Andy Warhol's constant search for ideal beauty can be experienced in a series of works that are brought together here for the first time.
Andy Warhol (1928-1987) is probably one of the best-known and most discussed artists of the 20th century. While his depictions of consumer goods and celebrities have been widely publicised, there is a common thread that runs through his career - from the late 1940s to his untimely death in the 1980s. He was constantly searching for an ideal of beauty - male beauty, and for a form; he wanted to create lasting images of what he desired. He therefore visualised and immortalised this ongoing quest for ideal beauty.

From his early line drawings to the screen tests and experiments with moving images and film in the 1960s, the torso paintings in the 1970s and his collaboration with Jean-Michel Basquiat, there is a continuous search for the expression of this ideal. During his lifetime, these works were considered either inappropriate, immoral, perverse or even pornographic and illegal. For this reason, many of them never received the public attention and recognition they deserved.

This publication is the first major survey to focus thematically on this central aspect of Warhol's various creative phases and career stages. With more than two hundred and fifty works, paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, Polaroids, films and collages, it provides a comprehensive and inclusive understanding of Warhol, who never really "came out" during his lifetime.