Andy Warhol: Stars of the Silver Screen

Andy Warhol: Stars of the Silver Screen explores Warhol’s fascination with Hollywood, fame, and stardom. Warhol’s desire to look at the stars was ignited while attending his neighborhood cinemas with his brothers in gritty, industrial 1930s Pittsburgh. He reveled in the glamorous actors, elegant costumes, and sophisticated settings of the movies from Hollywood’s golden years.

As a child, Warhol sent away for fan photos and devoured movie magazines, surrounding himself with celebrity images. This practice continued into adulthood, and he eventually accumulated a profusion of photographs, movie posters, and other memorabilia. Warhol’s lifelong infatuation with fame is traced from his earliest movie star scrapbook he started when he was a young boy to a Frank Sinatra biography that was on his bedside table when he died in 1987.

This exhibition considers celebrity through hundreds of archival items from The Warhol’s vast collection of Warhol’s personal items and related artworks, including paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, publications, film excerpts, television episodes, and video diaries. Part of Warhol’s Pop style had its genesis in images of the stars, and this exhibition examines some of the inspiration behind the work that kick-started the current age of global celebrity culture.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.