Recently, I visited the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole, WY. It is the only museum dedicated to the wildlife art culture in the United States, so I was pretty excited to see it.
As I was browsing the gallery, I came across several works that looked like they had been styled after Andy Warhol. As I looked closer, to my surprise, the paintings were indeed his.
It was really fascinating to see another period of an artist’s work that I never knew existed. Until I saw those pictures, I thought he just did his normal things: camo screen prints, famous people prints… etc. His inspiration for this series was endangered species at this time. I am glad to see the museum could respect his work as something to do with nature, and it was good to see this series was NOT in some pop art museum.
Warhol is an inspiration for me. I love his originality, his messages, and his attention to color. I think this series says a lot and I would like to stop talking now and show you them. They are screen printed images, but colored on with colored pencil and paints. I think the screen printing symbolizes the man made and the machine… And how we are killing off our natural world beauty with our own designs. I think Andy is trying to tell us, in this own way… To simply stop killing our world.
Here is his series:
