In the 1920s and 1930s, Steichen’s innovative portraits of actors, writers, musicians, politicians, models, and socialites for Vanity Fair and Vogue elevated his subjects (which included Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Eugene O’Neill, and Ethel and John Barrymore, to name just a few) to iconic status. Fifty years later, Warhol borrowed from and subverted that language of celebrity for his photographs of friends and patrons.
Organized by the Block Museum, this is the first exhibition to compare the work of Steichen and Warhol side by side. Steichen ǀ Warhol is drawn primarily from the Block’s collection and highlights two major gifts to the Museum—49 vintage Steichen prints from Richard and Jackie Hollander donated in honor of Northwestern President Morton Schapiro and his wife Mimi Schapiro and more than 150 Warhol photographs from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
The Block Museum thanks Richard and Jackie Hollander and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for the gifts of art that inspired this exhibition. Steichen | Warhol: Picturing Fame is made possible by support to the Block from the Illinois Arts Council, the Kaplan Institute for the Humanities at Northwestern University, the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation and the Terra Foundation for American Art on behalf of David Kabiller.
Opening Program
January 18, 2:00 PM-4:00 PM
Featuring opening remarks by Northwestern University President Morton Schapiro, presentation by scholar and theorist W. J. T. Mitchell, and interviews with Left Front and Steichen | Warhol curators. Pop-up performances, in collaboration with Northwestern University Professor D. Soyini Madison, will animate the galleries.
Interdisciplinary Gallery Talk: “Picturing Fame”
January 30, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PM
Northwestern faculty members Nick Davis (English), Mary Pool (Theatre), and Beth Corzo-Duchardt (Radio/Television/Film) come together for an interdisciplinary discussion of Picturing Fame.
Curator’s Gallery Talk: Steichen’s Style: Innovations in Photography
April 2, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Join Elliot Reichert and Michal Raz-Russo, assistant curator in the department of photography at the Art Institute of Chicago, for a discussion of Steichen’s photography innovations.