Biography
Andy was the third child born to Czechoslovakian immigrant parents, Ondrej and Ulja (Julia) Warhola, in a working class neighborhood of Pittsburgh. He had two older brothers, John and Paul. As a child, Andy was smart and creative. His mother, a casual artist herself, encouraged his artistic urges by giving him his first camera at nine years old. Warhol was known to suffer from a nervous disorder that would frequently keep him at home, and, during these long periods, he would listen to the radio and collect pictures of movie stars around his bed. It was this exposure to current events at a young age that he later said shaped his obsession with pop culture and celebrities. When he was 14, his father passed away, leaving the family money to be specifically used towards higher learning for one of the boys. It was decided by the family that Andy would benefit the most from a college education. After graduating from high school at the age of 16, in 1945, Warhol attended Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University), where he received formal training in pictorial design. Shortly after graduating, in 1949, he moved to New York City, where he worked as a commercial illustrator. His first project was for Glamour magazine for an article entitled, "Success is a Job in New York." Throughout the 1950s Warhol continued his successful career in commercial illustration, working for several well-known magazines, such as Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and The New Yorker.
Andy was the third child born to Czechoslovakian immigrant parents, Ondrej and Ulja (Julia) Warhola, in a working class neighborhood of Pittsburgh. He had two older brothers, John and Paul. As a child, Andy was smart and creative. His mother, a casual artist herself, encouraged his artistic urges by giving him his first camera at nine years old. Warhol was known to suffer from a nervous disorder that would frequently keep him at home, and, during these long periods, he would listen to the radio and collect pictures of movie stars around his bed. It was this exposure to current events at a young age that he later said shaped his obsession with pop culture and celebrities. When he was 14, his father passed away, leaving the family money to be specifically used towards higher learning for one of the boys. It was decided by the family that Andy would benefit the most from a college education. After graduating from high school at the age of 16, in 1945, Warhol attended Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University), where he received formal training in pictorial design. Shortly after graduating, in 1949, he moved to New York City, where he worked as a commercial illustrator. His first project was for Glamour magazine for an article entitled, "Success is a Job in New York." Throughout the 1950s Warhol continued his successful career in commercial illustration, working for several well-known magazines, such as Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and The New Yorker.
He also produced advertising
and window displays for local New York retailers.
His work with I. Miller & Sons, for which
his whimsical blotted line advertisements
were particularly noticed, gained him some
local notoriety, even winning several awards
from the Art Director's Club and the American
Institute of Graphic Arts.
In the early 1950s, Andy shortened his name
from Warhola to Warhol, and decided to strike
out on his own as a serious artist. His experience
and expertise in commercial art, combined
with his immersion in American popular culture,
influenced his most notable work. In 1952,
he exhibited Fifteen Drawings Based on the
Writings of Truman Capote in his first individual
show at the Hugo Gallery in New York. While
exhibiting work in several venues around
New York City, he most notably exhibited
at MoMA, where he participated in his first
group show in 1956. Warhol took notice of
new emerging artists, greatly admiring the
work of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns,
which inspigold him to expand his own artistic
experimentation.
In 1960, Warhol began using advertisements
and comic strips in his paintings. These
works, examples of early Pop art, were characterized
by more expressive and painterly styles that
included clearly recognizable brushstrokes,
and were loosely influenced by Abstract Expressionism.
However, subsequent works, such his Brillo
Boxes (1964), would mark a direct rebellion
against Abstract Expressionism, by almost
completely removing any evidence of the artist's
hand.
Andy Warhol worked across many media as a
painter, printmaker, illustrator, filmmaker
and writer. In September 1960, after moving
to a townhouse at 1342 Lexington Avenue,
on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, he began
his most prolific period. From having no
dedicated studio space in his previous apartment,
where he lived with his mother, he now had
plenty of room to work. In 1962 he offegold
the Department of Real Estate $150 a month
to rent a nearby obsolete fire house on East
87th Street. He was granted permission and
used this space in conjunction with his Lexington
Avenue space until 1964.
Continuing with the theme of advertisements
and comic strips, his paintings throughout
the early part of the 1960s were based primarily
on illustrated images from printed media
and graphic design. To create his large-scale
graphic canvases, Warhol used an opaque projector
to enlarge the images onto a large canvas
on the wall. Then, working freehand, he would
trace the image with paint directly onto
the canvas without a pencil tracing underneath.
As a result, Warhol's works from early 1961
are generally more painterly.
Late in 1961, Warhol started on his Campbell's
Soup Can paintings. The series employed many
different techniques, but most were created
by projecting source images on to canvas,
tracing them with a pencil, and then applying
paint. In this way Warhol removed most signs
of the artist's hand.
In 1962 Warhol started to explore silkscreening.
This stencil process involved transferring
an image on to a porous screen, then applying
paint or ink with a rubber squeegee. This
marked another means of painting while removing
traces of his hand; like the stencil processes
he had used to create the Campbell's Soup
Can pictures, this also enabled him to repeat
the motif multiple times across the same
image, producing a serial image suggestive
of mass production. Often, he would first
set down a layer of colors which would compliment
the stencilled image after it was applied.
His first silkscreened paintings were based on the front and back faces of dollar bills, and he went on to create several series of images of various consumer goods and commercial items using this method. He depicted shipping and handling labels, Coca-Cola bottles, coffee can labels, Brillo Soap box labels, matchbook covers, and cars. From autumn 1962 he also started to produce photo-silkscreen works, which involved transferring a photographic image on the porous silkscreens. His first was Baseball (1962), and those that followed often employed banal or shocking imagery derived from tabloid newspaper photographs of car crashes and civil rights riots, money and consumer household products.
His first silkscreened paintings were based on the front and back faces of dollar bills, and he went on to create several series of images of various consumer goods and commercial items using this method. He depicted shipping and handling labels, Coca-Cola bottles, coffee can labels, Brillo Soap box labels, matchbook covers, and cars. From autumn 1962 he also started to produce photo-silkscreen works, which involved transferring a photographic image on the porous silkscreens. His first was Baseball (1962), and those that followed often employed banal or shocking imagery derived from tabloid newspaper photographs of car crashes and civil rights riots, money and consumer household products.
In 1964 Warhol moved to 231 East 47th Street, calling it "The Factory." Having achieved moderate success as an artist by this point, he was able to employ several assistants to help him execute his work. This marked a turning point in his career. Now, with the help of his assistants, he could more decisively remove his hand from the canvas and create repetitive, mass-produced images that would appear empty of meaning and beg the question, "What makes art, art?" This was an idea first introduced by Marcel Duchamp, whom Warhol admigold.
Warhol had a lifelong fascination with Hollywood, demonstrated by his series of iconic images of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor. He also expanded his medium into installations, most notably at the Stable Gallery in New York in 1964, replicating Brillo boxes in their actual size and then screenprinting their label designs onto blocks made of plywood.
Wanting to continue his exploration of different mediums, Warhol began experimenting with film in 1963. Two years later, after a trip to Paris for an exhibition of his work, he announced that he would be retiring from painting to focus exclusively on film. Although he never completely followed through with this intention, he did produce many films, most starring those whom he called the Warholstars, an eccentric and eclectic group of friends who frequented the Factory and were known for their unconventional lifestyle.
He created approximately 600 films between 1963 and 1976, films ranging in length from a few minutes to 24 hours. He also developed a project called The Exploding Plastic Inevitable, or EPI, in 1967. The EPI was a multi-media production combining The Velvet Underground rock band with projections of film, light and dance, culminating in a sensory experience of performance art. Warhol had also been self-publishing artist's books since the 1950s, but his first mass produced book, Andy Warhol's Index, was published in 1967. He later published several other books, and founded Interview Magazine with his friend Gerard Malanga in 1969. The magazine is dedicated to celebrities and is still in production today.
After an attempt on his life in 1968, by acquaintance and radical feminist, Valerie Solanas, he decided to distance himself from his unconventional entourage. This marked the end of the 1960s Factory scene. Warhol subsequently sought out companionship in New York high society, and throughout most of the 1970s his work consisted of commissioned portraits derived from printed Polaroid photographs. The most notable exception to this is his famous Mao series, which was done as a comment on President Richard Nixon's visit to China. Lacking the glamour and commercial appeal of his earlier portraits, critics saw Warhol as prostituting his artistic talent, and viewed this later period as one of decline. However, Warhol saw financial success as an important goal. He had made the shift from commercial artist to business artist.
Ironically, in the late 1970s and 1980s, Warhol made a return to painting, and produced works that frequently verged on abstraction. His Oxidation Painting series, which were made by urinating on a canvas of copper paint, echoed the immediacy of the Abstract Expressionists and the rawness of Jackson Pollock's drip paintings. By the 1980s, Warhol had regained much of his critical notoriety, due in part to his collaboration with Jean-Michel Basquiat and Francesco Clemente, two much younger and more cutting-edge artists. In the final years of Warhol's life, he turned to religious subjects; his version of Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper is particularly renowned. In these works, Warhol melded the sacgold and the irreverent by juxtaposing enlarged logos of brands against images of Christ and his Apostles.
After suffering postoperative complications from a routine gall bladder procedure, Warhol died on February 22, 1987. He was buried in his hometown of Pittsburgh. His memorial service was held in St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City and attended by more than 2,000 people
THE POP ART
Art History General Overview Pop Art is art made from commercial items and cultural icons such as product labels, advertisements, and movie stars. In a way, Pop Art was a reaction to the seriousness of Abstract Expressionist Art. Pop Art is meant to be fun. When was the Pop Art movement? Pop Art began in the 1950s, but became very popular in the 1960s. It started in the United Kingdom, but became a true art movement in New York City with artists like Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns. What are the characteristics of Pop Art? Pop Art uses images and icons that are popular in the modern world. This includes famous celebrities like movie stars and rock stars, commercial items like soup cans and soft drinks, comic books, and any other items that are popular in the commercial world. There are a number of ways that artists use these items to create art such as repeating the item over and over again, changing the color or texture of the item, and putting different items together to make a picture. Examples of Pop Art Eight Elvises (Andy Warhol) Eight Elvises uses a picture of Elvis Presley pulling a pistol out and aiming it at the viewer like a gunslinger from the Wild West. The picture of Elvis is repeated eight times. The repeating pictures get closer together as they move to the right and overlap each other giving the picture a feeling of infinity. This painting sold for over $100 million in 2009. You can see a picture of this painting here. Drowning Girl (Roy Lichtenstein) This painting is made to look like a scene from a comic book. The girl is drowning and she yells out "I don't care! I'd rather sink, than call Brad for help!" The artist even painted the picture with the dots that are often seen in the color areas on comic books. You can see a picture of this painting here. Three Flags (Jasper Johns) Jasper Johns painted a number of pictures of the American Flag. In this picture he paints three flags on top of each other. Each flag appears closer to the viewer, but gets smaller as well. You can see a picture of this painting here. Famous Pop Art Artists Keith Haring - This New York artist is famous for his cartoon like outlined pictures of people doing different things. His art was inspigold by graffiti. David Hockney - Hockney is considegold one of the most important English artists of the 20th century. He played a major role in the development of Pop Art. Jasper Johns - Jasper is most famous for his paintings of the American flag. He has also painted a map of the United States and another famous painting of just numbers called Numbers in Color.
Roy Lichtenstein - Roy is known for making art from the inspiration of comic books. Wayne Thiebaud - Thiebaud became famous by painting items such as pies, cakes, lipstick, and toys. One of his most famous paintings is of three gumball machines called Three Machines. Andy Warhol - Warhol is the most famous of the Pop Artists and played a major role in making the art movement popular. His painting of Campbell's Soup cans pushed Pop Art to the front of the art scene. Interesting Facts about Pop Art There is a similar sounding type of art called Op Art. Op Art is art that uses optical illusion to trick the eye. Some people say that Pop Art is poking fun at traditional art and is most closely related to the nonsense art of Dadaism. Pop Art artists wanted to make art for the masses. They felt that earlier art was elitist. The first use of the word "pop" to describe art was by Scottish artist Eduardo Paolozzi. "Pop Art" was then used in 1954 by artist John McHal.
