READING, PA.- More than 60 pop prints and four paintings are the focus of an exciting exhibition at the Reading Public Museum, The Prints of Andy Warhol, on view from March 3 through June 17, 2012. Iconic works by one of the leading figures in twentieth century art including Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Jackie Kennedy, Mao Tse-Tung, Mick Jagger, Ronald Reagan, and Judy Garland, along with the artist’s famous Soup Cans and Camouflage prints. The exhibition provides an outstanding overview of Warhol’s career as a printmaker. The photographic silk screens date from the early 1960s to the late 1980s.

In addition to the prints and paintings, this special “expanded” exhibition features two more engaging aspects of Warhol’s career — in one gallery, an installation of “Silver Clouds,” which recreates a 1966 exhibition that the artist mounted at the Castelli Gallery in New York City consisting of large, free-floating Mylar® pillow-shaped balloons, and in another, a continuous screening of Warhol’s famous “Screen Tests.” Some of these highlight well-known figures such as Dennis Hopper, Edie Sedgwick, Lou Reed, Allen Ginsberg, Salvador Dali, and Marcel Duchamp.

Scott Schweigert, The Museum’s Curator of Art and Civilization noted that, “Warhol’s works are, at once, familiar, instantly recognizable, and timeless. The Museum is thrilled to present the works of this important Pennsylvania artist.”

Warhol rose to prominence in the late fifties and early sixties as part of the Pop Art movement, which drew its subjects — comics, advertisements, headlines, Hollywood stars, and politicians — from popular culture. He had worked as a commercial artist in New York for more than a decade before his paintings of Soup Cans brought him to national prominence in the art world in 1962. From that time until his death in 1987, the artist continually selected subjects that wielded a powerful impact on his audience.

The exhibition, organized by the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is underwritten by the Marlin and Ginger Miller Exhibition Endowment and supported in part by Clermont Wealth Strategies at Fulton Bank. The Reading Public Museum is supported in part by grants from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.