Baseball, baseball cards andPete Rose are getting some love in a new art exhibit. From Campbell soup cans, to Elvis and Marilyn Monroe, Pop Art icon Andy Warhol took the subjects of his art well beyond “15 minutes of fame.” The new Cincinnati Art Museum exhibition, Up at Bat: Warhol and Baseball, brings Warhol’s three known paintings of baseball players, each of whom rose to the level of pop celebrity during his lifetime, together for the first time on 
record.
The exhibition is on view April 11 – Aug. 2, with a preview opportunity April 7 – 10.
Up at Bat: Warhol and Baseball will feature the 1985 screen print on canvas of Pete Rose, commissioned by the Cincinnati Art Museum in anticipation of Rose breaking Ty Cobb’s all-time hits record; Baseball, 1962, on loan from the Nelson-Atkins Museum, portraying Roger Maris; and the 1977 portrait of Tom Seaver, who pitched his only no-hitter as a member of the Cincinnati Reds, lent by the Andy Warhol Museum.
Warhol’s well-known image of “Charlie Hustle” originally went on display at the Cincinnati Art Museum on Sept. 10, 1985, a day before Rose’s famous, record-breaking hit. The larger-than-life four-paneled painting was derived from a photograph by Gordon Baer and styled like the 1985 Topps baseball cards (you can own a card with a print of it here).
Warhol’s progressive proofs for the screen print of Rose, 
commissioned by the Museum, are also a part of the exhibition, along with several other examples of his art and a historic selection of baseball cards from “Dean’s Cards,” an online Cincinnati-based vintage sports card company. This exhibition will also feature an interactive activity to provide hands-on insight into the process of silk screening.
Kristin Spangenberg, Cincinnati Art Museum Curator of Prints, organized the exhibition along with Cameron Kitchin, the Louis and Louise Dieterle Nippert Director of the Cincinnati Art Museum.
“This exhibition helps us see Warhol in a new way, recognizing the pop aspect of modern celebrity athletes,” said Kitchin, “Bringing these images from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s together for the first time gives us great insight into Warhol work and subjects.”
Admission to the Cincinnati Art Museum and Up at Bat: Warhol and Baseball is free. The exhibition is located across from the new Rosenthal Education Center (REC), off of the Art Museum’s Great Hall.
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