Exploring the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, PA
The city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is the birthplace of, and home to, many influential people in American history, including famed artist Andy Warhol. A museum honoring the influential pop artist, film director, and producer opened in 1994 in the heart of Pittsburgh.
The Andy Warhol Museum showcases the largest collection of Warhol’s works and personal memorabilia, and is also the largest single-artist museum in North America. The museum’s collection includes over 8,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, books, films, and photographs. One of four Carnegie Museums, the Andy Warhol Museum has seven floors that celebrate the work, and life, of Warhol with several interactive exhibits that art enthusiasts of all ages will enjoy.
Travel Tips:
Highlights of each floor of the Warhol Museum:
7th floor (the 1950s): Learn all about Andrew Warhol’s early life, growing up in Pittsburgh in the 1930s and 1940s. Andy worked to help support his family before attending college and moving to New York City to become a successful artist. He refined the process known as “blotted lines”. In the late 1950s he started painting “Pop Art” which was a popular movement in Britain. He enlarged images from magazines and hand painted them on canvases.
6th floor (the 1960s): Andy worked a lot with silkscreens and the exhibit on this floor showcases his silkscreen printing. Warhol announced he would retire from painting in 1965 and focused his energies on film making. Over his lifetime, he produced over 650 films of various lengths and subjects. Visitors can also make their own slow-motion portrait film in the Screen Test Machine.
5th floor (the 1970s): Engage with the Silver Clouds, a floating, metallic sculpture. Many of Warhol’s works evoke the portraits of the 1970s exhibit that opened in the Whitney museum in NYC. Check out the exhibit about Warhol’s Ladies and Gentlemen series from 1974-1975, one of his largest commissions.
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4th floor (the 1980s): Check out the massive Camouflage acrylic and silk screening on line from 1986 that spans most of the length of the room and Warhol’s collaboration with Jean-Michel Basquiat entitled “In Focus”, which utilizes ten large punching bags. There is also a film and video gallery with touch screens that invite visitors to view over 100 selections of Warhol’s film, video, and television works.
3rd floor (Archives Study Center): Home to 500,000 objects including photographs, scrapbook, audiotapes, magazines, clothing, and furnishings from Warhol’s life, visitors can pull out some of the drawers in the display cases and see artifacts up close.
2nd floor: The second floor is used for rotating and special exhibits- see the current list here.
1st floor: View the 30 minute 15 Minutes Eternal film that chronicles Warhold’s personal life and career as told by close friends and family members, as well as video clips of interviews with Warhol himself.
Underground level: The Factory is a hands-on studio, with a rotating calendar of activities for visitors and a play area for children. Visitors can create take-home souvenirs like tote bags and t-shirts for a nominal cost. Note: We missed the opportunity to explore the Factory, as it closes earlier than the rest of the museum.
Looking for other adventures in Pittsburgh? See our full features of The Frick Pittsburgh Museums and Garden, the Pittsburgh Children’s Museum, the Pittsburgh Zoo and Aquarium, the Carnegie Science Center, Acrisure Stadium, the Heinz History Center, and our full Pittsburgh City Guide.
Disclosure: Our family was given a media pass to explore the museum; all opinions expressed are my own.
