KentState University’s School of Art is now home to 156 Andy Warhol photos after a recent donation of the pop artist’s original work from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.

Kent State was among three northeastern Ohio colleges, including the University of Akron and the College of Wooster, along with 183 university art museums nationwide, to receive donations from the foundation.

The gift, made through the Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program, is in honor of the foundation’s 20^th anniversary, and consists of 28,543 original Warhol photographs valued in excess of $28 million, according to a foundation news release.

According to Joel Wachs, president of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the aim of the Photographic Legacy Program is to provide greater access to Warhol’s artwork and process, and to enable a wide range of people from communities across the country to view and study this important yet relatively unknown body of Warhol’s work.

The school is honored to receive the collection of images, says Anderson Turner, director of Kent State’s School of Art Galleries.

"These are Warhol's actual Polaroids which range from unknown socialites to famed celebrities," he says.

The Polaroid collection includes images of Olympic figure skater Dorothy Hamill, fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, tennis star Vitas Gerulaitis and Navajo artist R.C. Gorman.

"A wealth of information about Warhol's process and his interactions with his sitters is revealed in these images," says Warhol program curator Jenny Moore. "Through his rigorous - though almost unconscious - consistency in shooting, the true idiosyncrasies of his subjects were revealed."

The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts was established in 1987 and has given away more than $200 million in cash grants and art donations.