By Gabrielle Prusak
Seven of pop artist Andy Warhol’s iconic silk screen prints will now call Flushing home.
The Godwin-Ternbach Museum at Queens College received the works as a gift from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Art.
“We are truly grateful to The Warhol Foundation for increasing the breadth and depth of our collection and enabling the presentation of these works to our community,” said Amy Winter, the Godwin-Ternbach director. “This gift greatly enhances our already sizable collection of Warhol work, which includes the Campbell’s Soup and electric chair suites of photo-silk screen prints.”
This donation to Queens College includes two prints of Warhol’s signature image of “Flowers” including one in black and white and one in color. There will also be portraits of famous American figures such as Muhammad Ali and Sitting Bull, images of the Brooklyn Bridge and Cologne Cathedral and “Ladies and Gentlemen,” from a series of portraits of New York City transvestites that Warhol created in 1975.
These works were created by using Warhol’s usual method of taking a Polaroid portrait of the sitter or image and silk screening it onto paper or canvas. Then it was embellished with synthetic polymer paint in a bright array of nearly psychedelic colors.
The Andy Warhol Foundation had donated 150 original Warhol Polaroid snapshots and gelatin silver prints back in 2008 to honor the 20th anniversary of the foundation.
A Warhol exhibition will be on display from Sept. 11 through Nov. 1 at the Godwin-Ternbach Museum.
The exhibit will be titled “Andy Warhol’s Photo-Aesthetic and Beyond,” and will include selected color Polaroid and black and white photographs as well as the prints.
