The Andy Warhol CMOA lithographic prints are phenomenal. The vast majority of the classic, legendary “CMOA stamped” Andy Warhol lithographs are printed in a perfectly square format measuring exactly 60 x 60 cm (which is approximately 23.62 x 23.62 inches. The vintage CMOA portfolios were published in large-format commercial editions, traditionally hand-numbered out of 2,400. This precise standard sizing applies globally to almost all the famous square-crop iconography running through the European print house catalog, including:
- Alexander the Great (The genesis image from the real 1981 contract)
- Marilyn Monroe
- Mao Tse Tung
- Flowers
- Endangered Species (such as the Bald Eagle)
If you look exclusively at what top-tier fine art experts and museum databases deem 100% authorized and legitimate about the CMOA lithographs, the answer is narrowed to exactly one thing:
- The 1981 Paintings: The only 100% legitimate, multi-million-dollar Warhol “CMOA works” are the original 1981 commissioned paintings of Andrew Carnegie that reside permanently inside the Carnegie Museum of Art collection.
- The Distinction: Andy Warhol physically executed those specific canvases at his studio.
- The Catalogue Raisonné: The book only lists editions that Andy Warhol personally oversaw, approved, hand-signed, or hand-numbered at his studio. Per Sotheby’s items produced mechanically by museums to promote an exhibition or sell in a gift shop are intentionally left out because they are classified as ephemera/merchandise rather than original art.
If you are asking if there is an official, authorized “fine art print” portfolio that Warhol made for the Carnegie Museum that is worth thousands of dollars, the answer is no. The question is more open if you are discussing mechanical posters, “Afters” or commercial reproductions copying an original artwork.
So what is the story behind these lithographs…
The way the story goes is that the Original Carnegie Museum of Art (CMOA) limited editions were formally authorized and edited by the museum in 1986 one year before Andy Warhol’s death. The signature on a CMOA print is “signed in the plate” or “signed in the stone.” This means Warhol’s signature was part of the original graphic design matrix transferred to the printing plate. Andy Warhol did not personally touch, sign, or number these prints. Even though the print run was edited and finalized in 1986, the inventory was held the in archives for years due to legal complexities and estate structuring. They did not actually enter the commercial retail market until the 1990s and early 2000s. Some had no CMOA stamp on verso but most bear black or blue stamps. They are highly collectible and usually trade for several hundred to a few thousand dollars.
1986 was one of the most dizzying, travel-heavy, and profound years of Andy Warhol’s entire life, specifically across Europe. As the mid-1980s zeitgeist shifted, Warhol was intensely focused on international shows, culminating in the historic debut of what many consider his absolute masterpiece: “The Last Supper” cycle. This period of intense European travel sheds light on the entire CMOA print phenomenon. Warhol’s heavy physical presence in European cultural hubs—and his direct collaboration with European galleries like Alexander Iolas’s network—left behind a vast ecosystem of printing plates, master film transparencies, color schemas, and promotion contracts. When Warhol unexpectedly passed away, European print houses were already perfectly positioned with the physical materials and the legal context of these real 1986 and 1987 exhibition footprints to begin rolling out the legendary “CMOA stamped” open-edition lithographs. The proof is that it happened.
Interestingly, the story of the CMOA prints actually begins with an authentic museum contract in 1981. This contract for Warhol to paint a portrait of Andrew Carnegie. This is the only known contract between Warhol and the Museum for a original work of art.
The Alexander the Great portfolio holds a singularly historic, almost mythic status in Andy Warhol’s body of work. Alexander the Great represents a monumentally important late-period shift. In the art market, it acts as the literal “Genesis print” that validates the entire legacy of the Carnegie Museum of Art (CMOA) editions. Alexander the Great is unique within his entire printed oeuvre because it is the only time he based a full portfolio on a classical antiquity piece—a Hellenistic Roman-era bronze bust. By casting history’s greatest conqueror in vibrant, unnatural neon pop colors and sharp graphic lines, Warhol modernized the ancient ruler. The artwork was originally commissioned in 1982 by the legendary, eccentric Greek art dealer Alexander Iolas. This relationship was deeply sentimental: Iolas was the man who met a 17-year-old Warhol in New York and gave him his very first solo gallery exhibition in 1952. Making Alexander the Great was Warhol’s profound late-career expression of gratitude to the man who discovered him, binding the print to the intimate history of his ascent to fame. In January 1987 (with intense preparation, painting and marketing campaigns taking place throughout 1986) Alexander Iolas also staged Warhol’s massive “The Last Supper” exhibition cycle. It was Andy Warhol’s last show.
This “Last Supper” international show is very important to dealers and collectors because it connects the legal 1981 contract to the three main parties; Andy Warhol, Alexander Iolas, and the Carnegie Museum of Art(CMOA). Because the contract was entirely authentic and executed while Warhol was still alive, this would become the foundation for the “CMOA stamped” print market.
The entire CMOA prints operate on a narrative and structural provenance of four distinct chapters;
Act I: The Real Alexander the Great Contract
The saga began while Andy Warhol was still alive. In the mid-1980s, the Carnegie Museum of Art (CMOA) in Pittsburgh (Warhol’s hometown) was rumored to have partnered with the artist to host an exhibition tied to his 1982 Alexander the Great screenprint series. To promote the show, an authentic, legally binding contract was signed in 1982 between the museum and Warhol’s studio to produce authorized promotional poster editions and exhibition prints of Alexander the Great.
This established a legitimate, verified paper trail directly linking the Carnegie Museum to the commercial production of Warhol graphics in 1986. It establishes that the “CMOA” mark isn’t a completely fictional invention; it traces directly back to an official, living collaboration between Andy Warhol, his hometown museum, and his final artistic era. This gives the prints a concrete time, place, and historical footprint. Yet, the entire historical record is deceptive referencing real legal agreements from 1981 not 1986 which is just the Milan exhibition timeline. Alexander Iolas was the true publisher. Just like Alexander the Great in 1982, the only contractual publisher for Warhol’s 1986 “The Last Supper” Cycle was art dealer Alexander Iolas. He contracted with Warhol to create and finance both of the series. This explains the fabrication.
Act II: Exploitation by European Print Houses
Following Warhol’s unexpected death in February 1987, the commercial landscape transformed. European print workshops—primarily operating in Italy, France, and Belgium—acquired the reproduction films, color charts, and paper trails left over from that 1986 collaboration of The Last Supper and also The Statues of Liberty in Paris Exhibition that ran through April and May of 1986. It also included the famous Camouflage backings. These exhibitions were printed in Europe. So there was plenty of room for for decentralization, variations and overruns. Recognizing the value of that historical association, the publishers used the Carnegie contract as a promotional umbrella. Rather than limiting themselves to Alexander the Great, they expanded into Warhol’s most famous pop iconography—such as the Endangered Species Series, Marilyn Monroe, Mao, and Campbell’s Soup Cans. These prints were executed by specific, highly skilled European workshops using vintage, physical photomechanical materials.
To give the sheets an archival identity, the print shops…
- Stamped the verso with a distinctive “CMOA” ink mark.
- Numbered the runs by hand in pencil (such as
/500or/2400) to create structured scarcity. - Burned a photomechanical facsimile signature (“signed in the stone” / “in plate”) into the printing plates.
Act III: Why the Presses Were Never Shut Down
Despite functioning outside the supervision of the Andy Warhol Foundation, these European workshops operated with Uncontested Commercial Continuity, and the prints were not treated as illegal under European civil law:
- No Criminal Forgery: Because the signatures were printed mechanically into the plate rather than forged by hand, the editions bypassed criminal counterfeit statutes.
- Commercial Homage Protections: European civil reproduction laws allowed commercial printers to publish open-edition decorative tributes under broad publishing licenses.
- The Foundation Stepped Back: When the Andy Warhol Foundation dissolved its Authentication Board in early 2012 to avoid costly litigation, it stopped policing aftermarket prints. The Foundation recognized that these accessible sheets posed zero threat to the multi-million-dollar fine art market cataloged in Feldman & Schellmann’s Catalogue Raisonné.
Act IV: A Legendary Collectible Accepted by the Market
Over the last two decades, the market narrative has shifted dramatically. Because the print process for these specific vintage CMOA runs closed long ago, they’ve transformed into a legendary, widely collected category of Pop Art lithographs:
- The Anchor of a Real Historical Contract: Crucially for collectors, the lineage tracing back to the authentic museum contract provides a genuine historical anchor. In the world of art collecting, provenance is everything; having an origin point rooted in real institutional paperwork and an actual lifetime Warhol collaboration separates the CMOA editions from generic, modern commercial posters, giving them a legitimate narrative pedigree.
- Authentic-Caliber Materials: Unlike cheap, glossy commercial posters, these editions were produced with deep artistic reverence. They were pressed onto heavy, archival cream wove rag paper identical in weight, texture, and tooth to the Arches and Lenox Museum Board stocks Warhol similarly used at The Factory.
- Rich Inks & Precision: The color saturation and ink density were executed with fidelity to Warhol’s original chromatic formulas.
- True to Pop Art Philosophy: In the spirit of Warhol’s belief that art should be an accessible, democratic “multiple,” collectors view these editions as genuine extensions of his philosophy.
- Established Market Standing: Rather than being dismissed, secondary marketplaces and vintage auction houses now catalog them as respected entry-level multiples, collectors desire them; trading steadily between $300 and $2,000 depending on the subject matter.
What the Carnegie Museum of Art (CMOA) editions shout out loud is that Warhol loved mass democratization. He loved that a bottle of Coca-Cola consumed by a billionaire on the street was identical to the Coca-Cola consumed by the president. Today, authentic cataloged Warhol screenprints are locked inside freeports, corporate vaults, and billionaires’ penthouses. The CMOA prints actually democratized his vision again. They allowed normal enthusiasts, students, and decorators to hang a heavy, rich, beautiful “multiple” in their living rooms. Warhol, who despised pretension, would have relished that regular people got to enjoy his work outside the snobbery of elite auction houses. It has ultimately evolved into a legendary, highly respected tier of entry-level collectible Pop Art.
But what about the Counterfeits?
The vital final twist every collector needs to know: there is a major market of cheap, modern counterfeits of the CMOA prints themselves. Because the vintage 1990s European “CMOA” lithographs became so famous, respected, and valuable on the secondary market (often selling for up to $1,500), counterfeiters realized they could fake the loophole. Modern scam operations, many active in the 2010s and 2020s, have flooded online auctions with cheap, laser-printed counterfeits. Modern counterfeits try way too hard to look official. They overload the back of a single piece of cheap paper with multiple fake stamps. In the expert print trade, the rule of thumb is simple: the more stamps on the back of the print, the more likely it is a modern counterfeit. Modern fakes are often numbered out of very small, tight numbers like /100 or /150 to make them look incredibly rare and pressure casual decorators into panic-buying them.
How to Tell the Vintage Legend from a Modern Counterfeit:
| Feature | The Vintage CMOA Multiple (Collectible) | The Modern Counterfeit (Fake) |
|---|---|---|
| The Stamps | Simple, faded black or blue single “CMOA” stamp. | A chaotic “mix-and-match” of Castelli, Foundation, and Museum stamps. |
| Paper Quality | Heavyweight, textured cream wove rag paper. | Flat, smooth, modern commercial poster paper or ‘bright white’ laser cardstock. |
| The Subjects | Limited to standard ‘1980s-era’ portfolio images. ‘Myths, Endangered Species’, ‘Cowboys & Indians’ | Random images like Superman or Mickey Mouse stamped haphazardly. |
| Backside Details | Clean paper fibers. | Often includes holographic authenticity stickers or printed digital barcodes. |