Vassar Quarterly - Spring 2018 - 6

Vassar News

People are Beautiful
Rarely Seen Prints, Photographs, and Films by Andy Warhol

Left: Andy Warhol, Ladies and Gentlemen, 1975,
screen print on paper, the Samuel Dorsky Museum
of Art, SUNY New Paltz

Fashion, Models, and the Party Scene; and
the "Most Beautiful" Screen Tests.
Alongside portraits of superstars such as
Marilyn Monroe, Ingrid Bergman, and Jackie
Kennedy are portraits from Warhol's most
sociopolitical series, Ladies and Gentlemen,
which features images of trans people of
color that he encountered at the New York
nightclub, the gilded grape.
People are Beautiful is part of Warhol x 5,
a series of exhibitions in 2018 organized by
five college and university art museums in
the region and drawing upon each other's

People are Beautiful, an exhibition of close to 100 rarely seen works by Andy Warhol, will
be on view through April 15 at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center (FLLAC) on campus. The
exhibition, curated by Mary-Kay Lombino, Emily Hargroves Fisher '57 and richard B. Fisher
Curator at FLLAC, explores shifting notions of beauty in the artist's portraits from 1964 to 1985.
"Obsessed with glamor and beauty, an avid collector of celebrity tabloid photos, and
plagued by insecurities about his own appearance since childhood, Warhol helped to redefine
the term 'beautiful' and its parameters over and over during his lifetime," states Lombino. He
eventually became a consummate insider, celebrity artist, and favorite of the paparazzi, but his
notoriety never quashed his deep anxiety and self-doubt.
People are Beautiful focuses entirely on portraits-in prints, photographs, and film-
and investigates such themes as Celebrity and Stardom; The Patron-Artist relationship;
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collections. Each museum focuses on a
different theme, and all five exhibitions
feature works donated by the Andy Warhol
Foundation for the Visual Arts. In addition
to the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, the
other four museums participating in Warhol
x 5 are the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at
SUNY New Paltz, the Hessel Museum of Art
at Bard College, the University Art Museum
at University at Albany, and the Neuberger
Museum of Art at Purchase College.
In 2007, the Andy Warhol Foundation
for the Visual Arts created the Andy Warhol
Photographic Legacy Program to honor the
20th anniversary of the Warhol Foundation.
The program made substantial gifts of
Warhol's photographic works to 183 college
and university museums and galleries across
the United States. A total of 28,500 photographs were donated to these permanent
collections that year in order to provide
greater access to Warhol's work.
In conjunction with the Warhol x 5 exhibition series, a symposium will be held April
12-13 on the Vassar and SUNY New Paltz
campuses.
-Alison Hendre

For more information about the exhibition
and related events, visit fllac.vassar.edu.

Warhol was "obsessed with
glamor and beauty" says
curator Mary-Kay Lombino;
he eventually refined
their parameters.

http://fllac.vassar.edu

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Vassar Quarterly - Spring 2018