June is Pride Month, a time dedicated to celebrating LGBTQ+ communities all around the world. Our blog today focusses on a gay artist who was one of the inspirations behind the artwork that was specially created for our collection in 2019.
In autumn 2019, renowned Scottish artist Calum Colvin (Royal Scottish Academy) was commissioned to create a portrait of Andrew Carnegie to commemorate the centenary of his death. While creating the work, Calum sought inspiration from our collections, and from visitors he met at the museum. However, he also had another source of inspiration - the portrait of Andrew Carnegie by Pittsburgh-born pop artist Andy Warhol.
Video: Due to copyright reasons, we are unable to reproduce Warhol’s image of Carnegie in our blog, but you can see it in this video.
Although Warhol was not marching in the streets campaigning for LGBTQ+ rights, being gay was an important part of his life and unlike many of his contemporaries, he openly expressed his sexuality through many of his colourful silkscreens and films. Like many other Pittsburghers, Warhol benefited from Andrew Carnegie’s legacy in the city. Growing up, he attended free art classes at the Carnegie Museum of Art and went on to study commercial art at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University).
Warhol created two silkscreen portraits of Carnegie in 1981 at the request of the Carnegie Museum of Art and one of their private benefactors. The less colourful of them depicts Andrew Carnegie against a purple and red background. The other paints him in bright green, red and turquoise colours. If you had a chance to see Calum Colvin’s work in progress, you may have spotted the direct references he created to one of Warhol’s prints - not only in the colour choices but also in Andrew Carnegie’s pose and his clothing (note the bow tie!).
Image: Calum Colvin’s installation taking shape at the Birthplace Museum in 2019. The work in progress had Warhol-inspired red-and-grey background. You can see print-outs of Warhol’s Carnegie that Calum used for inspiration on the left.
Image: Calum Colvin with his finished portrait of Carnegie. Although the work no longer has a bright Warhol-inspired background, Andrew’s pose and clothing still has a close resemblance to Warhol’s work.
Although the two Andys (Warhol and Carnegie) led very different lives in different time periods, they are both Pittsburgh icons who revolutionised the world around them.
Sadly, our museum collection cannot afford an original Warhol artwork but knowing that Warhol’s legacy lives on in our art collection in a small way, is rather special!
To find out more about Andy Warhol’s role as a gay icon, please visit the Warhol museum website. The Warhol museum (which is part of Carnegie Museums family in Pittsburgh) also runs a virtual tour every month called Dandy Andy: Warhol’s Queer History. More info on their website.
