Traverse City Record-Eagle

Life

Related Photos

January 8, 2009

Warhol photos, Petroskey portraits exhibited

By MARTA HEPLER DRAHOS

TRAVERSE CITY -- Adore him or ignore him, Andy Warhol is arguably one of the most important artists of the 20th century.

So when the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts announced it would donate 28,543 original Warhol photographs -- valued at more than $28 million -- to mark its 20th anniversary, Eugene Jenneman jumped at the chance to apply.

"No one can deny Warhol's impact on 20th century art and pop art," said Jenneman, director of the Dennos Museum Center, one of 183 college and university art museums across the country to receive a gift of Warhol art. "He's one of those artists who fits into the realm of 'celebrity artist.' He did crazy things ... He took subjects no one else took, like the electric chair, and gave them personality and portrayed them artistically."

The museum will display about 50 original Polaroid photographs and gelatin silver prints in the exhibition "Andy Warhol: Photography -- Gifts of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts," Jan. 18-April 5. They're among 150 Warhol photographs, taken from 1972 to 1986, that the museum received through the Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program aimed at providing greater access to Warhol's artwork, process and interactions with his sitters -- particularly with regard to what curators call "this important yet relatively unknown body of Warhol's work."

Warhol, who died in 1987, was best known for his work as a painter, avant-garde filmmaker, record producer, author and public figure, but he also snapped thousands of pictures and toted a camera almost everywhere he went.

"Often, he would shoot a person or event with both cameras, cropping one in Polaroid color as a 'photograph' and snapping the other in black and white as a 'picture'," said Jenny Moore, curator of the Photographic Legacy Program, in a press release.

The exhibition will include a variety of photographic images, most studies for portraits the artist later painted of people like dancer and choreographer Martha Graham, golfer Jack Nicklaus and entertainer Liza Minnelli.

"He did a prolific number of these Polaroid portraits and these became the groundwork for more detailed, advanced works of art," Jenneman said, adding that some of the photographs and images of the paintings they later became will be displayed side by side.

"When you see these images and if you're familiar with Warhol's work at all, you'll see the connection," he said.

The Warhol additions will contribute significantly to the museum's modest photo collection of about 30 works by artists of international and regional importance, Jenneman said. Currently, the museum holds works by such noted photographers as Edward Weston, Imogene Cunningham, Bernice Abbot, Arnold Newman, Misha Gordin and Michael Kenna as well as regional photographer Greg Seman.

The exhibition will run concurrently with "Fred Petroskey: A Leelanau Portrait," featuring about two dozen works by the Lake Leelanau portrait artist from the new book by the same title.

A graduate of Lake Leelanau St. Mary's, Petroskey received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Western Michigan University, then painted and taught in Kalamazoo and Boston for several years before returning to the area in 1984.

Over the next few decades he captured hundreds of area characters -- from hairdressers and bartenders to doctors and lawyers -- in oils and pastels. Among the best known are businessman and philanthropist Michael Dennos, attorney Dean Robb, author Jim Harrison and the late actor Don Melvoin.

"It started out with people who are familiar in the county -- for good or evil -- and sometimes unsung," said Petroskey, who paints from a 19th-century renovated farmhouse at the edge of Lake Leelanau village. "I thought, 'If they died tomorrow they would be sorely missed.'"

Although later commissions included the late Michigan Supreme Court Justice James Brickley and the vice presidents of Wabash College and Ball State University, some of Petroskey's favorite portraits are ones he painted for himself. Those are the ones featured in the book, written by longtime admirer Gintaras R. Kastys, a former Chicago marketing executive now living in Suttons Bay.

Works in the exhibition include Petroskey's self-portrait and a portrait of his late mother-in-law, Mimi, which he worked on for two decades.

"I kept changing it. I was never satisfied," said Petroskey, whose style often recalls that of late 19th and early 20th century portraits by John Singer Sargent, Thomas Eakins and John Sloan. "I was after something and I finally got it."

Copies of the book will be available in the museum store, with sales benefiting the museum.

A reception for both exhibitions as well as a third -- Ancient Bronzes of the Asian Grasslands -- will take place Jan. 24 beginning at 5 p.m., with a book signing with Petroskey and Kastys at 6 p.m., and a conversation with the artist and author at 7:15 p.m.

For more information or to RSVP, call 995-1055.

Text Only