Lost Andy Warhol art recovered after 30 years on floppy discs!

A dozen previously unknown digital artworks by Andy Warhol have been discovered on a set of 30-year-old floppy disks.

17:07 25 April 2014

It has been discovered that Andy Warhol had created previously unknown digital artworks in 1985 as part of a commercial stunt by Commodore to promote the graphical prowess of the company’s (then) new Amiga 1000 computer. 

 

Found on a set of 30-year-old floppy disks, the artworks included images of a Campbell’s soup can and Marilyn Monroe, a three-eyed re-imagining of Boticcelli’s The Birth of Venus and a manipulated photo-portrait of Blondie’s Debbie Harry. 

 

The discovery came after new media artist Cory Arcangel saw a YouTube clip about the launch event for the Amiga 1000 which showed Warhol making the portrait of Harry. Together with Tina Kukielski, the curator at the Carnegie Museum of Art and Matt Wrbican, the chief archivist of the Warhol Museum, they searched and discovered the images that were placed in the museum in 1994. 

 

As the artworks were inaccessible due to obsolete format, the trio asked help from the Carnegie Mellon University Computer Club, a student organisation known for its “comprehensive collection of obsolete computer hardware.”