MILWAUKEE (AP) — Andy Warhol kept boxes upon boxes of soup cans, receipts, fan mail and other items, including thousands of photos he later used as inspiration for his giant paintings.
Now more than 180 colleges and university museums and galleries around the nation are benefiting. The New York City-based Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has donated to them more than 28,500 of Warhol's photos, worth $28 million.
“This is a little-known body of Warhol's work,” said Jenny Moore, curator for the foundation's “Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program.” “I think most people are familiar with the paintings and even the sculptures and ... we really wanted the chance to let a broader audience gain access to his photographic work, which is of course the basis of so much of his artistic production.”
Each of the public educational institutions has generally received about 100 Polaroid and 50 black-and-white photos from the 1970s and '80s, Moore said. They have gifted most of the photos since they started the program in 2007 but are still giving out more, she said.
The photos include celebrity snapshots, couples, nudes, painting ideas, party photos, still lifes and outdoor scenes. He often used the photos as the inspiration for portraits, silkscreen paintings, drawings and prints.
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