On October 16, 2007, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts announced the 20th Anniversary Photographic Legacy Program. What this means is that 183 college and university art museums across the U.S. will receive part of 28,543 original Warhol photographs that are valued in excess of $28 million.According to foundation president Joel Wachs, the aim of the Photographic Legacy Program is to provide greater access to Warhol's artwork and process, and to enable a wide range of people from communities across the country to view and study this important yet relatively unknown body of Warhol's work. The program offers institutions that do not have the means to acquire works by Warhol the opportunity to bring a significant number of photographs into their permanent collections, while allowing those institutions that do not have Warhol in their collections to enrich the breadth and depth of their holdings.
Each of the participating institutions will receive approximately 150 original Polaroid photographs and gelatin silver prints. "Warhol often shot a person or event with both cameras, cropping one in Polaroid color that Warhol termed "photograph" and snapping the other in black and white as a "picture." The Photographic Legacy Program presents both kinds of images side by side, allowing viewers to move back and forth between moments of Warhol's "art," "work," and "life," inseparable parts of a fascinating whole," says Jenny Moore, curator of the program. "The true idiosyncrasies of his subjects were revealed through this process."
