The Museum of Modern Art announces the transfer of the Warhol Film Archive from the Whitney Museum of American Art. The Warhol Film Archive, established by the Whitney Museum of American Art, will be added to the MoMA Archives to serve as an ongoing resource for scholars.
Established by the Whitney as the record of many years of research into the films created by Andy Warhol (American, 1928–1987), the Warhol Film Archive is a collection of books, files, and media assembled in the course of producing The Films of Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné. Volume 1 of the catalogue raisonné was published by the Whitney in 2006, and the transfer of the Warhol Film Archive to MoMA coincides with the Whitney’s publication of Volume 2 on October 26, 2021. MoMA will continue this important work and research of the Catalogue Raisonné.
In the 1980s, MoMA and the Whitney collaborated on the largest archival research project in the history of avant-garde cinema, the Andy Warhol Film Project. In 1984, Warhol gave his original films to MoMA for cataloging and storage, and MoMA is the official distributor of the Warhol 16mm film collection, working closely with the rights holder, the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh.
Established and cared for by the Whitney Museum of Art, the Warhol Film Archive includes cataloging data outlining film stock, original screening notes, and shot analysis; key images used to identify the distinctive features of each film; transcribed interviews with those active in the changing creative milieu Warhol cultivated around the Factory; articles from the 1960s to the present written about Warhol and his circle; and correspondence with leading Warhol curators and scholars who shared their research with the team working on the film catalogue raisonné. The Archive can be broken down into four broad categories: files, books and magazines, media, and manuscripts. Together, these holdings form an extensive and unparalleled resource on Warhol’s filmmaking practice.
“MoMA has long partnered with the Whitney to study, preserve, and present Warhol’s film works,” said Rajendra Roy, the Museum’s Celeste Bartos Chief Curator of Film. “With the transition of the Warhol Film Archive from the Whitney, we are pleased to further expand MoMA’s extensive Warhol holdings and longstanding commitment to preserving and exhibiting Warhol’s art and film offerings.” Currently on view in MoMA’s fourth-floor David Geffen Galleries are three exemplary Warhol works from the Museum’s collection: gallery 411 is a screening room featuring Warhol’s eight-hour-and-five-minute-long landmark film Empire (1964); in nearby galleries are two iconic works on canvas made by Warhol in 1962: his series of 32 Soup Cans and his luminous Gold Marilyn Monroe.
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
