An exhibition of the King of Pop Art Andy Warhol "Endangered Species" was opened at the Darwin Museum in Moscow

The exhibition "Andy Warhol: Endangered Species", consisting of a series of silk-screen prints featuring images of the Amur tiger, African elephant, giant panda, bald eagle and other rare animals, opened in the Darwin Museum in Moscow and will run until May 28.

"The series of silk screenings" Endangered Species "was created by the King of Pop Art in 1983 at the request of friends, wildlife defenders Ronald and Freud Feldman, including portraits of the Amur tiger, African elephant, orangutan, black rhinoceros, Grevy zebra, giant panda, bald eagle , A snow sheep, a tree frog from the family of frogs and butterflies, "the museum said.

This series of works was first exhibited in Moscow. One of the first to see it is the head of the Ministry of Natural Resources of Russia Sergei Donskoy during the exclusive show.
Earlier, the curator of the project, the head of the exhibition department of the museum Yana Shklyarskaya, told TASS that this exhibition is a way to draw people's attention to the problems of wildlife conservation in the Year of Ecology. The series consists of 10 works. It is provided for display by collectors from Germany, members of the European Cultural Club Irina Styozka and Georg Pornschlegel.

Another name for this series - "Animals in makeup" - is associated with the way of producing portraits. Warhol chose the most interesting, in his opinion, photos of rare animals, and then experimented with color, applying it layer by layer on paper through special mesh stencils. Bright colors and their unexpected combinations, together with a large format, attract viewers' attention to the dangers that threaten the depicted animals.

This cycle was a great success at the exhibitions during the lifetime of the author, he became one of the most famous in his work, along with "Liz" and "Marilyn." One of the most high-profile thefts of the 21st century is associated with "Endangered Species." In 2015, three works of the series were abducted in Los Angeles. However, the precious loss was recovered.

Among the rare animals depicted by Warhol in Russia there are the Amur tiger, bald eagle and snow ram. The number of Amur tigers in the world has decreased by 97% in the last 100 years - from 100 thousand to 3.9 thousand individuals. In Russia, this subspecies of the tiger lives in the Far East. The snow ram lives in the Kronotsky Reserve, the national park "Beringia" in Chukotka, in the "Putorana Plateau" reserve in Siberia. The bald eagle lives mainly in North America, and in Russia it is found in the Far East.