About Vanishing Animals and Endangered Species, a suite:

In the 1980s, Andy Warhol embarked on several projects focused on animals, including among them his series of Vanishing Animals and Endangered Species, a suite. Studies and screenprints of Vanishing Animals led to an eponymous book created in collaboration with German conservationist Kurt Benirschke of the San Diego Zoo. [1]

Warhol’s interest in endangered animals was in some ways an extension of themes Warhol had explored throughout his career. As gallerist Fergus McCaffrey posits in the catalog accompanying the 2006 exhibition Andy Warhol – Vanishing Animals:

Warhol’s concern about the death of entire species of animals fits neatly into the lexicon of untimely and unseemly ends that he repeatedly mused on during his long career. Bearing in mind the self-referential nature and frequent quotation of his own earlier work in much of the output of the 1980s, it does not take much of a leap to imagine Warhol making a connection between the suicides, car crashes, poisonings, executions, and pervasive threat of nuclear annihilation of the 1960s and the tragic plight of Vanishing Animals in the 1980s. After all, extinction is just another variety of death, and one gets the sense that Warhol was sensitized to care equally for man and beast. [2]

Since 1986, the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) has included the Soemmerring's Gazelle on its Red List of Threatened Species. As of 2016, the IUCN published that between 4000 to 5000 remain, though it is suggested this number has declined since the most recent population assessment. [3]

View more works by Andy Warhol

[1] Kurt Benischke and Andy Warhol, Vanishing Animals (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1986).
[2] Fergus McCaffrey, Andy Warhol: Vanishing Animals (St. Barthélemy, French West Indies: Me.di.um, 2006).
[3] “The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species,” IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, April 20, 2016, https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/63541/50197739#population