Jackie

Andy Warhol was one of the most prolific and well-known artists of the late twentieth century. The son of first-generation Czechoslovakian immigrants, Warhol grew up in Pittsburgh, and moved to New York in 1949, where he found work in graphic design and began collecting and making art. He set up his own studio and worked with a large number of assistants. His fame increased markedly throughout the 1960s and '70s, until his death in 1987 after complications from gall bladder surgery.

The AMAM collection contains works in many media by the artist, including the Electric Chair and Mao Tse Tung print portfolios, an early shoe drawing, and iconic images of luminaries such as Marilyn Monroe, Liz Taylor, and Jackie Kennedy. Warhol's series of portraits of Jackie was done in 1963 and 1964, immediately following John F. Kennedy's assassination. This event and its aftermath were replayed constantly on TV, and became part of the national psyche. A work that brings together death, celebrity, and the media, Jackie shows the young widow as reproduced in a newspaper photo. Photo graphs were of primary importance for Warhol's working practice; indeed, his approach to art may be said to be "photographic," as he sought to reproduce images from newspapers, magazines, and other publications in his prints and paintings.

Jackie was part of the collection of Professor Ellen Johnson. She became one of Warhol's friends in the early 1960s, and the work was a gift to her from the artist. She wrote in her memoirs of meetings with him in New York and the importance of photography in his work.

The AMAM collection also contains over 150 photographs by the artist-both silver gelatin prints and Polaroids-that were a gift of the The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in 2008, as part of The Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program.