A Look Into Our Collection’s Polaroid Photographs by Andy Warhol
Description
Contributors
Tatiana Mandis (Brown BA 2023, History of Art and Architecture) lead this project on behalf of the RISD Museum. The purpose of the film is to educate the public about RISD’s Andy Warhol Polaroid Photograph Collection in an engaging way.
The Team consisted of the following Brown University students:
Adelle Clark (Brown BA 2024)
Animator
Tatiana Mandis (Brown BA 2023)
Director
Harrison Katz (Brown BA 2023)
Narrator
Julien Robson (Brown BA 2023)
Composer
The Team was advised by and worked closely with the following members of the RISD Museum:
Jeremy Radtke
Director of Digital Initiatives
Deborah Clemons
Director of Public Programs
Jan Howard
Former Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs. Curator of the RISD Museum’s 2014 Exhibition “Andy Warhol’s Photographs”
The Brown Arts Institute provided a grant for the students involved in this project
Publisher & Date
The RISD museum has around 120 Andy Warhol polaroid photographs in its collection.
Not many know, but the majority of these photographs were gifted by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in 2008. That year, the Foundation donated approximately 28,000 photographs to numerous college museums and galleries in order to give more access to Warhol’s photographs.
Photography was essential to Warhol’s practice.
In the 1970s, Warhol would use his polaroid camera to photograph subjects as studies for his paintings. He liked it because it washed out wrinkles and portrayed a more simplified image of the face. He would pose the subject three feet away from the camera to accommodate the fixed focal length and use around 5 rolls of film per subject.
One of the polaroids in the collection is of Henry Geldzahler.
Henry Geldzahler was not only a close friend of Warhol’s, but he was also the founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Modern and Contemporary Art Department.
With that position, Geldzahler was able to bring living artists into the historically more conservative Museum.
For one exhibition, Geldzahler cleared out 35 galleries of the Met and displayed over 408 works of modern American art — including works by Warhol.
Warhol once said “Henry gave me all of my ideas.” which of course was an exaggeration, but pertained a bit of truth - Geldzahler did, for instance, show Warhol a two page magazine ad of flowers which served as the basis of Warhol’s Flower series.
Another polaroid image in the collection is that of actress Viva holding a baby
Viva was an actress, given this stage name by Andy Warhol prior to her first film
She appeared in several of Warhol’s films and was on the phone with Warhol when he was shot in 1968, 3 years before her series of polaroids were taken
These polaroids are important not only because they represent a central element of Warhol’s practice, but also because they provide insight into the characters of Warhol’s life. Warhol only really began showing these photographs towards the end of his life, and now, thanks to the Warhol Photographic Legacy Program, you can access them at the RISD Museum.
