A group of experimental artworks created by Andy Warhol on an Amiga computer have been discovered thanks to the efforts of a dedicated fan.

Warhol was commissioned to produce a series of images for the launch of the Commodore Amiga in 1985

Cory Arcangel, himself an artist, was first led to the images by a YouTube video of Commodore's Amiga launch in 1985, where Warhol unveiled a portrait of Blondie singer Debbie Harry he had made to demonstrate the computer's technology.

Wondering if Warhol had created any more works, Arcangel contacted the Andy Warhol Museum in 2011, receiving permission to search its collection. During the search, he unearthed an Amiga computer along with a series of floppy disks, with telling titles such as "campbells.pic" and "marilyn1.pic".

Warhol recreated some of his most iconic works for the project, many of which never saw the light of day until now

With the files saved in an obscure format, Arcangel then enlisted the help of the Carnegie Mellon University computer club, who used magnetic imaging tools over a period of three years to successfully retrieve the images.

"Warhol saw no limits to his art practice. These computer generated images underscore his spirit of experimentation and his willingness to embrace new media - qualities which, in many ways, defined his practice from the early 1960s onwards," said director of the Andy Warhol Museum, Eric Shiner.

Arcangel added: "What's amazing is that by looking at these images, we can see how quickly Warhol seemed to intuit the essence of what it meant to express oneself, in what then was a brand-new medium: the digital."

Get the latest art collecting updates straight to your inbox with our free newsletter.