Andy Warhol: Family Album, currently on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art, brings together 732 Polaroids taken between 1972 and 1973. Drawn from one of six Holson albums that Andy Warhol assembled as a personal archive, the exhibition offers an intimate view of the artist’s daily life. The photographs range from portraits of friends, collaborators and public figures to images taken at his home in Montauk, scenes from his travels in Europe and snapshots of his dog Archie.

Andy Warhol, Andy Warhol and Archie, 1973

Few American artists have shaped modern visual culture as profoundly as Andy Warhol. While his silkscreen portraits and fascination with celebrity remain central to his legacy, photography occupied an equally important place within his practice. By the early 1970s, Warhol had adopted the Polaroid as his preferred camera, carrying it with him almost constantly and using it both as a source for future artworks and as a means of recording the world around him.

Andy Warhol, Helmut Berger and Bianca Jagger, 1973

The exhibition reveals the extent to which photography functioned as a way of seeing for Warhol. Whether using the Big Shot camera, favoured for its close-up portraits, or the more portable SX-70, he approached photography with the same attentiveness that characterised his broader artistic practice. The resulting images move fluidly between the staged and the spontaneous, documenting both the social world that surrounded him and the quieter moments that unfolded beyond public view.

Andy Warhol, Yves Saint-Laurent and Paloma Picasso, 1973

Presented as part of an ongoing initiative highlighting lesser-seen works from the Whitney’s collection, Andy Warhol: Family Album offers a perspective on the artist that sits alongside, rather than beneath, his better-known work. The photographs demonstrate how observation, repetition and self-documentation formed a continuous thread throughout his practice, collapsing the distance between everyday life and artistic production.

Andy Warhol: Family Album
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
30 April – 19 October 2026