Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol Born Aug 6 th 1928 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Studied in the Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh. He studied with various artists such as Balcomb Greene, Robert Lepper and Samuel Rosenberg. He experimented with his name by signing holiday cards. He graduated in 1949 with a B.A. in Fine Art in Pictorial Design. Soon after graduating he moved to New York to work as a commercial artist. First work appeared on Glamour magazine Sept Most successful illustrator of the 1950s winning awards from the American Inst. of Graphic Arts. His clients included Tiffany & Co., The New York Times, Columbia Records, Vogue and others. Most of his work was based on photographs and he used his mother’s quirky handwriting in a lot of his work from this time (she had won an award for her lettering in a children’s book she wrote and illustrated. His mother joined him in New York in 1952 and lived together till Warhol painted memorial portraits of her after her death made a film on her and shot video tapes of her. In1956 visited Asia and Europe. 1950’s first Pop Art paintings based on comics and ads

The 1960’s Campbell’s Soup 1, 1968 “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 Coca-Cola, LIZ Taylor drinks Coca-Cola and just think, you can drink Coca-Cola, too. A coke is a coke 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.” During the 1960’s Warhol began to make paintings of American products such as ‘Campbell’s Soup Cans’ and Coca-Cola as well as paintings of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Elvis. The factory was founded i.e. his studio during this time and he gathered around himself a wide range of artists, writers, musicians, and underground celebrities. He switched to silkscreen prints. Producing huge series seeking not only to make art of mass- production items but to mass produce the art itself. By minimising the role of his own hand in the production of his work and declaring that he wanted to be “a machine”. He worked quickly and became very controversial and popular.

1960’s “Three Coca-Cola bottles” “Coca-Cola bottles” Warhol’s work began to revolve around American Pop culture. He painted dollar bills, celebrities, brand name products and iconic images from headline stories of the decade exhibit 2The American Supermarket” presented as a typical small supermarket environment, except that everything in it from the produce, canned goods, meat, posters on the wall, etc. were created by six prominent pop artists. The exhibit was one of the first mass events that directly confronted the general public with both Pop Art and the question of “what is Art”?

1960’s

June 1968, Valerie Solanas shot Warhol and art critic and curator Mario Amaya at Warhol’s studio. She had gone to the studio asking for her script back that she had handed into Warhol some time before that and had been told it was misplaced. After this incident the Factory scene became much more tightly controlled.

1970’s Warhol devoted much of his time now to rounding up new rich patrons for portrait commissions – including Mick Jagger, Liza Minnelli, John Lennon, Diana Ross and Michael Jackson.

1970’s

Mick Jagger portrait Cover of the Rolling Stones

Warhol’s Work Warhol went from being a painter to being a designer of paintings. At the height of his fame he had several assistants who produced his silk- screen multiples, following his directions to make different versions and variations Warhol did a series called “Death and Disaster”. They were paintings such as ‘Red Car Crash’, Purple Jumping Man’ and ‘Orange Disaster’. They transformed personal tragedies into public spectacles, and signal the use of images of disaster in the then evolving media. Warhol refused to explain his work often saying that ”all you need to know about him and his work is already there on the surface”.

Other works Throughout 1970’s Warhol frequently socialised with celebrities such as Jackie Kennedy and Truman Capote. He started to receive dozens and soon hundreds of commissions for painted portraits from wealthy socialites, music and film stars. He was a regular partygoer at Studio 54, the famous New York disco was a period of experimentation. He made 3 versions of a sculpture called rain Machine. These consisted of a large shower of water in front of a wall of 3-D lenticular prints of daisies produced a large series of work called Oxidation paintings, made from human urine on canvases covered with metallic paint. The chemical interaction produced beautiful abstract shapes in contrast to their shocking medium.

Oxidation

1970’s 1974 he started a series of Time Capsules made from cardboard boxes that he filled with the materials of his everyday life, including mail, photos, art, clothing, collectibles, etc. 1970’s onwards he produced a prolific number of paintings, prints, photographs and drawings on Skulls, Hammer and Sickles, Guns, Knives, Camouflage and much more.

1980’s mid 1980’s his television shows, Andy Warhol’s Fifteen Minutes and Andy Warhol’s TV aired nationally on MTV and on Madison Square Garden cable television in New York. He appeared on the Love Boat and produced music videos for rock bands such as The Cars. He modelled in fashion shows and in numerous print and television ads for Sony, Vidal Sassoon and many others he returned to painting with a brush and briefly abandoned silkscreening. Nearly all of Warhol’s works in every medium were created with the help of friends, paid assistants and managers.

1987 Warhol died in New York on Feb 22, 1987 due to complications following surgery to remove his gall bladder. In 1988 a ten day auction of his enormous estate of art and antiques raised over 20 million dollars for The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. The Andy Warhol Museum was announced in 1989 and opened in Pittsburgh in 1994.