14-Dec. 11 at the SCAD Museum of Art, 227 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Savannah.  An opening reception will be held on Wednesday, Oct. 14, 5-7 p.m. and will include Savannah band bottles&cans playing music in the style of The Velvet Underground.  The reception and exhibition are free and open to the public.

“A Warhol Trio” features approximately 150 photographs by the iconic 20th-century artist Andy Warhol (1928-1987) recently donated to the museum by the Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts.  In addition to approximately 100 Polaroids and 50 gelatin silver prints, 36 prints are featured from the collection of Wesley and Missy Cochran.

SCAD’s collection of Warhol photographs will make their SCAD Museum of Art debut in “A Warhol Trio.” These 100 Polaroids and 50 gelatin silver prints span the late years of Warhol’s photographic oeuvre (the 1970s and early 1980s) and encapsulate his working methods and visual perceptions. The Polaroids, used as the basis for full-scale paintings, or prints, or both, feature children and some celebrities such as artist Keith Haring, soccer star Pelé, and model Bianca Jagger. Others are still lifes such as a cluster of poinsettias which later progressed to large-scale prints and paintings in different colors. The gelatin silver prints moved higher up the hierarchy towards formal picture. Here Warhol’s visual aesthetic judgment brought into focus urban scenes from Paris to New York, still lifes, portraits, or casual groupings of friends and social occasions.

The 36 prints on loan from the Cochran collection of LaGrange, Georgia date from the artist's late period as well. Two complete major print series are featured: “Myths” with Mickey Mouse, Superman, Dracula and others, and “Cowboys and Indians” with John Wayne, Geronimo, an Indian Head nickel, and similar Western themes. Other iconic large-scale color images include “Moon Walk,” “Mick Jagger,” and “Joseph Beuys,” which distill the period’s cultural touchstones as well as Warhol’s creative balance of legend and realism.

Completing the two-dimensional works is the installation “Silver Clouds” which recreates Warhol’s 1966 installation at the New York gallery of his dealer Leo Castelli. One hundred helium-filled silver Mylar pillows that Warhol called “floating sculpture” occupy the gallery space, with their mirrored surfaces reflecting art, walls and spectators as part of the interactive work. Created in conjunction with the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, this large installation of “Silver Clouds” embodies an imaginative blend of art and technology.

With almost 200 pieces, these three aspects of the master of Pop Art’s work will immerse viewers in Warhol’s Silver Factory world, from the intimate small-scale Polaroid studies and often spur-of-the-moment gelatin silver photographs to the colorful large-scale iconic prints and the drifting sculptural “Silver Clouds.”

For more information about the exhibition and to arrange group tours, call 912.525.7191, or visit www.scad.edu/scadmuseum. Museum hours are Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. and Sunday, 1-5 p.m.