LANCASTER, PA.- Lancaster is bursting with Pop Art this spring at the Demuth Museum and Lancaster Museum of Art. The Demuth Museum hosts James Warhola: Visiting a Pop Icon, featuring original watercolor illustrations by James Warhola from his children's book, Uncle Andy’s. This charming book describes Warhola’s childhood visits to his uncle’s, Pop Art legend Andy Warhol, in his New York City townhouse located on Lexington Avenue. James and his six siblings visited their Uncle Andy in the early 1960s, and this book illustrates the trip from their home in Pittsburgh to the sights they took in at the townhouse, including Warhol’s collections of art and objects that inspired him.

Also on display for the first time in the United States are pages from Andy Warhol’s early sketchbooks that served as encouragement for James as a young artist. Upon each visit to New York, James’ uncle gave him sketchbooks to encourage his artistic talent. In those books were some of his uncle’s own pen drawings, which the young man had the forethought to save. These single line pen drawings depict portraits and various objects revealing Warhol’s talent and confidence in drawing.

“Uncle Andy’s is an excellent book to introduce children to the Pop icon Andy Warhol, but James Warhola’s delightful and clever illustrations are really the main attraction in this exhibition,” explains Anne M. Lampe, Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Demuth Museum. “We are pleased to be able to share James Warhola’s tremendous talent while also taking a look at Andy Warhol’s life from a different perspective.”

Anne Lampe has also created an exhibition at the Lancaster Museum of Art to complement this look at Pop Artists. Art Goes Pop: American Pop Art highlights examples of Pop Art that represent key elements of the movement and underscore its legacy in American art history from the 1960s and onward. Featured artists include Robert Arneson, Christo, Jim Dine, Robert Indiana, Jeff Koons, Roy Lichtenstein, Peter Max, Andy Warhol, William Wegman and many others.

Pop Art in America began to develop in the 1950s when artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg began to use subject matter from everyday objects such as flags, maps, targets, numerals and letters, inspiring a new generation of artists to choose subject matter from their immediate environments, including the commercialization of society in the 1960s.

“While visitors to this exhibition will immediately recognize Andy Warhol’s polaroids and screen prints, Robert Indiana’s Love sculpture, and the dogs of photographer William Wegman,” explains Lampe, curator of the exhibition, “they will also learn more about Pop Art from the range of styles and subject matter included. I sought out a wide variety of Pop Artists in order to broaden our collective viewpoint of this art movement in America.”