Andy Warhol and The Wadsworth Atheneum
Birmingham Race Riot 1964
1963
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Physical Qualities
Screenprint, Sheet: 508 x 610 mm. (20 x 24 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of May Wilson
Object Number
1965.11.5
Andy Warhol’s Race Riots series reproduces photographs made by white civil rights photographer Charles Moore (1931–2010) on assignment for LIFE magazine in 1963. Moore’s pictures of a young black man menaced by Birmingham, Alabama police officers and dogs document the official assault on non-violent civil rights demonstrators.
Warhol cropped and reversed Moore’s central image, intensifying its black-and-white contrast. How does this change the effect of the image? Does it make it more dramatic, or are the choices purely stylistic? Warhol’s own political perspective is an open question: Is he drawing our attention to racial violence in America? Or is the work a dispassionate example of Warhol making art from the news around him?
Jan Howard, BMA, "Marking the Decades: Prints 1960-1990," February 23- April 26, 1992.
Kristen Hileman, BMA. "Seeing now: Photography Since 1960," February 20-May 15, 2011.
Christopher Bedford and Katy Siegel, BMA. "Every Day: Selections from the Collection," Sunday, July 14, 2019 - Sunday, January 05, 2020.
Kristen Hileman, BMA. "Seeing now: Photography Since 1960," February 20-May 15, 2011.
Christopher Bedford and Katy Siegel, BMA. "Every Day: Selections from the Collection," Sunday, July 14, 2019 - Sunday, January 05, 2020.