Andy Warhol

ANDY WARHOL, Sunset, 1972, screenprint on white paper. Courtesy of Wells Fargo Art Collection, St. Louis, MO

LANDSCAPE/MINDSCAPE: Selections from the Wells Fargo Collection opens this Sunday, May 18 at the Art Museum at the University of Kentucky. This is a big, bold, beautiful exhibition featuring some of the twentieth century's most prominent artists including Christo, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Motherwell and Andy Warhol.

Landscape has long been an important subject in American art. In the nineteenth century, the American spirit was often identified with the wild, untamed wilderness of the West or breathtaking views of the Hudson River Valley in the East. But in the twentieth century, artist overturned conventions and saw the landscape as a vehicle for both artistic and personal exploration.

By mid-century, Abstract Expressionists used glowing color and expressive line and gesture to capture the metaphysical qualities of the landscape rather than depict it literally. In the 1960s and 1970s Pop artists began to use the techniques and visual language of advertising and mass media.

One of the most influential Pop artists was Andy Warhol, who after a successful career as a commercial illustrator became a renowned and sometimes controversial artist. Warhol worked in a variety of media, including drawing, painting, printmaking, silk screening, photography, sculpture, film, and music. He was also a pioneer in computer-generated art. His large, colorful screenprints, pictured above are an exciting example of the works you will find in Landscape/Mindscape.