PITTSBURGH, PA.-The Andy Warhol Museum, Alcoa Foundation and Alcoa announced today that they have partnered to organize an extensive exhibition of Andy Warhol’s work for a tour of three major Russian cities beginning in September 2005. The exhibition, Andy Warhol: Artist of Modern Life, will be the largest and most important Warhol exhibition ever to travel to Russia and will contain not only masterpieces of Warhol’s oeuvre, but also rarely-seen film and archival material from The Warhol’s permanent collection.

“This exhibition includes more than 300 paintings, drawings, photographs, films and archival materials from the Museum’s permanent collection, as well as educational components and a catalogue created specifically for Russian audiences,” said Thomas Sokolowski, Director of The Warhol. “A previous exhibition of Warhol in Russia provided merely a soupçon of Warhol’s vast body of work. This new exhibition offers a more comprehensive and multi-faceted look at Warhol’s artistic career.”

Andy Warhol: Artist of Modern Life is made possible by the generous sponsorship of Alcoa Foundation and Alcoa. With Alcoa’s acquisition of two Russian fabricating plants in Samara and Belaya Kalitva, Russia, earlier this year, the partnership is part of Alcoa Foundation’s commitment to enhancing the quality of life in Alcoa communities worldwide.

“Alcoa Foundation and Alcoa are proud to sponsor this exhibition, to bring masterpieces and archival riches of The Andy Warhol Museum to the people of Russia,” said Alcoa Chairman and CEO Alain Belda. “We have a proud tradition of supporting Russian art - from 1977 when Alcoa Foundation served as the chief sponsor of Russia and Soviet Painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to our support of this fall’s exhibition, RUSSIA!, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. This exhibition by The Warhol celebrates Alcoa's presence in Russia, and it continues our tradition of support.”

“We are honored to have the support of Alcoa Foundation and Alcoa on this project. Their proven dedication to the arts and interest in Russian culture made it a perfect fit,” said Sokolowski.

Andy Warhol: Artist of Modern Life will open to the public at the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow on September 13, 2005 and be on view through November 13, 2005. It will then travel to The Ludwig Museum at the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg in mid-December and conclude its tour at the Samara Art Museum in Samara in spring 2006. Concurrent with the Samara dates, additional Warhol works will be exhibited in Belaya Kalitva to complement youth outreach and educational programming there.

“Alcoa Foundation's philanthropy focuses on business and community partnerships, health, education, conservation and sustainability. We celebrate culture as a gateway to unlocking human potential and as a vehicle to enhance education. This exhibition fosters connections between the city where Alcoa was established - Pittsburgh - and the communities in Russia where so many new Alcoans live,” said William J. O’Rourke, President - Alcoa Russia.

The exhibition - Andy Warhol: Artist of Modern Life will be centered on two important and enduring categories in Warhol’s work: portraiture and still-life. Within each of these traditional art historical typologies, the exhibition will explore connected and inter-related themes as a way to illuminate Warhol’s various forms of artistic practice, highlight his engagement with his times, and to underscore his genius for moving the continuum of art history forward.

“The exhibition plays off ideas laid out by 19th century critic and poet Charles Baudelaire, who challenged the artists of his day to turn from tired and academic subjects and take on the exciting subject of modernity,” says John Smith, Assistant Director of Collections and Research at The Warhol. “One hundred years later, Warhol and his fellow Pop artists took that directive to heart by creating work that drew its inspiration from the visual richness of post-war American life. In many ways, Warhol is the perfect embodiment of what Baudelaire called, a ‘painter of modern life’.”

Andy Warhol: Artist of Modern Life will be divided into three interconnected topic areas:

I. The Scene - The introduction to the exhibition gives a chronological overview of Warhol’s career by focusing on the four decades of his artistic activity - the 1950s through the 1980s. Highlights include: archival photographs and artworks from Warhol’s working-class Pittsburgh upbringing to his early success as a commercial artist in 1950s New York; an examination of Warhol’s famous “Silver Factory” of the 1960s as a locus for artistic production; a look at Warhol’s involvement in the New York social scene of the 1970s and the rise of Interview magazine; and Warhol’s artistic re-invigoration in the 1980s through collaborations with younger artists, including Jean Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel and Keith Haring.

II. Portraiture - This section of the exhibition takes an in-depth look at Warhol’s career-long interest in portraiture. Highlights include: Warhol’s Double Elvis (1963), Ladies and Gentlemen (1975) and portraits of Jackie Kennedy, Ethel Scull, Natalie Wood, Mick Jagger and others; an explanation of Warhol’s silk screening process through a series of Marilyn Monroe prints and paintings; an introduction to Warhol’s filmmaking through his 4-minute film portraits, Screen Tests, featuring Nico, Marcel Duchamp and others; and a collection of Warhol’s numerous self-portraits.

III. Still-life - This section will look at how Warhol extended and re-imagined the art historical tradition of still-life painting to reflect his own times. Highlights include: Warhol’s Campbell’s soup paintings and prints, Coca-Cola paintings, Hammer & Sickles, Flowers, still-life drawings from the 1950s, and brand and logo work from the 1980s; Warhol’s important early films, Sleep (1963), Eat (1964), and Poor Little Rich Girl (1965); and excerpts from a popular 2004 exhibition at The Warhol that explored Warhol’s fascination with the telephone.

To accompany the exhibition, The Warhol has also created an educational component that will include hands-on art activities and program development at the host venues as well as an exchange of curatorial and education staff with Russian institutions.

Andy Warhol: Artist of Modern Life will include a Russian-language exhibition catalogue containing new perspectives on Warhol’s life and art. The more than 150-page, hardcover catalogue will feature more than 100 full-color illustrations. Essayists include The Warhol’s Jessica Gogan, Geralyn Huxley, Thomas Sokolowski and John Smith.