POP ART OPENS AT THE WAREHOUSE
November 12, 2025 – April 4, 2026

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MIAMI – Our dedication to historically important exhibitions is showcased in a selection of nine seminal paintings and sculptures of Pop from the Margulies Collection spanning a 33-year period from 1959 - 1992. The artists of the pop art movement responded to the rise of commercial mass production after World War II by reproducing common objects or using readymade objects in their work. The exhibition comprises the American movement and features unique elements from American history, including a real New York City subway car in Segal’s Subway (1968), crushed car parts of Chamberlain’s Dee Dee Bitch (1976), and Lichtenstein’s Hot Dog (1963). Many of these rarely seen works come from the private collection to the Warehouse for our 2025-26 season. For the exhibition, Collector Martin Z. Margulies and longtime Curator Katherine Hinds have constructed an immersive experience beginning with an elongated gray entry hall which opens into an expansive but intimate space that features a floor to ceiling black wall for George Segal’s Depression Breadline (1991).

Five early works from the Pop art movement from the late 1950s through early 1960s form the foundation of the exhibition and include artists Andy Warhol, George Segal, Roy Lichtenstein, and Tom Wesselmann. Henry Geldzahler, the late curator of 20th Century Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, reflected on his visit to these artist’s studios in 1961. He noticed these four artists were “drawing on a common source of imagination...This is an instant history of art, a history of art that became so aware of itself as to make a leap that went beyond art itself.” A common thread found within the works is the use of found objects with handmade or collaged elements. In the case of Tom Wesselmann’s Bathtub Collage #6 (1964), he incorporates a toilet seat with a painted female form based on his wife Claire. Additionally, George Segal’s Subway (1968) pairs a real New York City subway car the artist extracted from the junkyard with a plaster cast of a woman riding alone.

Following the theme of making work based on ready-made imagery - five of Andy Warhol’s famed 1964 silkscreen creations from “The Factory” including the Brillo soap pad, Campbell’s Tomato Juice, Del Monte Peach Halves, Heinz Tomato Ketchup and Kellogg’s Corn Flakes are placed together in a striking 6-foot-high tower. These silkscreen boxes revolutionized art as a commodity and reinforced its capacity for reproducibility. In the words of collector Martin Margulies, “The grocery store became the art store.” The boxes have unique provenance histories hailing from renowned specialists of pop art including artist Marisol Escobar, Andy Warhol’s family, the late curators Alan R. Solomon, David Whitney and dealer Leo Castelli.

The reversal of representation—handmaking something that is already mass produced—is similarly seen in John’s classic 0-9 numbers where his thickly impastoed numerals become three-dimensional objects. Johns explains, “using the design of the American flag took care of a great deal for me because I didn’t have to design it…that gave me room to work on other levels.” Working primarily in the medium of encaustic, 0-9 is an extraordinary example of the artists’ monochromatic work in acrylic paint and classic rendering of numbers from 0-9.

Artist Roy Lichtenstein copied and transformed images from the media or advertising. His Hot Dog (1963) features a graphically painted hot dog and utilizes the artists hand painted Ben-Day dots—a feature of an inexpensive printing method used to illustrate shading and color. The quintessential American icon, the hot dog, became synonymous not only with America but New York when German immigrants brought the frankfurter to the city in the late 1800s and sold them on street carts. In discussing the transformation that the hot dog takes in his work, Lichtenstein stated: “…a frankfurter looks nothing like the cartoon of it—there are no black lines, dots, or white highlights on the original. In the picture the form becomes a purely decorative abstract object which everyone instantly recognizes as a frankfurter…It has partly to do with the economics of printing, partly to do with the gross vision of the artist. It is very compelling for reasons that have nothing to do with art.”

Additional works from the 1970s and 1990s reveal how elements from the Pop art movement continued to proliferate throughout the 20th century. A 1976 crushed metal wall relief sculpture by John Chamberlain features his signature bright enamels and paint drips like an explosion. Next to the work is an enameled bronze sculpture by Roy Lichtenstein from 1977, one of the only works that Martin Margulies purchased by telephone at the urging of dealer Ivan Karp who described the sculpture as a “masterpiece”.

Two works from the early 1990s pay homage to historic moments in the United States, including James Rosenquist’s The Serenade for the Doll after Claude Debussy, Gift Wrapped Doll #1 (1992). The painting is a meditation on the complexities of the AIDS crisis and the title a dedication to the French composer Claude Debussy’s Serenade for the Doll (1906-08). Additionally, George Segal was commissioned by the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial to create three sculptures representative of the Great Depression—one of which was the Depression Breadline (1991). Segal wanted not to illustrate any specific moment but to capture the “emotional tenor” as the artist phrased it, of what it was like to live during this time period. He spoke to people that had stood in the breadlines and looked to photographs from the Farm Security Administration for reference. Placed against a floor to ceiling black wall, the bronze figures stand together in “eternity” as Segal said they would. The work recalls a time of bitterness and scarcity combined with patience and perseverance.  

The artworks of this time period in our exhibition Pop Art illustrates the radical shift in art history where artists both embraced and critiqued the media, commerce, and popular culture through their respective art practices. We are pleased to present these nine rarely seen artworks to the public as part of our continuing education of the important avant-garde movements of the 20th century.