Silent Spring: Andy Warhol's Endangered Species and Vanishing Animals

The Morris Museum is pleased to present 16 original prints of animals facing extinction by renowned Pop artist Andy Warhol in the exhibition Silent Spring: Andy Warhol’s Endangered Species and Vanishing Animals. Though most noted for his Pop Art portraits of politicians and movie stars, iconographic depictions of Campbell soup cans or avant-garde films of the 1960s and 1970s, Andy Warhol was also a devoted environmentalist with a particular concern for the planet’s endangered species. He drew animals in his science class at the Holmes School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; kept a flower garden in the backyard of his family’s Pittsburgh home and drew in parks and conservatories around the city, maintaining an active and committed interest in nature. In 1983, Warhol created his Endangered Species print portfolio; then in 1986 he worked in collaboration with Kurt Benirschke of the San Diego Zoo, to produce the book Vanishing Animals, bringing his Pop sensibility and style to the images of an elephant, rhinoceros, butterfly, eagle and other threatened species. Though the message of the images is global, the images themselves are distinctly “Warhol.” Screen prints from both works will be on view in the exhibition. Art dealers Ronald and Fraya Feldman commissioned Warhol’s Endangered Species portfolio, after conversations with Warhol about ecological issues, particularly beach erosion, a phenomenon Warhol witnessed along his beachfront property on Long Island. The exhibition, Silent Spring: Andy Warhol’s Endangered Species and Vanishing Animals is organized by The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, one of the four Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh and is on loan to the Morris Museum.