Conversation with Blake Gopnik

The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon is pleased to present a special online public program featuring Blake Gopnik, author of WARHOL, the widely praised, comprehensive new biography of the always controversial, inescapable Pop artist. Published in May 2020, Gopnik’s 976-page tome draws on the author’s unprecedented access to more than 100,000 documents in the collection of Pittsburgh’s Warhol Museum and other sources, and over 260 interviews with friends, associates, and others in Warhol’s orbit. As noted in a New York Times review, “Warhol, more than even van Gogh or Picasso, endures not as a mere collection of works, but as a narrative, one that gets more complex the more closely you look…Gopnik excels at disentangling the strands of that narrative and correcting common lore.” What emerges is a multifaceted look at an artist who, in Gopnik’s estimation, ranks above Picasso as the most important and influential figure of 20th century art.  

Born in Philadelphia and raised in Canada, Blake Gopnik has been the staff art critic at the Washington Post and Newsweek and is now a regular contributor to the New York Times and Marketplace radio. He holds a PhD in art history from Oxford University for a dissertation on Renaissance realism and the philosophy of representation. Gopnik will be joined in conversation by JSMA executive director John Weber, himself a longtime admirer of Warhol’s work and influence. 

Zoom link