On The Scene: Letters to Andy Warhol Exhibit at Cadillac House

Cadillac and The Andy Warhol Museum partner for it’s first exhibition at the Cadillac House, Letters to Andy Warhol. We checked the scene and the art!

Cadillac and Andy Warhol might seem like an improbable partnership. Historically significant artist and historically significant automobile brand… oh, wait a second… upon examination, it turns out Andy Warhol celebrated the Cadillac brand through several works over the course of his career. The culmination of this is the Cadillac and The Andy Warhol Museum collaborating on a new global traveling exhibition titled Letters to Andy Warhol. It’s a fascinating look at the cultural legacy through imaginative, co-created content and experiences (like a totally cool graffiti VR experience).

Cadillac was able to pull some rarely seen material from the museum’s archive, including artwork and Warhol’s personal correspondence. Cadillac in a way, is the perfect partner: art and commerce and the trials of fame. Art and science was a principle of Cadillac’s recent brand iteration.

Though there is a selection of classic Cadillac automobiles to compliment the art (including a stunning 1956 Park Avenue), Letters to Andy Warhol principally focuses on five letters to or from Yves Saint Laurent, Mick Jagger, the Museum of Modern Art, the New York State Department of Public Works and a mutual friend of his and Truman Capote. It’s a rare opportunity to explore Warhol’s most personal experiences and relationships. It is realized that Warhol was a warm and gentle soul, who truly meant no harm, who genuinely loved industrial design and the buyable world. The letters have inspired artistic contributions and experiences from a roster of talent including Aimee Mullins, Brian Atwood (an enormous children’s book about a boy and a pair of emerald stilettos (trust me on this one, it’s huge and they’re gorgeous)), Derek Blasberg (with a stunning set of polaroids  done in the style of Warhol himself featuring today’s celebrities at dinner parties and elsewhere), David LaChapelle, Sienna Miller and Zac Posen .

“Andy Warhol painted a portrait of American life. The Warhol’s partnership with Cadillac, an iconic American brand that appears in Warhol’s work, feels completely right to us,” says Patrick Moore, The Warhol’s interim director. “We’re excited to be part of an exhibition that examines the continuing influence of Warhol on contemporary culture through the lens of some of today’s most influential tastemakers.”

Some of the works include Four Male Costumed Full Figures, 1950s and Car, 1950s, were both works created as a commission for Harper’s Bazaar, which requested that he “make a visual comment on the phenomenon of the American motorcar.” The works illustrate a 1958 Cadillac Coupe de Ville. It felt like an appropriate and intellectual abstraction of what the motorcar has meant in the world. Seven Cadillacs, 1962 depicts what is likely a 1963 Fleetwood (Special) four-door hardtop in black silkscreen ink on linen. This work usually gets snapped up at auction as quickly as the Fleetwood drives, so it’s great to see in person.

During the initial few weeks of the exhibition, Cadillac House will have a Cadillac Park Avenue DeVille featured in the Seven Cadillacs, 1962 work on display. This is a limited production model from 1962 and 1963 designed specifically for Cadillac owners who lived in New York City high rise apartments with underground garages, with a shorter deck for easier parking.

The exhibition will be free and open to the public at Cadillac House, located at 330 Hudson Street in Manhattan, from 8 a.m.-7 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m.-7 p.m. weekends from Nov. 15-Dec. 26.