Andy Warhol, Martha Graham, May 1979, Polacolor Type 108, Gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program. © 2008 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

CHAMPAIGN, IL.- The Krannert Art Museum presents Polaroids and Portraits: A Photographic Legacy of Andy Warhol, on view through May 24, 2009. Polaroids and Portraits presents a selection of the 152 photographs that Krannert Art Museum graciously received from the Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program. Established in 2007 to commemorate the Warhol Foundation’s twentieth anniversary, the Legacy Program gifted over 28,500 original photographs to 183 college and university museums and galleries across the country with the hope of enabling wider access to these more seldom seen works. This exhibition displays both Polaroid and silver gelatin portraits of celebrities, socialites, and unknowns, all photographed with varying degrees of wit, humor, and intimacy. These photographs complicate our notion of the artist’s persona as wholly immersed in this world of glamour, presenting Warhol as not only a prolific photographer, but a man grappling with his own identity as a famous artist.

The exhibition was curated by Kathryn Koca. Exhibition supported in part by Fox Development Corporation; Fred and Donna Giertz; Office of the Chancellor, U of I; and Office of the Provost and Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs, U of I.

Andy Warhol, Liza Minnelli, Bianca Jagger, and Unidentified Women and Men, undated, Black and white print, Gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program. © 2008 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York