Andy Warhol: A Retrospective

Warhol, who died in 1987, can be viewed as a relentless observer, who dwelled obsessively upon images representative of our century: the electric chair, a jet crash, the Soviet hammer and sickle, screen idols, politicians, symbolic volcanoes. A retrospective now at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which this lengthy tome catalogues, reveals that some of Warhol's most suggestive works are among his least well-known, to wit, his space-age Moonwalk (1987), a Rorschach-like series of paintings, and the enormous, Asiatic-looking Oxidation Paintings done in metallic pigments. Packed with 325 color plates and 332 in black and white, this six-pounder includes four academic, hyperbolic essays, 33 pages of first-hand impressions of Warhol by cultural celebs, and 10 pages of his instant wit and wisdom. (Apr.)