Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American painter, filmmaker, publisher, actor, and a major figure in the Pop Art movement.

He Was Born in Pittsburgh in He Studied Pictorial Design at the Carnegie Institute. His parents, Ondrej (Andrew) Warhola (original surname was Varchola, he changed it after coming to US) and Júlia Zavacká, were working class immigrants of Ruthenian ethnicity from Miková, in northeast Slovakia; his father worked in the coal mines of Pennsylvania. The family was Catholic. In the third grade, he came down with a disease called St. Vitus' dance, which is caused by a virus that affects nerves and is thought to be a complication of scarlet fever. This disease changed his looks, and his life, forever.

Warhol showed early artistic talent and studied commercial art at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. In 1949, he moved to New York City and began a successful career in magazine illustration and advertising. He became well- known mainly for his whimsical ink drawings of shoes done in a loose, blotted style. In the 1960s, Warhol began to make paintings of famous American products such as Campbell's soup cans and Coca- Cola. He switched to silkscreen prints, seeking not only to make art of mass produced items, but to mass produce the art itself. He said that he wanted to be like a robot. He hired and supervised "art workers" engaged in making prints, shoes, films, books and other items at his studio, The Factory, located on Union Square in New York City. Warhol's body of work furthermore includes commissioned portraits and commercials.

A lot of Warhol's works revolve around the concept of Americana and American culture. He painted money, food, women's shoes, celebrities, newspaper clippings, and everyday objects. To him, these subjects represented American cultural values. For instance, Coca-Cola represented democratic equality because, quote: "What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it." He used popular imagery and methods to visualize the American cultural identity of the 20th century. This popular redefinition of American culture is a theme and result of Warhol's art. Because American culture has had great international influence, Warhol has, as well. Outside of the art world, Andy Warhol is best known for the quote, "In the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." He later told reporters, humorously, "My new line is, 'In fifteen minutes, everybody will be famous.'"

On June 3, 1968, Valerie Solanas, a Factory regular, entered Warhol's studio and fired three shots at Warhol, nearly killing him. Although the first two rounds missed, the third passed through Warhol's left lung, spleen, stomach, liver, esophagus, and right lung. Solanas then turned the gun on a companion of Warhol, Mario Amaya, injuring his thigh. Warhol survived his injuries, but he never fully recovered Compared to the success and scandal of Warhol's work in the 1960s, the 1970s was a much quieter decade, in terms of critical success. This period, howver, saw Warhol becoming more entrepreneurial. According to Bob Colocello, Warhol devoted much of his time rounding up new, rich patrons for portrait commissions--including Mick Jagger, Brigitte Bardot and Michael Jackson. He also founded Interview magazine and published THE Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975). In this book he presents his ideas on the nature of art: "Making money is art, and working is art and good business is the best art."

Warhol had a reemergence of critical and financial success in the 1980s. Partially, this was due to his affiliation and friendships with a number of prolific younger artists, who were dominating the "bull market" of 80s New York art: Julian Schnabel, David Salle and the so-called Neo-Expressionists, as well as Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi and members of the Transavantguardia movement, which had become influential. Of particular significance, was Warhol's close friendship with Jean-Michel Basquiat, with whom Warhol collaborated on a series of works. Unfortunately, their friendship suffered the strain of their own individual success. After Warhol was accused of using Basquiat to revitalize his own career, the artists largely parted ways. Warhol died in New York City following routine gallbladder surgery at the age of 58. Warhol was afraid of hospitals and doctors, so he had delayed having his recurring gall bladder problems checked. He is interred at St. John the Baptist Catholic Cemetery in Bethel Park, south of Pittsburgh. Fellow artist Yoko Ono was among the speakers at his funeral. Andy Warhol had so many posessions it took Sotheby's nine days to auction his estate after his death for a total gross amount of over 20,000,000 (USD).

When he decided to pursue a career as an artist, Warhol had already established a reputation as a commercial illustrator. In school he had made paintings, but his work afterwards had mainly consisted of "blotted ink" illustrations for warehouses and magazines. He felt that he was not being taken seriously as an illustrator, and wanted to become a "real" artist. Warhol worked across a wide range of mediums - painting, photography, drawing, and sculpture. He was also a highly prolific filmmaker. Between 1963 and 1968, he made more than sixty films. His friends suggested that he should paint the things he loved the most. In his signature way of taking things literally, for his first major exhibition he painted his famous cans of Campbell's Soup, that he had for lunch most of his life. Warhol loved money, so he later painted money. He loved celebrities, so he painted them as well. From these beginnings he developed his later style and themes. Instead of working on a signature subject matter, as he started out to do, he worked more and more on a signature style, slowly eliminating the hand-made from the artistic process. Warhol heavily employed silk-screening, his later drawings were traced from slide projections. In other words, Warhol went from being a painter to being a designer of paintings. At the height of his fame as a painter, Warhol had several assistants who produced his silk- screen multiples, in different versions and variations after his directions.

In the beginning of his career, Warhol worked on a growing oeuvre of American forms and values like newspaper clippings, disasters, money, commercial products, Coca-Cola bottles, postal stamps, movie stars, criminals, shoes, clothes, etc. while defining a position and researching and making statements. As recognition--and the value of his work--grew, he went back to his roots as a commercial illustrator, and started to take commissions, most noticeably for portraits. At one point, Warhol publicly declared that he had stopped being a painter, and that he would only make films from then on; but at the end of his life, Warhol took up painting again. His last paintings and drawings are of da Vinci's Last Supper, which he was working on when he died.

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