Events & Festivals

London’s first retrospective of Andy Warhol art in almost 20 years is to open at the Tate Modern on 12 March.

The gallery hosted the last Warhol show in 2002 with a broad sweep of the artist’s work, which over time has come to epitomise the American pop art movement. This show, however, will take a slightly different tack.

The exhibition will shed light on how Warhol’s personal experiences shaped his take on 20th century culture, leading him to make the work that transformed our perception of it.

Andy Warhol Pop Art

Warhol is best known for his prints of Coca-Cola bottles, Marilyn Monroe and the electric chair, images that held a mirror up to American life. But the Tate Modern March show will focus on themes such as desire and identity, on the deeper drives of a shy, gay man from a low-income, migrant family from Czechoslovakia.

Andy lived with his devoutly religious mother Julia Warhola for most of his life, a factor given context at this exhibition.

Warhol and His Sexuality

Warhol’s sexuality will be an important theme in the show, beginning with a selection of early line drawings of male nudes from the 1950s, and films such as the strange, intimate Sleep from 1963, which documents his lover the poet John Giorno.

Significantly, Warhol’s Ladies And Gentlemen works from 1975, about New York’s transgender community, will get the largest display ever seen in the UK. His final works of the 1980s, including Sixty Last Suppers, on view for the first time here, will be placed in relation to the then-unfolding HIV/AIDS epidemic, which impacted on many people within his circle.

Andy Warhol Marilyn Monroe, Elvis and Velvet Underground

More Andy Warhol works, such as Marilyn Diptych (1962) and Elvis I and II (1963/ 1964) will be on view, as will his Screen Tests from 1964.

At his peak, Warhol was briefly a “rock manager”, and the exhibition will feature a recreation of the Plastic Exploding Inevitable (1966), first produced for the band the Velvet Underground for their shows in New York.

Why not make a day of your visit to the Andy Warhol exhibition? Read Mark Bibby Jackson’s London South Bank: Tate Modern to Borough Market.

Andy Warhol at Tate Modern

Andy Warhol art exhibition runs at the Tate Modern from March 12 to September 6

Cost £22 (£20 concessions and free for members).

Open daily: 10am to 6pm and until 10pm on Friday and Saturday

For information call +44(0)20 7887 8888, visit: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/andy-warhol follow @Tate #AndyWarhol.

Cover image: Marilyn Diptych 1962 © 2019 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc / Artists Right Society (ARS), New York and DACS, London. Background image Andy Warhol (1928 – 1987) Sixty Last Suppers 1986 Nicola Erni Collection © 2020 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Licensed by DACS, London. 

Words by Rob Spellman.