The Augustana University art gallery is showcasing original work by pop artist Andy Warhol that includes screen prints of Annie Oakley and Chief Sitting Bull.
Lindsey Twa is the director of the Edie/Dalrymple Gallery at Augustana University. She says the Andy Warhol Foundation contacted Augustana to receive nine screen prints and one lithograph because of Chief Sitting Bull’s legacy in South Dakota.
“Warhol had a deep deep fascination with the Wild West. And the two Sitting Bulls and Annie Oakley are part of a series called 'Cowboys and Indians' that was one of the last series of his life,” says Twa.
Warhol was an iconic pop artist known for his use of bright colors and experimenting with traditional art forms starting in the 1950s.
“Warhol will translate images from popular media, or in this case an historic photograph taken around 1881, and so he blew it large, transferred it onto a screen, and began printing it and overlaying it with bright colors,” says Twa.
Twa says art students helped select the pieces and researched Warhol’s work.
“Student Kaitlyn Carlon who researched Annie Oakley talked about her becoming more represented more like a Las Vegas dance hall queen than the 19th century sharpshooter that she was. And so the bright contemporary colors sort of displace what we think about a history that is over a hundred years prior to us,” says Twa.
The exhibit is also accompanied by Warhol photographs donated in 2008 and is free to the public. The gallery runs until March 5th.