Self Portrait

A highly respected scholar and art historian, Dr. Rainer Crone was one of the foremost voices on Andy Warhol’s art and practice. Formally known as the University Professor emeritus of Contemporary Art and History of Film at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Dr. Crone gained widespread recognition as the author of the first catalog raisonné for Andy Warhol’s works, published in 1970.

Dr. Crone began working with Andy Warhol in 1968 when he was gathering research for his doctorate at the University of Hamburg. Dr. Crone was funded by a two-year doctoral grant from the German government, without commercial backing or financial support from any individuals or galleries. The Ph.D. thesis that resulted served as the basis for the catalog raisonné, and both the thesis and raisonné went on to be regarded as the first European scholarly response to the work of Andy Warhol. Dr. Crone and Warhol would go on to continue working together on numerous books and projects until the artist’s death in 1987.

Though Dr. Crone passed in 2016, his collection tells a story through an art historian’s eyes. Warhol’s Portrait of a Dancer (John Butler) from Three Promenades with the Lord, with its crisp, steady ink line, illustrates Dr. Crone’s appreciation for Warhol’s early practice while a vibrant selection of works by Jonathan Lasker, Rosemarie Trockel, and Donald Baechler Dr. Crone’s eye for collecting contemporary works of the time. Through a plethora of various media, Dr. Crone’s collection tells a story of art and art history that illuminates the turn of the later half of the twentieth century.