Extensive Andy Warhol exhibit opens in Rome

159 masterworks on show from renowned Peter Brant collection

(ANSA) - Rome, April 17 - An important part of the renowned Peter Brant collection of Andy Warhol paintings will be on display at the Italian capital's Museo Fondazione Roma - Palazzo Cipolla starting Friday, April 18 through September 28. The 159 masterworks shown in Rome include Brant's early acquisition Blue Shot Marilyn, one of four masterpiece portraits of Marilyn Monroe shot in the forehead by a bullet.

The exhibit's curators are Francesco Bonanni and Peter Brant himself, who was introduced to the artist in 1968 by legendary New York art dealer Leo Castelli and became one of the artist's closest friends and a regular at the Factory, Warhol's famous studio space in Mahnattan. The retrospective in Rome follows a very successful exhibit at Milan's Palazzo Reale that attracted 225,000 visitors. It spans Warhol's lifetime production, starting with his early drawings and ending with one of his Last Supper canvases.

Brant, a US newsprint magnate, began buying Warhols at 20 when he was still in college. The first piece he reportedly purchased in 1967 was a drawing of a Campbell's soup can, which he picked up for $500. A few months later he bought Blue Shot Marilyn for $5,000, thanks to a family gift which he had invested.

Today, the founder of Pop art's paintings and prints of presidents, movie stars, soup cans and other American icons that have made him one of the most famous artists worldwide fetch significantly more and Brant's Warhol collection is one of the most extensive in private hands.