MUSEUM PREVIEW
Cartersville
Warhol aren’t likely aware that the pop icon loved the West. However,
the West was a nearly constant influence throughout his life. Warhol wore
cowboy boots more often than not and loved to travel to New Mexico, Fort
Worth and Colorado, and he amassed an overwhelming collection of Naive
American art and artifacts.”
Warhol and the West, featuring over 100 objects and works of art, opens
at the Booth August 25 and continues through December 31. The exhibition
was organized by the Booth, Tacoma Art Museum and National Cowboy &
Western Heritage Museum.
In his catalog essay, Hopkins describes Warhol’s collecting Western
artifacts. He writes, “In the late 1960s Warhol began to devote more
time to his lifelong collecting habits. He voraciously collected prints and
photographs of Native Americans; American Indian–made weavings, baskets
and jewelry; and tribal art from around the globe. Warhol had a high regard
for Native American artists, particularly women. ‘I think American Indian
art is the greatest art,’ he once said. At another time he expressed his belief
that “the women were the best anyway...they did those things that I like the
best, the Indian rugs—they wove all those beautiful things.’” The auction of
Warhol’s estate included 650 pieces of American Indian art.
Warhol was known for appropriating images from the public realm to be
Endangered Species:
Bighorn Ram,
1983, screenprint
on Lenox museum
board, artist’s proof
21 of 30, 38 x 38”.
The Andy Warhol
Museum, Pittsburgh;
Founding Collection,
Contribution the
Andy Warhol
Foundation for the
Visual Arts, Inc.,
998.1.2466.10.Cowboys and
Indians: John
Way ne, 1986,
screenprint on
Lenox museum
board, trial proof
11 of 36, 36 x 36”.
Collection Booth
Western Art
Museum.