Collection: The Warhol Collection

Andy Warhol was an American artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the pop art movement. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Warhol initially pursued a successful career as a commercial illustrator. After exhibiting his work in several galleries in the late 1950s, he began to receive recognition as an influential and controversial artist.

His New York studio, The Factory, became a well-known gathering place that brought together distinguished intellectuals, drag queens, playwrights, Bohemian street people, Hollywood celebrities, and wealthy patrons. He promoted a collection of personalities known as Warhol superstars, and is credited with inspiring the widely used expression "15 minutes of fame".

In the late 1960s he managed and produced the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground and founded Interview magazine. 

The album cover for The Velvet Underground & Nico is recognizable for featuring a Warhol print of a banana. Early copies of the album invited the owner to "Peel slowly and see” and peeling back the banana skin revealed a flesh-colored banana underneath. 

Warhol’s 1964 series Flowers, however, is a refreshing and surprising departure from the artists’ initial themes of pop culture and commercialism, and every spring, critics are reminded of the influence that his nature-focused work continues to have on the art world. Whereas today the Flowers series may seamlessly blend in with Warhol’s oeuvre, the subject matter was– at the time– a sharp departure for an artist known for primarily for his images of brand