Union Station’s Andy Warhol exhibit opening this week

​This Friday, Union Station will open the doors on its Andy Warhol exhibit. The traveling review of the pop art king’s work is the largest collection of Warhol’s prints to ever be exhibited. But it remains to be seen how many people will buy tickets for the show, no matter how good it is.

“Out initial estimate was 25,000 but I’m curbing that,” says Christopher Leitch, director of the Kansas City Museum at Corinthian Hall. Leitch is helping organize the exhibit for Union Station. “I think we can get 16,000 people out to see this.”

Hope Leitch is wrong, because based on what’s being shown, it would be sad if only 16,000 see it.

“This brings together 85 screen prints by Andy Warhol. I think it’s the largest number of his works ever gathered together in one place,” Leitch says. “We have some iconic work, like his Marilyn Monroe portrait and the soup cans, and some later works which are more attentive to social issues and larger world issues such as endangered species. It also covers the series of myths that he produced in the mid-’80s confronting mental and cultural stereotypes of all varieties. And these are really big, pristine and beautiful prints. Visually this is going to be a really aesthetically tasty meal for anybody.”