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Tracing the Rise of an American Icon
In August 2026, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art (the Carter) will premiere The Statue of Liberty from Bartholdi to Warhol, an examination of the Statue of Liberty’s enduring relevance in American visual culture and the evolution of its image from the 1870s to the present.
Bringing together nearly 100 artworks and objects from more than 70 artists, the exhibition explores the statue’s varied manifestations—from artistic marvel and pop culture icon to symbol of immigration, patriotism, and resistance—and how successive generations of artists, including Pacita Abad, Benny Andrews, Edward Moran, Norman Rockwell, Nari Ward, and Andy Warhol, have represented its iconic form over the past 150 years. Co-organized with the Denver Art Museum, The Statue of Liberty from Bartholdi to Warhol will open at the Carter on August 16, 2026, and be on view through January 3, 2027, before its presentation in Denver.
Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi (1834-1904)
Liberty Enlightening the World (Statue of Liberty), 1894-1901
Bronze with brown patina and black lacquer
L2024.15
“This monumental exhibition tells the story of how our nation has interpreted the Statue of Liberty not only as a national icon, but also as a reflection of American values, creativity, and identity throughout our collective history,” said Scott Wilcox, Interim Director of the Carter. “Premiering The Statue of Liberty from Bartholdi to Warhol in Fort Worth on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of our nation’s founding invites our community to see this emblematic statue in new dimensions.”
The exhibition is anchored by a rare cast of French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s bronze sculpture Liberty Enlightening the World (Statue of Liberty) (1894-1901), one of only five domestic-scale bronze reductions made during the artist’s lifetime. The cast was acquired by the Carter in 2024, and is highlighted in the first of four sections that comprise the exhibition. These include:
- Creating a Monument (1865-1917) focuses on the statue’s origins and initial public reception in the tumultuous decades between the American Civil War and World War I. Introducing the early history of the Statue of Liberty, an idea conceived, in the wake of the American Civil War, and presenting early iterations of the icon, “Creating a Monument” lays the groundwork for Bartholdi’s vision of the monument as an enduring testament to Franco-American friendship and shared values of liberty and freedom. By pairing watercolor paintings of the sculpture, early studies for the monument, archival photographs of its construction, and images of Bartholdi himself with Edward Moran’s notable painting Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World (The Unveiling of the Statue of Liberty) (1886) and the Carter’s Bartholdi cast, visitors can trace the evolution of the statue from a political statement and feat of engineering to a gesture of artistic grandeur and reflection of aspirational American values. This section will also include a series of representations of the monument from period newspapers, underscoring how quickly the Statue of Liberty became a cultural touchstone both for debates about the nation and for advertisers who capitalized on its iconic form and growing popularity.
- Creating an Icon (1917-1962) mimics the way that society and visual culture were inundated with Statue of Liberty imagery between World War I and the 1950s by immersing visitors within a tightly hung installation of newspapers, advertisements, lithographs, images, films, and paintings, that mark the turning point in the statue’s transformation into a dominant American icon. Interpretations in this section include works by artists such as Margaret Bourke-White, Norman Rockwell, and N.C. Wyeth, as well as filmmakers Alfred Hitchcock and Charlie Chaplin, in addition to government-sponsored posters that, at the time, leveraged the Statue of Liberty as a symbol of patriotism amidst global conflicts.
- Transforming an Icon (1962-2001) explores pop art and reproductions of the statue’s imagery, demonstrating its increasing detachment from its original image and malleability as an American symbol. In the 1960s, artists including Andy Warhol elevated the statue to pop icon and a trove of artists followed suit by creating new meanings of the figure through increasingly altered depictions of its image. Furthermore, many artists used the Statue of Liberty to ask broader questions about the American experience in the years around the American Bicentennial, including Robert Colescott, whose monumental painting investigated the coded language of national identity and standards of beauty. This section also includes notable works by Pacita Abad, Benny Andrews, Gail LeBoff, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, and Ruth Thorne-Thomsen, among others.
- The exhibition closes with a selection of works by living artists who have continued to investigate the Statue of Liberty’s meaning in the 21st century. Featuring Nari Ward’s Lazarus alongside works by artists such as Craig George, Diego Romero, Paola Pivi, and Hank Willis Thomas among others, the coda demonstrates the statue’s continued relevance for artists working today and how it remains a powerful lens for interpreting American values and identities.
Nari Ward (b. 1973), Lazarus, 2019, shoelaces, Vilcek Foundation Collection, © Nari Ward Studio. Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Seoul, and London, and GALLERIA CONTINUA, Photo by Joshua White
Accompanying the exhibition is a community centered installation of ephemeral objects depicting the representation of the Statue of Liberty in popular culture. Members of the community are invited to loan items from their personal collections, from rubber ducks to dolls, for inclusion in the closing section of the exhibition. The Carter is accepting applications through May 1, 2026, at cartermuseum.org/LendLiberty.
The Statue of Liberty from Bartholdi to Warhol is co-organized by the Amon Carter Museum of American Art and the Denver Art Museum. The Carter’s presentation of The Statue of Liberty from Bartholdi to Warhol is supported by The Ann L. & Carol Greene Rhodes Charitable Trust, Bank of America, N.A., Trustee and the Alice L. Walton Foundation Temporary Exhibitions Endowment.
Roy Lichtenstein (1923–1997), I Love Liberty, 1982, planographic print, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Roy Lichtenstein Study Collection, gift of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation, 2019.161, © 2025 Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/DACS
The exhibition will also travel to the Munson Museum of Art in Utica, New York from August 5 through December 5, 2027. In Denver, the Denver Art Museum and the Carter will co-host an in-person symposium, learnings from which will be published online thereafter. The Carter will celebrate the exhibition during their Second Thursdays event on Thursday, September 10, 2026, with talks and activities exploring the exhibition. Additional events will be scheduled throughout the run of the exhibition. For dates and details visit cartermuseum.org.
