Born in Pittsburg in 1928, where he went to art school, Andy Warhol is one of the most significant artists of the late 20th century. He moved to New York City and lived there until his death in 1987, where he created some of the great icons of pop art — you may be familiar with his multiple colourful screen prints of, for example, Campbell’s Soup Cans and Marilyn Monroe. When he first came on the scene his work was controversial and seemed gimmicky and superficial, but as this episode reveals, Warhol put a lot of thought and ingenuity into his creations which turn out to be surprisingly complex.
The exhibition at the MK Gallery, Portrait of America, celebrates the gallery’s 25th anniversary and showcases a selection of Warhol’s work from the Tate Artists Rooms Collection.
In what follows, Professor Jean Wainwright and artist Dido Powell discuss some of their favourite pieces.
Jean is an art historian, critic and curator living in London. She is an internationally recognised expert on Andy Warhol and passionate about his work. She was a consultant on the 3 part BBC series on Andy Warhol’s America and she kindly offered to take Art First around the show.
Dido is an artist and teacher of art history. She gives insightful and fascinating talks about selected works in the galleries in the acclaimed annual tours organised by the Academy of Ideas Arts and Society Forum.
In this tour, Jean takes us through the five rooms of the exhibition, and selects a couple of works in each which she introduces, then she invites Dido into a conversation about the work. In their conversation they give us an enlightening insight into Warhol’s artistic vision and achievement.
This episode is a bit of an experiment: it is audio about visual objects. So, below we have added a list of the images Dido and Jean comment on with links. But even better if you can go to the MK Gallery exhibition yourself, before the end of June — and take this podcast with you, as your own personal audio guide.
We hope you enjoy it and please do give us feedback.
Artworks
Most of these links are to the Tate Collections but where the image is unavailable on the Tate website I have tried to locate another one (*)
Film Festival Lincoln Centre (ticket) (*)
Marilyn There are several varied images of Marylyn on the Tate website — this is just the first few, on page 1 of the collection
Gilbert & George There are several images scattered through the Tate Collections webpages
Electric Chair There are several Electric Chair images on the Tate website: this link takes you to a few on page 2 of the collection, but there more on page 1.
Cow This seems to be the only Cow image on the Tate website. The exhibition features a brightly coloured printed wallpaper of repeated Cow images.
Map of eastern USSR Missile bases
Camouflage (*)
Ballet shoes (*)
Self-Portrait in fright wig There are several versions of this portrait in the Tate collection.
Professor Jean Wainwright is curating the exhibition Andy Warhol: My True Story, 7 June – 14 September 2025 at Newlands House Gallery, Petworth, West Sussex GU28 0DX.
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