Created in 1983, Andy Warhol’s Endangered Species portfolio features animals facing high risk of extinction, using the artist’s bold Pop art style to draw attention to the urgent threats of habitat loss and ecological decline. Through ten visually arresting portraits, the series reflects Warhol’s personal concern for threatened wildlife – offering a compelling call for conservation.
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1. The Endangered Species portfolio was inspired by conversations about ecological issues
On 22 April 1982, Warhol wrote in his diaries that he had ‘discussed the Extinct Animals portfolio with Ron Feldman’, the New York art dealer who later commissioned the artist to create the series. Warhol and Feldman had discussed their concerns about coastal erosion and habitat destruction – conversations which inspired the artist to create a body of work to amplify the plight of endangered species.
For the portfolio, Warhol selected ten animals listed in the Endangered Species Act of 1973. His source imagery derived from pictures taken by contemporary wildlife photographers, which he silkscreened using vivid, contrasting colours. In 1983, he presented Endangered Species at the Museum of Natural History in New York. Warhol’s decision to unveil the seriesat this renowned institution is significant: placing threatened animals amongst the bones and fossils of species long extinct served as an emphatic visual warning.
Warhol had a longstanding concern for conservation issues. He owned 40 acres of undeveloped land in Colorado, near Aspen, stating ‘I’m not going to build on the land… It’s too pretty.’ He also owned a protected 15-acre beach and surrounding woodland in Montauk, New York, home to a diverse array of wildlife, including spotted turtles, eastern newts, white-tailed deer, hawks and owls. The land was gifted to The Nature Conservancy following Warhol’s death in 1987 – becoming The Andy Warhol Preserve, a flourishing nature sanctuary.
2. Warhol loved animals
Despite his association with consumer culture, Warhol maintained a profound love of nature throughout his life. He had previously explored wildlife earlier in his career as a commercial illustrator – using his blotted-line technique to create greeting cards of butterflies and flowers, as well as portfolios of whimsical cat drawings. His portraits celebrate animals as central characters, rather than peripheral subjects – from Cow Wallpaper (1966) to Turtle (1985) to portraits of Amos and Archie, his beloved dachshunds.
People close to Warhol observed that in his later years, the artist displayed a ‘gentler side’, which partly manifested in his growing affinity for animals. Warhol’s biographer, Blake Gopnik explains:
‘In 1986, Warhol was “kinder and easier to be around than at any time since I’d met him,” Pat Hackett later recalled. Paige Powell agreed, saying that Warhol was starting to display a gentler side that was once known only to a few very close companions…She witnessed his new tenderness toward animals: One evening at his favourite Japanese restaurant, he couldn’t eat the lobster he’d just ordered plucked from its tank. Both Powell and Stuart Pivar noted Warhol’s commitment to feeding the neighbourhood pigeons every Sunday morning – early, so no one would notice him at it. “It’s my charity,” he said to Pivar.’
Towards the end of his life, concern for animals remained close to the artist’s heart and found its most explicit expression in Endangered Species. As one of his rare overt ecological statements, the portfolio merges the language of celebrity and commercialism with the fragility of the natural world.
