UH Libraries News

Andy Warhol Photos Now Open to the Public

University of Houston Libraries Special Collections and Public Art of the University of Houston System announce the Andy Warhol Photographs collection, now available to the public for the first time and offering a rare and fascinating view of the artist’s working process.

Andy Warhol Photographs are now available to the public in the UH Special Collections Reading Room.

Andy Warhol Photographs are now available to the public in the UH Special Collections Reading Room.

The collection comprises 149 photographs, 99 Polaroids and 50 black-and-white silver gelatin prints, created by Warhol from 1975 to 1985 and including his friends, celebrities, and socialites. Among the iconic faces captured by the pop artist are Julian Schnabel, Princess Caroline of Monaco, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Billy Squier.

The collection was gifted to Public Art of the University of Houston System by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and was made possible through the Photographic Legacy program which launched in 2007 to provide greater access to Warhol’s unknown bodies of work. The program donated more than 28,500 photos by Warhol to 180 educational institutions, including UH, which received a curated selection of the artist’s original photos and prints. A 2008 exhibition at Blaffer Gallery celebrated the acquisition and displayed over 50 of the images.

Michael Guidry, curator of Public Art of the University of Houston System, partnered with Mary Manning, UH Special Collections’ Performing and Visual Arts Research Collection curator, to make this extensive selection of Warhol photos accessible to researchers, scholars, and the general public. Visitors may view the collection in the Special Collections Reading Room.

Special recognition goes to the staff who helped make the collection available, including Bethany Scott, digital projects coordinator, and student assistant Micaela Cadungog.

Written by Esmeralda Fisher on May 14th, 2018 and filed under Announcements