Exhibition Of Andy Warhol's Cars At The Montclair Art Museum In New Jersey

Written by Phil Patton Wednesday, 21 September 2011 21:04

Montclair, New Jersey (New York Times).- Long before BMW commissioned him to paint an art car, Andy Warhol had translated an abiding fascination with automobiles into work. A new show through June 19th 2011 at the Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey includes some 40 works and other items on the exhibition theme, “Warhol and Cars.” The show’s linchpin is a Warhol painting owned by the institution, “Twelve Cadillacs,” which depicts a dozen repeated views of the front of a 1963 Fleetwood 60 Special. To Warhol, the Cadillac was as iconic as Mickey Mouse, Marilyn Monroe, the Campbell’s soup can or the Coca-Cola bottle. The painting was one of several automotive-themed Warhol works published in the November 1962 edition of Harper’s Bazaar, when the magazine commissioned Warhol to produce a visual commentary on the automobile.

The cultural importance of Cadillacs and other cars is given some context with the show’s inclusion of advertisements, brochures and design drawings from the Jean S. and Frederic A. Sharf Collection of American Automobile Art. Some notable early drawings, like a 1940s piece featuring a produce truck operated by Warhol’s brother, were lent by the Andy Warhol Museum in his native Pittsburgh. Other examples depict cars drawn during Warhol’s unglamorous years as a commercial artist for department stores and other clients. In a series devoted to paintings of memorable print advertisements, Warhol rendered the famous Volkswagen “Lemon” ad from 1960 in silkscreen. A scale model of a racecar painted by Warhol is complemented by a video of the car running at the Le Mans racetrack in 1980.

But perhaps the exhibition’s most striking item is a model, measuring about two feet long, of a BMW art car that was never built: a 320i from 1979, painted black with pink roses. In a diary entry quoted by the show curators, Warhol wrote mischievously that he hoped the flowers would get a reaction out of BMW executives. Ultimately, BMW replaced the 320i with an M1, yielding the colorful, and no doubt less controversial, Warhol art car that was displayed two years ago at Grand Central Terminal.




A notable community institution with an international reputation, the Montclair Art Museum is still located in the same—though now thrice-expanded—building in which it opened in 1914. Situated amid a beautiful, tree-lined residential area of Montclair, New Jersey, just 12 miles west of New York City, the Museum is esteemed for its holdings of American and Native American art, its exhibition programs, and its educational offerings.

The Montclair Art Museum was one of the country’s first museums primarily engaged in collecting American art (including the work of contemporary, nonacademic artists) and among the first dedicated to the study and creation of a significant ethnographic art collection. This pioneering spirit still reverberates in the Museum’s pursuit and presentation of high-quality art that characterizes and celebrates America’s diversity. The collection has grown to over 12,000 works. The American collection, which began with a gift of 30 paintings from William T. Evans, a Montclair civic leader, comprises paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, and sculpture dating from the 18th century to the present, and features excellent works by Benjamin West, Asher B. Durand, George Inness, John Singer Sargent, Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe, Andy Warhol, and Roy Lichtenstein, as well as younger and emerging artists such as Louise Lawler, Chakaia Booker, Whitfield Lovell, and Willie Cole.




The Museum’s superb holdings of traditional and contemporary American Indian art and artifacts represent the cultural achievements in weaving, pottery, wood carving, jewelry, and textiles of indigenous Americans from seven major regions—Northwest Coast, California, Southwest, Plains, Woodlands, Southeast, and the Arctic. The collection was begun by Annie Valentine Rand and carried on by her philanthropic daughter Florence Rand Lang, one of the Museum’s founders, and continues to grow with commissioned works, gifts, and purchases that celebrate the vitality and modernity of traditional forms and beliefs. Among the contemporary American Indian artists represented are Tony Abeyta, Dan Namingha, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Allan Houser, Bentley Spang, and Marie Watt.

The Museum’s extensive education programs serve a wide public and, often in collaboration with cultural and community partners, bring artists, performers, and scholars to the Museum on a regular basis. MAM’s Yard School of Art is the leading regional art school, offering a multitude of comprehensive classes for kids, teens, adults, seniors, and professional artists. One of the first museums to be accredited by the American Association of Museums, the Montclair Art Museum welcomes more than 65,000 visitors annually to its acclaimed exhibitions and programs. The expansion and progress of the Museum has been made possible by the participation, generosity, and farsightedness of its founders, trustees, members, and friends. Their support has helped to make the Montclair Art Museum the vital institution it is today. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.montclairartmuseum.org

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