Warhol and Dance (2010)

‘I never wanted to be a painter…I wanted to be a tap-dancer.’ Andy Warhol, 1966
 
Dance can enliven us now more than ever, and here, we look back at Andy Warhol’s rare and graceful 1950s line drawings of dancers which Neil Printz, editor of the Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné, called his ‘Warm-up drawings’. To complement Warhol’s recently opened retrospective at Tate Modern, we are pleased to share our exhibition catalogue Warhol and Dance (2010), which you can access in full including an essay by dance critic Anna Kisselgoff.
 
The lively line drawings refer to personalities who took part in the amazingly diverse growth of American dance in the 1950s. Ranging from references to ballet to modern dance, as well as tap dance and ethnic forms, these drawings reveal Warhol’s fascination with performance and the brilliance of the portraits he made throughout his career.
 
While Tate Modern is currently closed to the public, their exhibition guide is available online and it is the subject of BBC 4's upcoming series, Museums in Quarantine. Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac has worked closely with the artist and the Warhol Foundation since the 1980s, exhibiting his renowned Campbell's Soup Boxes and Heads After Picasso from the mid-1980s, as well as his more intimate drawings such as the Dance (1952–54) drawings.