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ANDY WARHOL
(American, 1928-1987)

Birmingham Race Riot, 1964
Screenprint on paper
Gift of Douglas S. Cramer in memory of Pauline Compton Cramer 2002.21
© 2004 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Andy Warhol began his professional career as an illustrator and commercial artist. Although he experimented with a variety of media and subject matter throughout his lifetime, he never abandoned his quest to utilize tools of the mass media to capture particular moments in American history and culture. Immortalized by his seemingly innocuous prints of iconic celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe and of consumer products such as Campbell’s Soup, Warhol also made controversial statements during the 1960s by transforming highly charged political images into works of art. His Birmingham Race Riot was adapted from a photograph taken by journalist Charles Moore during the violent Birmingham, Alabama, uprising of May 1963. Moore’s images of white policemen using attack dogs and high-powered water hoses against peaceful black demonstrators were featured in Life magazine, the most popular weekly serial of this time. Warhol enlarged and cropped this picture, which had provoked national outrage, in order to increase its dramatic and emotional effect. Reproduced in several different color and size combinations, Warhol hoped that Birmingham Race Riot would challenge his idea that mass media made Americans numb to the horrific images of real events.

To see a work by Andy Warhol in the collection of the University of Kentucky Art Museum, click here.