NEW YORK (AP) — Sotheby’s is auctioning a self-portrait by Andy Warhol that was recently found after being forgotten in a closet in New York City for more than 40 years.

The painting belongs to Cathy Naso. She was 17 years old when she got a part-time job as a receptionist at Warhol’s Factory.

Two years later, in 1967, Warhol gave her a self-portrait inscribed to her. Read the full story

In this photo taken on Aug. 13, 2009, books and a note by Allen Ginsberg found in one of Andy Warhol's time capsules wait to be catalogued at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A cardboard lid is lifted and four archivists peer inside. A postal box from Paris. Who sent it? A piece of crusty wedding cake. Whose? Another box: $17,000 in cash. Yet another: An autographed picture of a naked Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

These are some of the many items workers have uncovered as they sift through 610 cardboard boxes, filing cabinets and even a shipping container filled with what would be considered junk by most people but has a whole different meaning since it was collected by pop artist Andy Warhol.

The archivists, hired with $600,000 from the Andy Warhol Foundation and several other smaller grants, have six years to comb through everything from taxi cab receipts to fan mail, meticulously cataloguing, photographing and, when possible, researching the often bizarre items before entering them into a database.

Read the full story

Photo from an exhibit called New York, New York: The 20th Century, running October 3–December 27, 2009

Click here for a gallery link of the 2009-2010 season at Norton Museum of Art.

The Norton Museum of Art’s 2009-2010 season, announced Wednesday, is chock full of cutting edge art dating from the early second century to the late 20th. Among the brand names are Richard Avedon, George Segal, Andy Warhol, Annie Leibovitz and William Kentridge. Among the themes are New York, the Renaissance, China and Americans in a time of cataclysmic grief. 

  Your feelings about the individual high points of the season are inevitably influenced by your tastes in art, but there should be something here for just about anyone who’s interested, from a celebrity orientation (Leibovitz) to stark urban tableaus (Segal) to time-intensive narrative flourishes of the past (Flemish tapestries of the 16th century).

  What is particularly noticeable is an increased emphasis on photography. With shows devoted to Avedon, Leibovitz and Paul Fusco’s remarkable pictures of people standing by the tracks as Robert Kennedy’s funeral train passed by in 1968, this marks perhaps the furthest penetration of photography into a single Norton season.

The complete schedule, from the Norton’s press materials: 

George Segal: Street Scenes

Organized by the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art

September 5-December 6

This is the first exhibition to focus specifically on the artist’s exploration of the urban environment using life-size tableaux, executed in both plaster and bronze. The works address commonplace aspects of the city from cinema marquees to parking garages, diners and buses, with numerous works inspired by and derived from life in Manhattan’s East Village.  

New York, New York: The 20th Century

Organized by the Norton Museum of Art

October 3-December 27, 2009

Conceived as a counterpoint to George Segal: Street Scenes, this exhibition features 56 paintings, photographs, sculptures, and works on paper that capture New York’s incomparable urban atmosphere and the human interface with it. The exhibition is drawn entirely from the Norton Collection and features artists such as Berenice Abbott, Diane Arbus, Stuart Davis, Andreas Feininger, Edward Hopper, Reginald Marsh, and Jim MacMillan’s moving photograph of the World Trade Center on 9/12/01.

William Kentridge: Five Themes

Co-organized by the Norton Museum of Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

November 7, 2009-January 17, 2010

This South African artist was recently recognized by Time Magazine as among the “100 Most Influential People in the World.” Kentridge works in multiple media to explore themes of imperialism, colonialism, apartheid, and other forms of social and cultural dysfunction. 

Habsburg Treasures: Renaissance Tapestries from Vienna

Organized by the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; circulated by International Arts & Artists

January 16-April 11, 2010

The tapestry collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, is one of the greatest in existence.  Richly woven with silk, wool, and gold thread, these eight gigantic wall hangings were made for the Hapsburg emperors at the famous Brussels atelier of Frans Geubels.  They depict one of the most beloved secular themes in the 16th-century repertoire of Flemish tapestry-making: the legendary founding of ancient Rome by Romulus and Remus. The series begins with the birth of the two brothers, when they were placed in a basket and set afloat on the Tiber River, and ends with the legendary Rape of the Sabine Women. 

Richard Avedon's work: Twiggy during her 1960s modeling heyday, one of the high fashion photos in the exhibit.

 Avedon Fashion 1944-2000 

Organized by the International Center of Photography, New York

February 9-May 9, 2010

Richard Avedon (1923-2004) revolutionized fashion photography in the post-World War II era and redefined the role of the fashion photographer. Anticipating many of the cultural cross-fertilizations that have occurred between high art, commercial art, fashion, advertising, and pop culture in the last forty years, he created spirited, imaginative photographs that showed fashion and the modern woman in a new light. This exhibition will be the most comprehensive exploration to date of Avedon’s fashion photography during his long career at Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, The New Yorker, and beyond.  

Reclaimed: Paintings from the Collection of Jacques Goudstikker

Organized by The Jewish Museum, NY

February 13-May 9, 2010 

Jacques Goudstikker was one of the most important Dutch dealers of Old Master Paintings between the two World Wars of the previous century. Literally hours before the Nazi invasion of The Netherlands, in April 1940, Goudstikker with his young wife and infant son boarded a ship bound for England and the United States. Only a few days at sea, Goudstikker died accidentally and shortly thereafter the dealer’s gallery, in Amsterdam, was looted by Hermann Goering. After lengthy litigation and the presentation of Goudstikker’s typewritten inventory, 200 paintings were restored to Marei van Saher, the art dealer’s daughter-in-law, in February 2006. 

RFK Funeral Train Rediscovered: Photographs by Paul Fusco

Organized by the Norton Museum of Art

From February 13, 2010

On June 5th, 1968, Robert Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles as he campaigned for the presidential nomination. Kennedy’s body was flown to New York City for a memorial service at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and then carried by train from New York to Washington D.C. for burial at Arlington National Cemetery. Hundreds of thousands of mourners lined the railway tracks to pay their final respects to Kennedy. On board the train was Magnum photographer Paul Fusco, on assignment for LOOK Magazine. From inside the train, Fusco took some 2,000 pictures of the mournersčblack, white, rich, poor, in large groups and on their own. The resulting images are one of the most powerful and affecting series of photographs ever taken.  

Here Comes the Sun: Warhol and Art after 1960 at the Norton 

Organized by the Norton Museum of Art

From February 13, 2010

This exhibition will feature a diverse selection of artworks made after 1960, all of which belong to the Norton but are more or less frequently exhibited. Some have become “classics” in a relatively short time, such as Andy Warhol’s flower painting of 1964, Harry Bertoia’s Sunburst III (1968), and Sir Anthony Caro’s Topper (1978ą79).  

Annie Leibovitz: WOMEN

Organized by The Women’s Museum, Dallas

May 1-August 1, 2010

This exhibition features 38 portraits by the internationally renowned photographer. Leibovitz is a respected artist whose insightful portraits reveal the layered personalities of her subjects. It is a celebration of the American woman from a broad spectrum of society, including actresses, astronauts, athletes, farmers, musicians, showgirls, and political figures. Featured are portraits of celebrities such as Madeleine Albright, Jerry Hall, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Gwyneth Paltrow and Blythe Danner.

 On the Silk Road and High Seas: Chinese Ceramics, Culture and Commerce

Organized by the Norton Museum of Art

August 21-November 28, 2010

Since the second century BCE, the so-called “Silk Road” stretched for thousands of miles from eastern China to the Black Sea, thus linking the great civilizations of east Asia with those of southwest Asia and, thereby, to Europe. The superb examples of Chinese ceramics featured in this exhibition were prized at home and treasured abroad, where they were indeed rarities until the mid 18th century. Specific styles and innovations that arose as a result of cross-cultural exchanges are highlighted. 

Click here for a gallery link of the 2009-2010 season at Norton Museum of Art.