“The massive press preview the night before gave warning of the anticipated size of the crowd, and Sam Green decided it was imperative to remove most of the paintings from the gallery walls to safeguard the art,” Wrbican wrote about the exhibition. The 1965 show at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia was essentially a retrospective of Warhol’s Pop work, and it made an impression. In it, Wrbican sets the scene for Warhol’s personal reflections on the now-legendary opening party that kicked off the artist’s first solo museum exhibition in the U.S. He also curated approximately 40 smaller, more intimate shows that were fueled by interesting tidbits he extracted from the Archive.Īlthough recently retired due to illness, Wrbican has been working with staff at the museum on a book inspired by both the Archive and his knowledge as its longtime archivist- A is for Archive: Warhol’s World from A to Z, scheduled to be released in the spring of 2019. Eventually becoming chief archivist, Wrbican wrote and traveled extensively in support of blockbuster exhibitions held at The Warhol and in galleries throughout the world.

Sharing enlightening tales from the Warhol Archive was part of Wrbican’s job from the beginning of what blossomed into a remarkable 26-year tenure at The Warhol. The shortbread cookie tin where Warhol stashed Factory hand money and religious items owned by Warhol’s mother, Julia. Shriver went on to explain that each time Warhol asked someone to run an errand to buy chocolate or books or pay for Xeroxes or film processing, he would peel off a crisp $100 bill. “We all wondered where he kept the stash!” You found it!” Wrbican recalls Shriver exclaiming.

Wrbican had discovered a stash of $100 bills-140 of them to be precise-with the bank band still wrapped around it. I opened that and found a business-size envelope, and inside that was a truly shocking discovery. I opened it and found a large manila envelope.

It wasn’t empty, but it didn’t sound like cookies. “One day I was poking around,” Wrbican recalls, “and I found a shortbread cookie tin. Every so often something unexpected would happen and break the routine. In his free time, he read as many books about Warhol as he could, to help him understand the materials that he was working with and their potential significance. Working alongside the artist’s former assistant, Jay Shriver, and his colleagues from the foundation, Wrbican spent the next two years holed up in Warhol’s final studio in Midtown Manhattan, describing, inventorying, counting, and constantly making lists. The early days: Matt Wrbican at The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts prior to the 1994 opening of The Andy Warhol Museum.

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