ON THIS DAY: May 13, 1994, Andy Warhol Museum opens

PITTSBURGH, Pa. — The Andy Warhol Museum opened on Pittsburgh’s North Side on Sandusky Street, following extensive renovations to the industrial warehouse, on May 13, 1994.

The museum is the largest single-artist museum in North America and holds the largest collection of Warhol’s art and archival materials, including 350 films, more than 4,000 videotapes and 610 time capsules that Warhol filled during his life.

Tate Modern has posted a virtual tour online of their Andy Warhol Exhibition, which opened just before the COVID-19 pandemic.

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WARHOL MUSEUM The sun shines behind the Andy Warhol Museum on Pittsburgh's Northside, Friday, Sept. 10, 2004. The Andy Warhol Museum is in the cross hairs of controversy, this time for a planned exhibit of previously published photographs of the abuse of Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib prison. The exhibit of between eight and 20 photos, called ``Inconvenient Evidence: Iraqi Prisoner Photographs from Abu Ghraib,'' is scheduled to open Sept. 17 at the Pittsburgh museum. The Warhol is collaborating with the International Center of Photography in New York City, which is also running the exhibit. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic) (KEITH SRAKOCIC/ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Born Andrew Warhola in 1928, and raised in Oakland, he graduated from Schenley High School in 1945. Shortly after graduating from the Carnegie Institute of Technology, he moved to New York City. There he enjoyed a successful career as an advertisement illustrator.

His nomadic New York studio was called “The Factory," and was a place where celebrities, wealthy patrons and the whole palette of humanity would gather and participate in his experimental art. At the Factory, an openly homosexual Warhol was described as presiding over an active drug and party culture in a sexually tense “court of lunatics.”

Warhol’s influential works spanned across multiple disciplines from printmaking to cinema. He became, perhaps, best known for his silkscreen paintings “Campbell’s Soup Cans” and “Marilyn Monroe.” Other notable works included various self-portraits and the BMW Art Car Project.

Warhol died shortly after gallbladder surgery on Feb. 22, 1987, at the age of 58.

The surgery was thought to be routine, but his family sued New York Hospital and accused it of providing poor care. The suit was settled out of court.

His brothers brought his body back to Pittsburgh and Warhol was buried at St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery in Bethel Park.

The Seventh Street Bridge was renamed for Andy Warhol on March 18, 2005, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the nearby Andy Warhol Museum. Sandusky Street, where the museum is located, leads to the bridge.

OTD: Andy Warhol

OTD: Seventh Street Bridge renamed for Andy Warhol OTD: Seventh Street Bridge renamed for Andy Warhol

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