Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the
visual art movement known as
pop art. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, advertising, and
celebrity culture
Celebrity culture is a high-volume exposure to celebrities' personal lives on a global scale. It is inherently tied to consumer interests where celebrities transform their fame to become product brands.
Whereas a culture can usually be physically ...
that flourished by the 1960s, and span a variety of media, including painting,
silkscreening
Screen printing is a printing technique where a mesh is used to transfer ink (or dye) onto a substrate, except in areas made impermeable to the ink by a blocking stencil. A blade or squeegee is moved across the screen to fill the open mesh ...
, photography, film, and sculpture. Some of his best-known works include the silkscreen paintings ''
Campbell's Soup Cans
''Campbell's Soup Cans'' (sometimes referred to as ''32 Campbell's Soup Cans'') is a Visual arts, work of art produced between November 1961 and March or April 1962 by American artist Andy Warhol. It consists of thirty-two canvases, each mea ...
'' (1962) and ''
Marilyn Diptych
The ''Marilyn Diptych'' ( 1962) is a silkscreen painting by American pop artist Andy Warhol depicting Marilyn Monroe. The monumental work is one of the artist's most noted of the movie star.
The painting consists of 50 images. Each image of ...
'' (1962), the experimental films ''
Empire
An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...
'' (1964) and ''
Chelsea Girls
''Chelsea Girls'' is a 1966 American experimental underground film directed by Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey. The film was Warhol's first major commercial success after a long line of avant-garde art films (both feature-length and short). It w ...
'' (1966), and the multimedia events known as the ''
Exploding Plastic Inevitable
The ''Exploding Plastic Inevitable'', sometimes simply called ''Plastic Inevitable'' or ''EPI'', was a series of multimedia events organized by Andy Warhol in 1966 and 1967, featuring musical performances by The Velvet Underground & Nico, screenin ...
'' (1966–67).
Born and raised in
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...
, Warhol initially pursued a successful career as a
commercial illustrator
Commercial art is the art of creative services, referring to art created for commercial purposes, primarily advertising. Commercial art uses a variety of platforms (magazines, websites, apps, television, etc.) for viewers with the intent of promo ...
. After exhibiting his work in several
galleries in the late 1950s, he began to receive recognition as an influential and controversial artist. His New York studio,
The Factory
The Factory was Andy Warhol's studio in New York City, which had four locations between 1963 and 1987. The Factory became famed for its parties in the 1960s. It was the hip hangout spot for artists, musicians, celebrities and Warhol's superstar ...
, became a well-known gathering place that brought together distinguished intellectuals,
drag queen
A drag queen is a person, usually male, who uses drag clothing and makeup to imitate and often exaggerate female gender signifiers and gender roles for entertainment purposes. Historically, drag queens have usually been gay men, and part o ...
s, playwrights,
Bohemian
Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to:
*Anything of or relating to Bohemia
Beer
* National Bohemian, a brand brewed by Pabst
* Bohemian, a brand of beer brewed by Molson Coors
Culture and arts
* Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, origin ...
street people,
Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywood, ...
celebrities, and wealthy patrons.
He promoted a collection of personalities known as
Warhol superstars
Warhol superstars were a clique of New York City personalities promoted by the pop artist Andy Warhol during the 1960s and early 1970s. These personalities appeared in Warhol's artworks and accompanied him in his social life, epitomizing his fam ...
, and is credited with inspiring the widely used expression "
15 minutes of fame
Fifteen or 15 may refer to:
*15 (number), the natural number following 14 and preceding 16
*one of the years 15 BC, AD 15, 1915, 2015
Music
*Fifteen (band), a punk rock band
Albums
* ''15'' (Buckcherry album), 2005
* ''15'' (Ani Lorak alb ...
". In the late 1960s he managed and produced the
experimental rock
Experimental rock, also called avant-rock, is a subgenre of rock music that pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique or which experiments with the basic elements of the genre. Artists aim to liberate and innovate, with ...
band
The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in New York City in 1964. The original line-up consisted of singer/guitarist Lou Reed, multi-instrumentalist John Cale, guitarist Sterling Morrison, and drummer Angus MacLise. MacLise w ...
and founded ''
Interview
An interview is a structured conversation where one participant asks questions, and the other provides answers.Merriam Webster DictionaryInterview Dictionary definition, Retrieved February 16, 2016 In common parlance, the word "interview" ...
'' magazine. He authored numerous books, including ''
The Philosophy of Andy Warhol
''The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B & Back Again)'' is a 1975 book by the American artist Andy Warhol. It was first published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
The book is an assemblage of vignettes about love, beauty, fame, work, sex, time ...
'' and ''
Popism: The Warhol Sixties''. He lived openly as a gay man before the
gay liberation movement
The gay liberation movement was a social and political movement of the late 1960s through the mid-1980s that urged lesbians and gay men to engage in radical direct action, and to counter societal shame with gay pride.Hoffman, 2007, pp.xi-xiii. ...
. In June 1968, he was almost killed by
radical feminist
Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism that calls for a Political radicalism, radical re-ordering of society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts, while recognizing that women's experiences are al ...
Valerie Solanas
Valerie Jean Solanas (April 9, 1936 – April 25, 1988) was an American radical feminist known for the ''SCUM Manifesto'', which she self-published in 1967, and for her attempt to murder artist Andy Warhol in 1968.
Solanas had a turbulent child ...
, who shot him inside his studio.
[ After ]gallbladder
In vertebrates, the gallbladder, also known as the cholecyst, is a small hollow organ where bile is stored and concentrated before it is released into the small intestine. In humans, the pear-shaped gallbladder lies beneath the liver, although ...
surgery, Warhol died of cardiac arrhythmia
Arrhythmias, also known as cardiac arrhythmias, heart arrhythmias, or dysrhythmias, are irregularities in the heartbeat, including when it is too fast or too slow. A resting heart rate that is too fast – above 100 beats per minute in adults ...
in February 1987 at the age of 58 in New York City.
Warhol has been the subject of numerous retrospective
A retrospective (from Latin ''retrospectare'', "look back"), generally, is a look back at events that took place, or works that were produced, in the past. As a noun, ''retrospective'' has specific meanings in medicine, software development, popu ...
exhibitions
An exhibition, in the most general sense, is an organized presentation and display of a selection of items. In practice, exhibitions usually occur within a cultural or educational setting such as a museum, art gallery
An art gallery is a roo ...
, books, and feature
Feature may refer to:
Computing
* Feature (CAD), could be a hole, pocket, or notch
* Feature (computer vision), could be an edge, corner or blob
* Feature (software design) is an intentional distinguishing characteristic of a software item ...
and documentary films. The Andy Warhol Museum
The Andy Warhol Museum is located on the North Shore of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is the largest museum in North America dedicated to a single artist. The museum holds an extensive permanent collection of art and archive ...
in his native city of Pittsburgh, which holds an extensive permanent collection of art and archives, is the largest museum in the United States dedicated to a single artist. Warhol has been described as the "bellwether
A bellwether is a leader or an indicator of trends.[bellwether]
" ''Cambridge Dictionary''. Ret ...
of the art market". Many of his creations are very collectible and highly valuable. His works include some of the most expensive paintings ever sold. In 2013, a 1963 serigraph
Screen printing is a printing technique where a mesh is used to transfer ink (or dye) onto a substrate, except in areas made impermeable to the ink by a blocking stencil. A blade or squeegee is moved across the screen to fill the open mesh ...
titled ''Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster)
''Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster)'' is a 1963 serigraph by the American artist Andy Warhol. In November 2013, it sold for $105 million (£65.5m) at NYC auction, setting a new highest price for a work by Warhol.
History
''Silver Car Crash (D ...
'' sold for $105 million. In 2022, ''Shot Sage Blue Marilyn'' (1964) sold for $195 million, which is the most expensive work of art sold at auction by an American artist.
Biography
Early life and beginnings (1928–1949)
Warhol was born on August 6, 1928, in Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...
, Pennsylvania. He was the fourth child of Ondrej Warhola (Americanized as Andrew Warhola Sr. 1889–1942) and Julia
Julia is usually a feminine given name. It is a Latinate feminine form of the name Julio and Julius. (For further details on etymology, see the Wiktionary entry "Julius".) The given name ''Julia'' had been in use throughout Late Antiquity (e.g. ...
(''née'' Zavacká, 1892–1972), whose first child was born in their homeland of Austria-Hungary and died before their move to the U.S.
His parents were working-class Lemko
Lemkos ( rue, Лeмкы, translit= Lemkŷ; pl, Łemkowie; uk, Лемки, translit=Lemky) are an ethnic group inhabiting the Lemko Region ( rue, Лемковина, translit=Lemkovyna; uk, Лемківщина, translit=Lemkivshchyna) of Car ...
emigrants from Mikó, Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
(now called Miková, located in today's northeastern Slovakia
Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...
). Warhol's father emigrated to the United States in 1914, and his mother joined him in 1921, after the death of Warhol's grandparents. Warhol's father worked in a coal mine. The family lived at 55 Beelen Street and later at 3252 Dawson Street in the Oakland
Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...
neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The family was Ruthenian Catholic and attended St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church
St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church is a historic Eastern Catholic Churches, Eastern Catholic church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located in the neighborhood of Four Mile Run (Pittsburgh), F ...
. Andy Warhol had two elder brothers—Pavol (Paul), the eldest, was born before the family emigrated; Ján
Ján is a Slovak form of the name John.
Famous people named Ján
* Ján Bahýľ, inventor
* Ján Čapkovič, football player
* Ján Čarnogurský, former Prime Minister of Slovakia
* Ján Cikker, composer
* Ján Ďurica, football player
* Ján ...
was born in Pittsburgh. Pavol's son, James Warhola
James Warhola (born March 16, 1955) is an American artist who has illustrated more than two dozen children's picture books since 1987.
Early life
A native of Smock, a coal-mining region in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, and of Le ...
, became a successful children's book illustrator.
In third grade, Warhol had Sydenham's chorea
Sydenham's chorea, also known as rheumatic chorea, is a disorder characterized by rapid, uncoordinated jerking movements primarily affecting the face, hands and feet. Sydenham's chorea is an autoimmune disease that results from childhood infecti ...
(also known as St. Vitus' Dance), the nervous system disease that causes involuntary movements of the extremities, which is believed to be a complication of scarlet fever
Scarlet fever, also known as Scarlatina, is an infectious disease caused by ''Streptococcus pyogenes'' a Group A streptococcus (GAS). The infection is a type of Group A streptococcal infection (Group A strep). It most commonly affects childr ...
which causes skin pigmentation blotchiness. At times when he was confined to bed, he drew, listened to the radio and collected pictures of movie stars around his bed. Warhol later described this period as very important in the development of his personality, skill-set and preferences. When Warhol was 13, his father died in an accident.
As a teenager, Warhol graduated from Schenley High School
Schenley High School, located in the North Oakland neighborhood at the edge of the Hill District in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is a historic building opened in 1916 that was a part of the Pittsburgh Public Schools. The Schenley High School building ...
in 1945, and also won a Scholastic Art and Writing Award. After graduating from high school, his intentions were to study art education
Visual arts education is the area of learning that is based upon the kind of art that one can see, visual arts—drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, and design in jewelry, pottery, weaving, fabrics, etc. and design applied to more practic ...
at the University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...
in the hope of becoming an art teacher, but his plans changed and he enrolled in the Carnegie Institute of Technology, now Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...
in Pittsburgh, where he studied commercial art. During his time there, Warhol joined the campus Modern Dance Club and Beaux Arts Society. He also served as art director of the student art magazine, ''Cano'', illustrating a cover in 1948 and a full-page interior illustration in 1949. These are believed to be his first two published artworks.[ Warhol earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in pictorial design in 1949. Later that year, he moved to New York City and began a career in magazine illustration and advertising.
]
1950s
Warhol's early career was dedicated to commercial and advertising art, where his first commission had been to draw shoes for ''Glamour
Glamour may refer to:
Arts
Film
* ''Glamour'' (1931 film), a British film
* ''Glamour'' (1934 film), an American film
* ''Glamour'' (2000 film), a Hungarian film
Writing
* ''Glamour'' (magazine), a magazine for women
* ''The Glamour ...
'' magazine in the late 1940s.[ In the 1950s, Warhol worked as a designer for shoe manufacturer Israel Miller.][
Benstock, Shari and Suzanne Ferriss (editors). ''Footnotes: On Shoes''; Rutgers University Press; February 1, 2001; ; pp. 44–48.] While working in the shoe industry, Warhol developed his "blotted line" technique, applying ink to paper and then blotting the ink while still wet, which was akin to a printmaking
Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed techniq ...
process on the most rudimentary scale. His use of tracing paper and ink allowed him to repeat the basic image and also to create endless variations on the theme. American photographer John Coplans recalled that
In 1952, Warhol had his first solo show at the Hugo Gallery
The Hugo Gallery was a New York City gallery, founded by Robert Rothschild, Elizabeth Arden and Maria dei Principi Ruspoli Hugo between 1945 and 1955 and operated by Alexander Iolas.
The Hugo gallery was initially on East 55th Street and Madison ...
in New York, and although that show was not well received, by 1956, he was included in his first group exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
, New York. Warhol's "whimsical" ink drawings of shoe advertisements figured in some of his earliest showings at the Bodley Gallery The Bodley Gallery was an art gallery in New York City, from the late 1940s through the early 1980s. The Bodley specialized in contemporary and modern art. David Mann was director of the gallery during its heyday and Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Braun (a.k. ...
in New York in 1957.
Warhol habitually used the expedient of tracing photographs projected with an epidiascope. Using prints by Edward Wallowitch, his "first boyfriend," the photographs would undergo a subtle transformation during Warhol's often cursory tracing of contours and hatching of shadows. Warhol used Wallowitch's photograph ''Young Man Smoking a Cigarette'' (), for a 1958 design for a book cover he submitted to Simon and Schuster for the Walter Ross pulp novel ''The Immortal'', and later used others for his series of paintings.
With the rapid expansion of the record industry, RCA Records
RCA Records is an American record label currently owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside RCA's former long-time rival Columbia Records; also A ...
hired Warhol, along with another freelance artist, Sid Maurer, to design album covers and promotional materials.
1960s
Warhol was an early adopter of the silk screen
Screen printing is a printing technique where a mesh is used to transfer ink (or dye) onto a substrate, except in areas made impermeable to the ink by a blocking stencil. A blade or squeegee is moved across the screen to fill the open me ...
printmaking process as a technique for making paintings. In 1962, Warhol was taught silk screen printmaking techniques by Max Arthur Cohn
Max Arthur Cohn (1903–1998) was an American artist, born in England. His family emigrated to the United States when he was two years old.
Cohn was one of the artists employed by the New Deal's Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the Gre ...
at his graphic arts business in Manhattan. In his book '' Popism: The Warhol Sixties'', Warhol writes: "When you do something exactly wrong, you always turn up something."
In May 1962, Warhol was featured in an article in ''Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' magazine with his painting ''Big Campbell's Soup Can with Can Opener (Vegetable)'' (1962), which initiated his most sustained motif, the Campbell's
Campbell Soup Company, doing business as Campbell's, is an American processed food and snack company. The company is most closely associated with its flagship canned soup products; however, through mergers and acquisitions, it has grown to become ...
soup can. That painting became Warhol's first to be shown in a museum when it was exhibited at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford in July 1962. On July 9, 1962, Warhol's exhibition opened at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles with ''Campbell's Soup Cans
''Campbell's Soup Cans'' (sometimes referred to as ''32 Campbell's Soup Cans'') is a Visual arts, work of art produced between November 1961 and March or April 1962 by American artist Andy Warhol. It consists of thirty-two canvases, each mea ...
'', marking his West Coast West Coast or west coast may refer to:
Geography Australia
* Western Australia
*Regions of South Australia#Weather forecasting, West Coast of South Australia
* West Coast, Tasmania
**West Coast Range, mountain range in the region
Canada
* Britis ...
debut of pop art.
In November 1962, Warhol had an exhibition at Eleanor Ward's Stable Gallery in New York. The exhibit included the works '' Gold Marilyn'', eight of the classic "Marilyn" series also named "''Flavor Marilyns''", ''Marilyn Diptych
The ''Marilyn Diptych'' ( 1962) is a silkscreen painting by American pop artist Andy Warhol depicting Marilyn Monroe. The monumental work is one of the artist's most noted of the movie star.
The painting consists of 50 images. Each image of ...
'', ''100 Soup Cans'', ''100 Coke Bottles'', and ''100 Dollar Bills''. ''Gold Marilyn'', was bought by the architect Philip Johnson and donated to the Museum of Modern Art. At the exhibit, Warhol met poet John Giorno
John Giorno (December 4, 1936 – October 11, 2019) was an American poet and performance artist. He founded the not-for-profit production company Giorno Poetry Systems and organized a number of early multimedia poetry experiments and events, inc ...
, who would star in Warhol's first film, ''Sleep
Sleep is a sedentary state of mind and body. It is characterized by altered consciousness, relatively inhibited sensory activity, reduced muscle activity and reduced interactions with surroundings. It is distinguished from wakefulness by a de ...
'' (1964).
In December 1962, New York City's Museum of Modern Art hosted a symposium
In ancient Greece, the symposium ( grc-gre, συμπόσιον ''symposion'' or ''symposio'', from συμπίνειν ''sympinein'', "to drink together") was a part of a banquet that took place after the meal, when drinking for pleasure was acc ...
on pop art, during which artists such as Warhol were attacked for "capitulating" to consumerism. Critics were appalled by Warhol's open acceptance of market culture, which set the tone for his reception.
In early 1963, Warhol rented his first studio, an old firehouse at 159 East 87th Street. At this studio, he created his ''Elvis'' series, which included ''Eight Elvises
''Eight Elvises'' is a 1963 silkscreen painting by American pop artist Andy Warhol of Elvis Presley. In 2008, it was sold by Annibale Berlingieri for $100 million to a private buyer, which at the time was the most valuable work by Andy Warhol. ...
'' (1963) and ''Triple Elvis
''Triple Elvis'' is a 1963 painting of Elvis Presley by the American artist Andy Warhol. The photographic image of Elvis used by Warhol as a basis for this work, taken from a publicity still from the movie ''Flaming Star'', has become iconic an ...
'' (1963). These portraits along with a series of Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was a British-American actress. She began her career as a child actress in the early 1940s and was one of the most popular stars of classical Hollywood cinema in the 1950s. ...
portraits were shown at his second exhibition at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. Later that year, Warhol relocated his studio to East 47th Street, which would turn into The Factory
The Factory was Andy Warhol's studio in New York City, which had four locations between 1963 and 1987. The Factory became famed for its parties in the 1960s. It was the hip hangout spot for artists, musicians, celebrities and Warhol's superstar ...
. The Factory became a popular gathering spot for a wide range of artists, writers, musicians, and underground celebrities.
Warhol had his second exhibition at the Stable Gallery in the spring of 1964, which featured sculptures of commercial boxes stacked and scattered throughout the space to resemble a warehouse. For the exhibition, Warhol custom ordered wooden boxes and silkscreened graphics onto them. The sculptures—''Brillo
Brillo is a trade name for a scouring pad, used for cleaning dishes, and made from steel wool impregnated with soap. The concept was patented in 1913, at a time when aluminium pots and pans were replacing cast iron in the kitchen; the new cookw ...
Box'', '' Del Monte Peach Box'', '' Heinz Tomato Ketchup Box'', '' Kellogg's Cornflakes Box'', ''Campbell's Tomato Juice Box'', and '' Mott's Apple Juice Box''—sold for $200 to $400 depending on the size of the box.
A pivotal event was ''The American Supermarket'' exhibition at Paul Bianchini's Upper East Side
The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 96th Street to the north, the East River to the east, 59th Street to the south, and Central Park/Fifth Avenue to the wes ...
gallery in the fall of 1964. The show was presented as a typical small supermarket environment, except that everything in it—from the produce, canned goods, meat, posters on the wall, etc.—was created by prominent pop artists of the time, among them sculptor Claes Oldenburg, Mary Inman and Bob Watts. Warhol designed a $12 paper shopping bag—plain white with a red Campbell's soup can. His painting of a can of a Campbell's soup cost $1,500 while each autographed can sold for 3 for $18, $6.50 each. The exhibit was one of the first mass events that directly confronted the general public with both pop art and the perennial question of what art is.
As an advertisement illustrator in the 1950s, Warhol used assistants to increase his productivity. Collaboration would remain a defining (and controversial) aspect of his working methods throughout his career; this was particularly true in the 1960s. One of the most important collaborators during this period was Gerard Malanga
Gerard Joseph Malanga (born March 20, 1943) is an American poet, photographer, filmmaker, actor, curator and archivist.
Early life
Malanga was born in the Bronx in 1943, the only child of Italian immigrant parents. In 1959, at the beginning of h ...
. Malanga assisted the artist with the production of silkscreens, films, sculpture, and other works at "The Factory", Warhol's aluminum foil-and-silver-paint-lined studio on 47th Street (later moved to Broadway). Other members of Warhol's Factory crowd included Freddie Herko
Frederick Charles "Freddie" Herko (February 23, 1936 – October 27, 1964) was an American artist, musician, actor, dancer, choreographer and teacher.
Early life
Born in New York City, Herko's father was a diner manager and his mother was a ...
, Ondine, Ronald Tavel, Mary Woronov, Billy Name, and Brigid Berlin (from whom he apparently got the idea to tape-record his phone conversations).
During the 1960s, Warhol also groomed a retinue of bohemian
Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to:
*Anything of or relating to Bohemia
Beer
* National Bohemian, a brand brewed by Pabst
* Bohemian, a brand of beer brewed by Molson Coors
Culture and arts
* Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, origin ...
and counterculture
A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...
eccentrics upon whom he bestowed the designation "superstars
A superstar is a widely acclaimed celebrity.
Superstar or superstars may also refer to:
People
* Warhol superstars, the associates of Andy Warhol
* WWE Superstar, a branding term referring to a WWE wrestler
* Superstar Billy Graham (born 1943) ...
", including Nico, Joe Dallesandro, Edie Sedgwick, Viva
Viva may refer to:
Companies and organisations
* Viva (network operator), a Dominican mobile network operator
* Viva Air, a Spanish airline taken over by flag carrier Iberia
* Viva Air Dominicana
* VIVA Bahrain, a telecommunication company
* ...
, Ultra Violet
Ultraviolet (UV) is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelength from 10 nm (with a corresponding frequency around 30 PHz) to 400 nm (750 THz), shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays. UV radiation i ...
, Holly Woodlawn, Jackie Curtis
Jackie Curtis (February 19, 1947 – May 15, 1985) was an American actress, writer, singer, and Warhol superstar.
Early life and career
Jackie Curtis was born in New York City to John Holder and Jenevive Uglialoro. She had one sibling, half-br ...
, and Candy Darling
Candy Darling (November 24, 1944 – March 21, 1974) was an American actress, best known as a Warhol superstar and transgender
A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not ...
. These people all participated in the Factory films, and some—like Berlin—remained friends with Warhol until his death. Important figures in the New York underground art/cinema world, such as writer John Giorno and film-maker Jack Smith, also appear in Warhol films (many premiering at the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre
The Garrick Cinema (periodically referred to as the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre, Andy Warhol's Garrick Cinema, Garrick Theatre, or Nickelodeon) was a 199-seat movie house at 152 Bleecker Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower ...
and 55th Street Playhouse
The 55th Street Playhouse—periodically referred to as the 55th Street Cinema and Europa Theatre—was a 253-seat movie house at 154 West 55th Street, Midtown Manhattan, New York City, that opened on May 20, 1927. Many classic art and foreign ...
) of the 1960s, revealing Warhol's connections to a diverse range of artistic scenes during this time. Less well known was his support and collaboration with several teenagers during this era, who would achieve prominence later in life including writer David Dalton, photographer Stephen Shore
Stephen Shore (born October 8, 1947) is an American photographer known for his images of banal scenes and objects, and for his pioneering use of color in art photography. His books include ''Uncommon Places'' (1982) and ''American Surfaces'' (199 ...
and artist Bibbe Hansen
Bibbe Hansen (born January 31, 1952) is an American performance artist, musician and actress.
Family
Hansen's parents were bohemian Jewish poet Audrey Ostlin Hansen and Fluxus artist Al Hansen, a participant in the Andy Warhol Factory. Her stepf ...
(mother of pop musician Beck
Beck David Hansen (born Bek David Campbell; July 8, 1970) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He rose to fame in the early 1990s with his Experimental music, experimental and Lo-fi music, lo-fi style, and became ...
).
1968 assassination attempt
On June 3, 1968, radical feminist
Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism that calls for a Political radicalism, radical re-ordering of society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts, while recognizing that women's experiences are al ...
writer Valerie Solanas
Valerie Jean Solanas (April 9, 1936 – April 25, 1988) was an American radical feminist known for the ''SCUM Manifesto'', which she self-published in 1967, and for her attempt to murder artist Andy Warhol in 1968.
Solanas had a turbulent child ...
shot Warhol and Mario Amaya, art critic and curator, at Warhol's studio, The Factory. Before the shooting, Solanas had been a marginal figure in the Factory scene. She authored in 1967 the '' SCUM Manifesto'', a separatist feminist
Feminist separatism is the theory that feminist opposition to patriarchy can be achieved through women's separation from men.Christine Skelton, Becky Francis, ''Feminism and the Schooling Scandal'', Taylor & Francis, 2009 ,p. 104 Because much of ...
tract that advocated the elimination of men; and appeared in the 1968 Warhol film ''I, a Man
''I, a Man'' is a 1967 American erotic drama film written, directed and filmed by Andy Warhol. It debuted at the Hudson Theatre in New York City on August 25, 1967. The film depicts the main character, played by Tom Baker, in a series of sexual en ...
''. Earlier on the day of the attack, Solanas had been turned away from the Factory after asking for the return of a script she had given to Warhol. The script had apparently been misplaced.[Jobey, Liz, "Solanas and Son," ''The Guardian'' (Manchester, England), August 24, 1996, p, T10 and following.]
Amaya received only minor injuries and was released from the hospital later the same day. Warhol was seriously wounded by the attack and barely survived. He had physical effects for the rest of his life, including being required to wear a surgical corset
A corset is a support garment commonly worn to hold and train the torso into a desired shape, traditionally a smaller waist or larger bottom, for aesthetic or medical purposes (either for the duration of wearing it or with a more lasting effe ...
. The shooting had a profound effect on Warhol's life and art.
Solanas was arrested the day after the assault, after turning herself in to police. By way of explanation, she said that Warhol "had too much control over my life". She was subsequently diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and eventually sentenced to three years under the control of the Department of Corrections
In criminal justice, particularly in North America, correction, corrections, and correctional, are umbrella terms describing a variety of functions typically carried out by government agencies, and involving the punishment, treatment, and su ...
. After the shooting, the Factory scene heavily increased its security, and for many the "Factory 60s" ended ("The superstars from the old Factory days didn't come around to the new Factory much").
Warhol had this to say about the attack:
In 1969, Warhol and British journalist John Wilcock
John Wilcock (4 August 1927 – 13 September 2018) was a British journalist known for his work in the underground press, as well as his travel guide books.
The first news editor of the New York ''Village Voice'', Wilcock shook up staid publish ...
founded ''Interview
An interview is a structured conversation where one participant asks questions, and the other provides answers.Merriam Webster DictionaryInterview Dictionary definition, Retrieved February 16, 2016 In common parlance, the word "interview" ...
'' magazine.
1970s
Warhol had a retrospective
A retrospective (from Latin ''retrospectare'', "look back"), generally, is a look back at events that took place, or works that were produced, in the past. As a noun, ''retrospective'' has specific meanings in medicine, software development, popu ...
exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1971. His famous portrait of Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...
was created in 1973. In 1975, he published ''The Philosophy of Andy Warhol'' (1975). An idea expressed in the book: "Making money is art, and working is art and good business is the best art."
Compared to the success and scandal of Warhol's work in the 1960s, the 1970s were a much quieter decade, as he became more entrepreneurial. He socialized at various nightspots in New York City, including Max's Kansas City
Max's Kansas City was a nightclub and restaurant at 213 Park Avenue South in New York City, which became a gathering spot for musicians, poets, artists and politicians in the 1960s and 1970s. It was opened by Mickey Ruskin (1933–1983) in Decembe ...
and, later in the 1970s, Studio 54
Studio 54 is a Broadway theater and a former disco nightclub at 254 West 54th Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Operated by the Roundabout Theatre Company, Studio 54 has 1,006 seats on two levels. The theater was ...
. He was generally regarded as quiet, shy, and a meticulous observer. Art critic Robert Hughes called him "the white mole of Union Square
Union commonly refers to:
* Trade union, an organization of workers
* Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets
Union may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
Music
* Union (band), an American rock group
** ''Un ...
". In 1977, Warhol was commissioned by art collector Richard Weisman to create ''Athletes
An athlete (also sportsman or sportswoman) is a person who competes in one or more sports that involve physical strength, speed, or endurance.
Athletes may be professionals or amateurs. Most professional athletes have particularly well-develo ...
'', ten portraits consisting of the leading athletes of the day.
According to Bob Colacello, Warhol devoted much of his time to rounding up new, rich patrons for portrait commissions—including Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
, title = Shahanshah Aryamehr Bozorg Arteshtaran
, image = File:Shah_fullsize.jpg
, caption = Shah in 1973
, succession = Shah of Iran
, reign = 16 September 1941 – 11 February 1979
, coronation = 26 October ...
, his wife Empress Farah Pahlavi, his sister Princess Ashraf Pahlavi
Ashraf ol-Molouk Pahlavi ( fa, اشرفالملوک پهلوی, , 26 October 1919 – 7 January 2016) was the twin sister of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran (Persia), and a member of the Pahlavi dynasty. She was considered the "pow ...
, Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip Jagger (born 26 July 1943) is an English singer and songwriter who has achieved international fame as the lead vocalist and one of the founder members of the rock band the Rolling Stones. His ongoing songwriting partnershi ...
, Liza Minnelli
Liza May Minnelli ( ; born March 12, 1946) is an American actress, singer, dancer, and choreographer. Known for her commanding stage presence and powerful alto singing voice, Minnelli is among a rare group of performers awarded an Emmy, Grammy ...
, John Lennon
John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of ...
, Diana Ross
Diana Ross (born March 26, 1944) is an American singer and actress. She rose to fame as the lead singer of the vocal group the Supremes, who became Motown's most successful act during the 1960s and one of the world's best-selling girl groups o ...
, and Brigitte Bardot
Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot ( ; ; born 28 September 1934), often referred to by her initials B.B., is a former French actress, singer and model. Famous for portraying sexually emancipated characters with hedonistic lifestyles, she was one of the ...
. In 1979, reviewers disliked his exhibits of portraits of 1970s personalities and celebrities, calling them superficial, facile and commercial, with no depth or indication of the significance of the subjects. In 1979, Warhol and his longtime friend Stuart Pivar
Stuart Pivar (born 1930) is an American art collector from Brooklyn, New York known for being one of the founders of the New York Academy of Art along with Andy Warhol. Trained as a scientist, he has long endorsed the study of anatomy and need f ...
founded the New York Academy of Art.
1980s
Warhol had a re-emergence of critical and financial success in the 1980s, partially due to his affiliation and friendships with a number of prolific younger artists, who were dominating the " bull market" of 1980s New York art: Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat (; December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988) was an American artist who rose to success during the 1980s as part of the Neo-expressionism movement.
Basquiat first achieved fame as part of the graffiti duo SAMO, alongside Al ...
, Julian Schnabel, David Salle and other so-called Neo-Expressionists
Neo-expressionism is a style of late modernist or early-postmodern painting and sculpture that emerged in the late 1970s. Neo-expressionists were sometimes called ''Transavantgarde'', ''Junge Wilde'' or ''Neue Wilden'' ('The new wild ones'; 'New ...
, as well as members of the Transavantgarde
Transavantgarde or Transavanguardia is the Italian version of Neo-expressionism, an art movement that swept through Italy and the rest of Western Europe in the late 1970s and 1980s. The term ''transavanguardia'' was coined by the Italian art criti ...
movement in Europe, including Francesco Clemente and Enzo Cucchi
Enzo Cucchi (born 14 November 1949) is an Italian painter. A native of Morro d'Alba, province of Ancona, he was a key member of the Italian Transavanguardia movement, along with his countrymen Francesco Clemente, Mimmo Paladino, Nicola De Maria, ...
. Warhol also earned street credibility and graffiti
Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...
artist Fab Five Freddy paid homage to Warhol by painting an entire train with Campbell soup cans.
Warhol was also being criticized for becoming merely a "business artist". Critics panned his 1980 exhibition ''Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century
''Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century'' is a 1980 series of ten paintings by Andy Warhol. The series consists of ten silk-screened canvases, each . Five editions of the series were made.
History
In 1979, Warhol began working on the s ...
'' at the Jewish Museum in Manhattan, which Warhol—who was uninterested in Judaism and Jews—had described in his diary as "They're going to sell." In hindsight, however, some critics have come to view Warhol's superficiality and commerciality as "the most brilliant mirror of our times," contending that "Warhol had captured something irresistible about the zeitgeist
In 18th- and 19th-century German philosophy, a ''Zeitgeist'' () ("spirit of the age") is an invisible agent, force or Daemon dominating the characteristics of a given epoch in world history.
Now, the term is usually associated with Georg W. F. ...
of American culture in the 1970s."
Warhol also had an appreciation for intense Hollywood glamour
Glamour is the impression of attraction or fascination that a particularly luxurious or elegant appearance creates, an impression which intensifies reality. Typically, a person, event, location, technology, or product such as a piece of clothing ...
. He once said: "I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They're so beautiful. Everything's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic." Warhol occasionally walked the fashion runways and did product endorsements, represented by Zoli Agency The Zoli Agency was a modeling agency based in New York City, particularly notable in the 1970s and 1980s.
Background
It was established by a Budapest-born Hungarian designer named Zoltan "Zoli" Rendessy in 1971.[Ford Models
Ford Models, originally the Ford Modeling Agency, is an American international modeling agency based in New York City. It was established in 1946 by Eileen Ford and her husband Gerard W. Ford.
Company
Ford Models was started in 1946 by Eileen ...]
.
Before the 1984 Sarajevo
Sarajevo ( ; cyrl, Сарајево, ; ''see Names of European cities in different languages (Q–T)#S, names in other languages'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its a ...
Winter Olympics, he teamed with 15 other artists, including David Hockney
David Hockney (born 9 July 1937) is an English painter, draftsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists o ...
and Cy Twombly
Edwin Parker "Cy" Twombly Jr. (; April 25, 1928July 5, 2011) was an American Painting, painter, Sculpture, sculptor and photographer. He belonged to the generation of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns.
Twombly is said to have influenced you ...
, and contributed a Speed Skater
Speed skating is a competitive form of ice skating in which the competitors race each other in travelling a certain distance on skates. Types of speed skating are long track speed skating, short track speed skating, and marathon speed skating. ...
print to the Art and Sport collection. The Speed Skater was used for the official Sarajevo Winter Olympics
The 1984 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XIV Olympic Winter Games (Serbo-Croatian and Slovene: ''XIV. Zimske olimpijske igre''; Cyrillic: XIV Зимске олимпијске игре; mk, XIV Зимски олимписки игр ...
poster.
In 1984, '' Vanity Fair'' commissioned Warhol to produce a portrait of Prince
A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. Th ...
, in order to accompany an article that celebrated the success of '' Purple Rain'' and its accompanying movie. Referencing the many celebrity portraits produced by Warhol across his career, ''Orange'' ''Prince (1984)'' was created using a similar composition to the Marilyn "Flavors" series from 1962, among some of Warhol's first celebrity portraits. Prince is depicted in a pop color palette commonly used by Warhol, in bright orange with highlights of bright green and blue. The facial features and hair are screen-printed in black over the orange background.
In September 1985, Warhol's joint exhibition with Basquiat, ''Paintings'', opened to negative reviews at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery. That month, despite apprehension from Warhol, his silkscreen series ''Reigning Queens
''Reigning Queens'' is a 1985 series of silkscreen portraits by American artist Andy Warhol. The screen prints were presented as a portfolio of sixteen; four prints each of the four queens regnant. The subjects were Queen Elizabeth II of the Unite ...
'' was shown at the Leo Castelli Gallery
Leo Castelli (born Leo Krausz; September 4, 1907 – August 21, 1999) was an Italian-American art dealer who originated the contemporary art gallery system. His gallery showcased contemporary art for five decades. Among the movements which ...
. In the '' Andy Warhol Diaries'', Warhol wrote, "They were supposed to be only for Europe—nobody here cares about royalty and it'll be another bad review."
In January 1987, Warhol traveled to Milan for the opening of his last exhibition, ''Last Supper'', at the Palazzo delle Stelline. The next month, Warhol and jazz musician Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...
modeled for Koshin Satoh's fashion show at the Tunnel in New York City on February 17, 1987.
Death
Warhol died in Manhattan at 6:32 a.m. on February 22, 1987, at age 58. According to news reports, he had been making a good recovery from gallbladder
In vertebrates, the gallbladder, also known as the cholecyst, is a small hollow organ where bile is stored and concentrated before it is released into the small intestine. In humans, the pear-shaped gallbladder lies beneath the liver, although ...
surgery at New York Hospital
Weill Cornell Medical Center (previously known as New York Hospital or Old New York Hospital or City Hospital) is a research hospital in New York City. It is part of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and the teaching hospital for Cornell University.
...
before dying in his sleep from a sudden post-operative irregular heartbeat
Arrhythmias, also known as cardiac arrhythmias, heart arrhythmias, or dysrhythmias, are irregularities in the heartbeat, including when it is too fast or too slow. A resting heart rate that is too fast – above 100 beats per minute in adults ...
. Prior to his diagnosis and operation, Warhol delayed having his recurring gallbladder problems checked, as he was afraid to enter hospitals and see doctors. His family sued the hospital for inadequate care, saying that the arrhythmia was caused by improper care and water intoxication
Water intoxication, also known as water poisoning, hyperhydration, overhydration, or water toxemia, is a potentially fatal disturbance in brain functions that results when the normal balance of electrolytes in the body is pushed outside safe lim ...
. The malpractice case was quickly settled out of court; Warhol's family received an undisclosed sum of money.
Shortly before Warhol's death, doctors expected Warhol to survive the surgery, though a re-evaluation of the case about thirty years after his death showed many indications that Warhol's surgery was in fact riskier than originally thought. It was widely reported at the time that Warhol had died of a "routine" surgery, though when considering factors such as his age, a family history
Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their Lineage (anthropology), lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family a ...
of gallbladder problems, his previous gunshot wound
A gunshot wound (GSW) is a penetrating injury caused by a projectile (e.g. a bullet) from a gun (typically firearm or air gun). Damages may include bleeding, bone fractures, organ damage, wound infection, loss of the ability to move part of th ...
, and his medical state in the weeks leading up to the procedure, the potential risk of death following the surgery appeared to have been significant.
Warhol's brothers took his body back to Pittsburgh, where an open-coffin wake
Wake or The Wake may refer to:
Culture
*Wake (ceremony), a ritual which takes place during some funeral ceremonies
*Wakes week, an English holiday tradition
* Parish Wake, another name of the Welsh ', the fairs held on the local parish's patron s ...
was held at the Thomas P. Kunsak Funeral Home. The solid bronze casket had gold-plated rails and white upholstery. Warhol was dressed in a black cashmere suit, a paisley tie, a platinum wig, and sunglasses. He was laid out holding a small prayer book and a red rose. The funeral liturgy
Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. ''Liturgy'' can also be used to refer specifically to public worship by Christians. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and partic ...
was held at the Holy Ghost Byzantine Catholic Church on Pittsburgh's North Side on February 27, 1987. The eulogy was given by Monsignor Peter Tay. Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono ( ; ja, 小野 洋子, Ono Yōko, usually spelled in katakana ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking.
Ono grew up i ...
and John Richardson were speakers. The coffin was covered with white roses and asparagus ferns. After the liturgy, the coffin was driven to St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery
St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery is an Eastern Catholic cemetery in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, United States, a suburb approximately south of downtown Pittsburgh. It is situated on a hillside in the so ...
in Bethel Park
Bethel Park, officially the Municipality of Bethel Park, is a borough with home rule status in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is part of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, located approximately southwest of Pittsburgh. The po ...
, a south suburb of Pittsburgh, where Warhol was buried near his parents. The priest said a brief prayer at the graveside and sprinkled holy water on the casket. Before the coffin was lowered, Warhol's close friend and associate publisher of ''Interview'', Paige Powell, dropped a copy of the magazine and a bottle of Beautiful Eau de Parfum
Perfume (, ; french: parfum) is a mixture of fragrant essential oils or aroma compounds (fragrances), fixatives and solvents, usually in liquid form, used to give the human body, animals, food, objects, and living-spaces an agreeable scent. The ...
by Estée Lauder into the grave. A memorial service was held in Manhattan for Warhol at St. Patrick's Cathedral on April 1, 1987.
Art works
Paintings
By the beginning of the 1960s, pop art was an experimental form that several artists were independently adopting; some of these pioneers, such as Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Fox Lichtenstein (; October 27, 1923 – September 29, 1997) was an American pop artist. During the 1960s, along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and James Rosenquist among others, he became a leading figure in the new art movement. Hi ...
, would later become synonymous with the movement. Warhol, who would become famous as the "Pope of Pop", turned to this new style, where popular subjects could be part of the artist's palette. His early paintings show images taken from cartoons and advertisements, hand-painted with paint drips. Those drips emulated the style of successful abstract expressionists such as Willem de Kooning.
From these beginnings, he developed his later style and subjects. 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 handmade from the artistic process. Warhol frequently used silk-screen
Screen printing is a printing technique where a mesh is used to transfer ink (or dye) onto a substrate, except in areas made impermeable to the ink by a blocking stencil. A blade or squeegee is moved across the screen to fill the open mesh ...
ing; his later drawings were traced from slide projections. At the height of his fame as a painter, Warhol had several assistants who produced his silk-screen multiples, following his directions to make different versions and variations.
Warhol's first pop art paintings were displayed in April 1961, serving as the backdrop for New York Department Store Bonwit Teller's window display. This was the same stage his Pop Art contemporaries Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist and Robert Rauschenberg
Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artwor ...
had also once graced. It was the gallerist Muriel Latow who came up with the ideas for both the soup cans and Warhol's dollar paintings. On November 23, 1961, Warhol wrote Latow a check for $50 which, according to the 2009 Warhol biography, ''Pop, The Genius of Warhol'', was payment for coming up with the idea of the soup cans as subject matter. For his first major exhibition, Warhol painted his famous cans of Campbell's soup, which he claimed to have had for lunch for most of his life.
It was during the 1960s that Warhol began to make paintings of iconic American objects such as dollar bills, mushroom clouds, electric chairs, Campbell's soup cans, Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta ...
bottles, celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one ...
, and Elizabeth Taylor, as well as newspaper headlines or photographs of police dogs attacking African-American protesters during the Birmingham campaign in the civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
. His work became popular and controversial. Warhol had this to say about Coca-Cola: In 1962, Warhol created his famous ''Marilyn'' series. The Flavor Marilyns were selected from a group of fourteen canvases in the sub-series, each measuring 20" x 16". Some of the canvases were named after various candy Life Savers flavors, including ''Cherry Marilyn'', ''Lemon Marilyn'', and ''Licorice Marilyn''. The others are identified by their background colors.
Warhol produced both comic and serious works; his subject could be a soup can or an electric chair. Warhol used the same techniques—silkscreens, reproduced serially, and often painted with bright colors—whether he painted Celebrity, celebrities, everyday objects, or images of suicide, car crashes, and disasters, as in the 1962–63 ''Death and Disaster'' series.
In 1979, Warhol was commissioned to paint a BMW M1 Group 4 (racing), Group 4 racing version for the fourth installment of the BMW Art Car project. He was initially asked to paint a BMW 320i in 1978, but the car model was changed and it didn't qualify for the race that year. Warhol was the first artist to paint directly onto the automobile himself instead of letting technicians transfer a scale-model design to the car. Reportedly, it took him only 23 minutes to paint the entire car. Auto racing, Racecar drivers Hervé Poulain, Manfred Winkelhock and Marcel Mignot drove the car at the 1979 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Some of Warhol's work, as well as his own personality, has been described as being Buster Keaton, Keatonesque. Warhol has been described as playing dumb to the media. He sometimes refused to explain his work. He has suggested that all one needs to know about his work is "already there 'on the surface.
His Rorschach test, Rorschach inkblots are intended as pop comments on art and what art could be. His cow wallpaper (literally, wallpaper with a cow Motif (visual arts), motif) and his redox, oxidation paintings (canvases prepared with copper paint that was then oxidized with urine) are also noteworthy in this context. Equally noteworthy is the way these works—and their means of production—mirrored the atmosphere at Andy's New York "Factory". Biographer Bob Colacello provides some details on Andy's "piss paintings":
Warhol's 1982 portrait of Basquiat, ''Jean-Michel Basquiat (1982 painting), Jean-Michel Basquiat'', is a silkscreen over an oxidized copper "piss painting." After many years of silkscreen, oxidation, photography, etc., Warhol returned to painting with a brush in hand. In 1983, Warhol began collaborating with Basquiat and Clemente. Warhol and Basquiat created a series of more than 50 large collaborative works between 1984 and 1985. Despite criticism when these were first shown, Warhol called some of them "masterpieces," and they were influential for his later work.
In 1984, Warhol was commissioned by collector and gallerist Alexander Iolas to produce work based on Leonardo da Vinci's ''The Last Supper (Leonardo), The Last Supper'' for an exhibition at the old refectory of the Palazzo delle Stelline in Milan, opposite from the Santa Maria delle Grazie (Milan), Santa Maria delle Grazie where Leonardo da Vinci's mural can be seen. Warhol exceeded the demands of the commission and produced nearly 100 variations on the theme, mostly silkscreens and paintings, and among them a collaborative sculpture with Basquiat, the ''Ten Punching Bags (Last Supper)''.
The Milan exhibition that opened in January 1987 with a set of 22 silk-screens, was the last exhibition for both the artist and the gallerist. The series of ''The Last Supper'' was seen by some as "arguably his greatest," but by others as "wishy-washy, religiose" and "spiritless". It is the largest series of religious-themed works by any U.S. artist.
Artist Maurizio Cattelan describes that it is difficult to separate daily encounters from the art of Andy Warhol: "That's probably the greatest thing about Warhol: the way he penetrated and summarized our world, to the point that distinguishing between him and our everyday life is basically impossible, and in any case useless." Warhol was an inspiration towards Cattelan's magazine and photography compilations, such as ''Permanent Food, Charley'', and ''Toilet Paper''.
In the period just before his death, Warhol was working on ''Cars (painting), Cars'', a series of paintings for Mercedes-Benz.
Art market
The value of Andy Warhol's work has been on an endless upward trajectory since his death in 1987. In 2014, his works accumulated $569 million at auction, which accounted for more than a sixth of the global art market. However, there have been some dips. According to art dealer Dominique Lévy, "The Warhol trade moves something like a seesaw being pulled uphill: it rises and falls, but each new high and low is above the last one." She attributes this to the consistent influx of new collectors intrigued by Warhol. "At different moments, you've had different groups of collectors entering the Warhol market, and that resulted in peaks in demand, then satisfaction and a slow down," before the process repeats another demographic or the next generation.
In 1998, ''Orange Marilyn'' (1964), a depiction of Marilyn Monroe, sold for $17.3 million, which at the time set a new record as the highest price paid for a Warhol artwork. In 2007, one of Warhol's 1963 paintings of Elizabeth Taylor, ''Liz (Colored Liz)'', which was owned by actor Hugh Grant, sold for $23.7 million at Christie's.
In 2007, Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson sold Warhol's ''Turquoise Marilyn'' (1964) to financier Steve Cohen (businessman), Steven A. Cohen for $80 million. In May 2007, ''Green Car Crash'' (1963) sold for $71.1 million and ''Lemon Marilyn'' (1962) sold for $28 million at Christie's post-war and contemporary art auction. In 2007, ''Large Campbell's Soup Can'' (1964) was sold at a Sotheby's auction to a South American collector for 7.4 million. In November 2009, ''200 One Dollar Bills'' (1962) at Sotheby's for $43.8 million.
In 2008, ''Eight Elvises'' (1963) was sold by Annibale Berlingieri for $100 million to a private buyer. The work depicts Elvis Presley in a gunslinger pose. It was first exhibited in 1963 at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. Warhol made 22 versions of the ''Elvis'' portraits, 11 of which are held in museums. In May 2012, ''Double Elvis (Ferus Type)'' sold at auction at Sotheby's for $37 million. In November 2014, ''Triple Elvis (Ferus Type)'' sold for $81.9 million at Christie's.
In May 2010, a purple self-portrait of Warhol from 1986 that was owned by fashion designer Tom Ford sold for $32.6 million at Sotheby's. In November 2010, ''Men in Her Life (Painting), Men in Her Life'' (1962), based on Elizabeth Taylor, sold for $63.4 million at Phillips (auctioneers), Phillips de Pury and Coca-Cola (4), ''Coca-Cola'' ''(4)'' (1962) sold for $35.3 million at Sotheby's. In May 2011, Warhol's first self-portrait from 1963 to 1964 sold for $38.4 million and a red self-portrait from 1986 sold for $27.5 million at Christie's. In May 2011, ''Liz #5 (Early Colored Liz)'' sold for $26.9 million at Phillips.
In November 2013, Warhol's rarely seen 1963 diptych, ''Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster)
''Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster)'' is a 1963 serigraph by the American artist Andy Warhol. In November 2013, it sold for $105 million (£65.5m) at NYC auction, setting a new highest price for a work by Warhol.
History
''Silver Car Crash (D ...
'', sold at Sotheby's for $105.4 million, a new record for the artist. In November 2013, Coca-Cola (3), ''Coca-Cola'' ''(3)'' (1962) sold for $57.3 million at Christie's. In May 2014, ''White Marilyn'' (1962) sold for $41 million at Christie's. In November 2014, ''Four Marlons'' (1964), which depicts Marlon Brando, sold for $69.6 million at Christie's. In May 2015, ''Silver Liz (diptych)'', painted in 1963, sold for $28 million and ''Colored Mona Lisa'' (1963) sold for $56.2 million at Christie's. In May 2017, Warhol's 1962 painting ''Big Campbell's Soup Can With Can Opener (Vegetable)'' sold for $27.5 million at Christie's. In 2017, billionaire hedge-fund manager Kenneth C. Griffin, Ken Griffin purchased ''Orange Marilyn'' privately for around $200 million. In March 2022, ''Silver Liz (Ferus Type)'' sold for 2.3 billion yen ($18.9 million) at Shinwa Auction, which set a new record for the highest bid ever at auction in Japan. In May 2022, ''Shot Sage Blue Marilyn'' (1964) sold for $195 million at Christie's, becoming the most expensive American artwork sold at auction.
Collectors
Among Warhol's early collectors and influential supporters were Miller Company Collection of Abstract Art, Emily and Burton Tremaine. Among the over 15 artworks purchased, ''Marilyn Diptych'' (now at Tate Modern, London) and ''A boy for Meg'' (now at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC), were purchased directly out of Warhol's studio in 1962. One Christmas, Warhol left a small ''Head of Marilyn Monroe'' by the Tremaine's door at their New York apartment in gratitude for their support and encouragement.
Image:Exploding Plastic Inevitable.png, ''Exploding Plastic Inevitable' (show) - the Velvet Underground & Nico'', 1966, poster
Image:The Souper Dress, American paper dress, 1967.jpg, ''The Souper Dress'', 1967, screen-printed paper dress based on Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans
Image:Salle Andy Warhol (Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin) (6343757828).jpg, ''Portrait of Mao Zedong'', 1972, synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink on canvas
Image:Farah Pahlavi and Andy Warhol in Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, 1977.jpg, A photo of Warhol and Farah Pahlavi, 1977, with works of Warhol on the walls of the Tehran museum
Image:Warhol7.JPG, ''BMW Group - 4 M1'', 1979, painted car
Works
Filmography
Warhol attended the 1962 premiere of the static composition by La Monte Young called ''Trio for Strings'' and subsequently created his famous series of static films. Filmmaker Jonas Mekas, who accompanied Warhol to the Trio premiere, claims Warhol's static films were directly inspired by the performance. Between 1963 and 1968, he made more than 60 films, plus some 500 short black-and-white "Screen Tests, screen test" portraits of Factory visitors. One of his most famous films, ''Sleep'', monitors poet John Giorno sleeping for six hours. The 35-minute film ''Blow Job (1964 film), Blow Job'' is one continuous shot of the face of DeVeren Bookwalter supposedly receiving oral sex from filmmaker Willard Maas, although the camera never tilts down to see this. Another, ''Empire
An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...
'' (1964), consists of eight hours of footage of the Empire State Building in New York City at dusk. The film ''Eat (film), Eat'' consists of a man eating a mushroom for 45 minutes.
''Batman Dracula'' is a 1964 film that was produced and directed by Warhol, without the permission of DC Comics. It was screened only at his art exhibits. A fan of the ''Batman'' series, Warhol's movie was an "homage" to the series, and is considered the first appearance of a blatantly Camp (style), campy Batman. The film was until recently thought to have been lost, until scenes from the picture were shown at some length in the 2006 documentary ''Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis''.
Warhol's 1965 film ''Vinyl (1965 film), Vinyl'' is an adaptation of Anthony Burgess' popular dystopian novel ''A Clockwork Orange (novel), A Clockwork Orange''. Others record improvised encounters between Factory regulars such as Brigid Berlin, Viva, Edie Sedgwick, Candy Darling, Holly Woodlawn, Ondine, Nico and Jackie Curtis. The underground artist Jack Smith appears in the film ''Camp''.
His most popular and critically successful film was ''Chelsea Girls
''Chelsea Girls'' is a 1966 American experimental underground film directed by Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey. The film was Warhol's first major commercial success after a long line of avant-garde art films (both feature-length and short). It w ...
'' (1966). The film was highly innovative in that it consisted of two 16 mm film, 16 mm-films being projected simultaneously, with two different stories being shown in tandem. From the projection booth, the sound would be raised for one film to elucidate that "story" while it was lowered for the other. The multiplication of images evoked Warhol's seminal silk-screen works of the early 1960s.
Warhol was a fan of filmmaker Radley Metzger film work and commented that Metzger's film, ''The Lickerish Quartet'', was "an outrageously kinky masterpiece". ''Blue Movie''—a film in which Warhol superstar Viva makes love in bed with Louis Waldon, another Warhol superstar—was Warhol's last film as director. The film, a seminal film in the Golden Age of Porn, was, at the time, controversial for its frank approach to a sexual encounter. ''Blue Movie'' was publicly screened in New York City in 2005, for the first time in more than 30 years.
In the wake of the 1968 shooting, a reclusive Warhol relinquished his personal involvement in film making. His acolyte and assistant director, Paul Morrissey, took over the film-making chores for the Factory collective, steering Warhol-branded cinema towards more mainstream, narrative-based, B-movie exploitation film, exploitation fare with ''Flesh (1968 film), Flesh'', ''Trash (1970 film), Trash'', and ''Heat (1972 film), Heat''. All of these films, including the later ''Blood for Dracula, Andy Warhol's Dracula'' and ''Flesh for Frankenstein, Andy Warhol's Frankenstein'', were far more mainstream than anything Warhol as a director had attempted. These latter "Warhol" films starred Joe Dallesandro—more of a Morrissey star than a true Warhol superstar.
In the early 1970s, most of the films directed by Warhol were pulled out of circulation by Warhol and the people around him who ran his business. After Warhol's death, the films were slowly restored by the Whitney Museum and are occasionally projected at museums and film festivals. Few of the Warhol-directed films are available on video or DVD.
Music
In the mid-1960s, Warhol adopted the band the Velvet Underground, making them a crucial element of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable
The ''Exploding Plastic Inevitable'', sometimes simply called ''Plastic Inevitable'' or ''EPI'', was a series of multimedia events organized by Andy Warhol in 1966 and 1967, featuring musical performances by The Velvet Underground & Nico, screenin ...
multimedia performance art show. Warhol, with Paul Morrissey, acted as the band's manager, introducing them to Nico (who would perform with the band at Warhol's request). While managing The Velvet Underground, Andy would have them dressed in all black to perform in front of movies that he was also presenting. In 1966, he "produced" their first album ''The Velvet Underground & Nico'', as well as providing its album art. His actual participation in the album's production amounted to simply paying for the studio time. After the band's first album, Warhol and band leader Lou Reed started to disagree more about the direction the band should take, and their artistic friendship ended. In 1989, after Warhol's death, Reed and John Cale re-united for the first time since 1972 to write, perform, record and release the concept album ''Songs for Drella'', a tribute to Warhol. In October 2019, an audio tape of publicly unknown music by Reed, based on Warhols' 1975 book, "''The Philosophy of Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again''", was reported to have been discovered in an archive at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.
Warhol designed many album covers for various artists starting with the photographic cover of John Wallowitch's debut album, ''This Is John Wallowitch!!!'' (1964). He designed the cover art for The Rolling Stones' albums ''Sticky Fingers'' (1971) and ''Love You Live'' (1977), and the John Cale albums ''The Academy in Peril'' (1972) and ''Honi Soit (album), Honi Soit'' in 1981. One of Warhol's last works was a portrait of Aretha Franklin for the cover of her 1986 Music recording sales certification, gold album ''Aretha (1986 album), Aretha''.
Warhol co-directed the music video "Hello Again (The Cars song), Hello Again" by the Cars, and he appeared in the video as a bartender.
Books and print
Beginning in the early 1950s, Warhol produced several unbound portfolios of his work.
The first of several bound self-published books by Warhol was ''25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy'', printed in 1954 by Seymour Berlin on Arches brand watermarked paper using his blotted line technique for the lithographs. The original edition was limited to 190 numbered, hand-colored copies, using Dr. Martin's ink washes. Most of these were given by Warhol as gifts to clients and friends. Copy No. 4, inscribed "Jerry" on the front cover and given to Geraldine Stutz, was used for a facsimile printing in 1987, and the original was auctioned in May 2006 for US$35,000 by Doyle New York.
Other self-published books by Warhol include:
* ''A Gold Book''
* ''Wild Raspberries''
* ''Holy Cats''
Warhol's book ''A La Recherche du Shoe Perdu'' (1955) marked his "transition from commercial to gallery artist".[Smith, John W., Pamela Allara, and Andy Warhol. ''Possession Obsession: Andy Warhol and Collecting''. Pittsburgh, PA: Andy Warhol Museum, 2002, p. 46. .] (The title is a wordplay, play on words by Warhol on the title of French author Marcel Proust's ''À la recherche du temps perdu''.)[
After gaining fame, Warhol "wrote" several books that were commercially published:
* ''A, a novel, a, A Novel'' (1968, ) is a literal transcription—containing spelling errors and phonetically written background noise and mumbling—of audio recordings of Ondine and several of Andy Warhol's friends hanging out at the Factory, talking, going out.
* '']The Philosophy of Andy Warhol
''The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B & Back Again)'' is a 1975 book by the American artist Andy Warhol. It was first published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
The book is an assemblage of vignettes about love, beauty, fame, work, sex, time ...
(From A to B & Back Again)'' (1975, )—according to Pat Hackett's introduction to ''The Andy Warhol Diaries'', Pat Hackett did the transcriptions and text for the book based on daily phone conversations, sometimes (when Warhol was traveling) using audio cassettes that Andy Warhol gave her. Said cassettes contained conversations with Brigid Berlin (also known as Brigid Polk) and former ''Interview'' magazine editor Bob Colacello.
* '' Popism: The Warhol Sixties'' (1980, ), authored by Warhol and Pat Hackett, is a retrospective view of the 1960s and the role of pop art.
* ''The Andy Warhol Diaries'' (1989, ), edited by Pat Hackett, is a diary dictated by Warhol to Hackett in daily phone conversations. Warhol started the diary to keep track of his expenses after being audited, although it soon evolved to include his personal and cultural observations.
Warhol created the fashion magazine ''Interview'' that is still published. The loopy title script on the cover is thought to be either his own handwriting or that of his mother, Julia Warhola, who would often do text work for his early commercial pieces.
Other media
Although Andy Warhol is most known for his paintings and films, he authored works in many different media.
* Drawing: Warhol started his career as a commercial illustrator, producing drawings in "blotted-ink" style for advertisements and magazine articles. Best known of these early works are his drawings of shoes. Some of his personal drawings were self-published in small booklets, such as ''Yum, Yum, Yum'' (about food), ''Ho, Ho, Ho'' (about Christmas) and ''Shoes, Shoes, Shoes''. His most artistically acclaimed book of drawings is probably ''A Gold Book'', compiled of sensitive drawings of young men. ''A Gold Book'' is so named because of the gold leaf that decorates its pages. In April 2012 a sketch of 1930s singer Rudy Vallee claimed to have been drawn by Andy Warhol was found at a Las Vegas garage sale. The image was said to have been drawn when Andy was nine or 10. Various authorities have challenged the image's authenticity.
* Sculpture: Warhol's most famous sculpture is probably his ''Brillo Boxes'', silkscreened ink on wood replicas of the large, branded cardboard boxes used to hold 24 packages of Brillo soap pads. The original Brillo design was by commercial artist James Harvey (artist), James Harvey. Warhol's sculpture was part of a series of "grocery carton" works that also included Heinz ketchup and Campbell's tomato juice cases. Other famous works include the ''Silver Clouds''—helium filled, silver mylar, pillow-shaped balloons. A ''Silver Cloud'' was included in the traveling exhibition ''Air Art'' (1968–1969) curated by Willoughby Sharp. ''Clouds'' was also adapted by Warhol for avant-garde choreographer Merce Cunningham's dance piece ''RainForest'' (1968).
* Audio: At one point Warhol carried a portable recorder with him wherever he went, taping everything everybody said and did. He referred to this device as his "wife". Some of these tapes were the basis for his literary work. Another audio-work of Warhol's was his ''Invisible Sculpture'', a presentation in which burglar alarms would go off when entering the room. Warhol's cooperation with the musicians of The Velvet Underground was driven by an expressed desire to become a music producer.
* Time Capsules: In 1973, Warhol began saving ephemera from his daily life—correspondence, newspapers, souvenirs, childhood objects, even used plane tickets and food—which was sealed in plain cardboard boxes dubbed Time Capsules. By the time of his death, the collection grew to include 600, individually dated "capsules". The boxes are now housed at the Andy Warhol Museum.
* Television: Andy Warhol dreamed of a television special about a favorite subject of hisNothingthat he would call ''The Nothing Special''. Later in his career he did create two cable television shows, ''Andy Warhol's TV'' in 1982 and ''Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes'' (based on his famous "fifteen minutes of fame" quotation) for MTV in 1986. Besides his own shows he regularly made guest appearances on other programs, including ''The Love Boat'' wherein a Midwestern wife (Marion Ross) fears Andy Warhol will reveal to her husband (Tom Bosley, who starred alongside Ross in sitcom ''Happy Days'') her secret past as a Warhol superstar named Marina del Rey. Warhol also produced a TV commercial for Schrafft's Restaurants in New York City, for an ice cream dessert appropriately titled the "Underground Sundae".
* Fashion: Warhol is quoted for having said: "I'd rather buy a dress and put it up on the wall, than put a painting, wouldn't you?" One of his best-known superstars, Edie Sedgwick, aspired to be a fashion designer, and his good friend Halston was a famous one. Warhol's work in fashion includes silkscreened dresses, a short sub-career as a catwalk-model and books on fashion as well as paintings with fashion (shoes) as a subject. Warhol himself has been described as a modern dandy, whose authority "rested more on presence than on words".
* Performance Art: Warhol and his friends staged theatrical multimedia happenings at parties and public venues, combining music, film, slide projections and even Gerard Malanga in an Sadomasochism, S&M outfit cracking a whip. The Exploding Plastic Inevitable
The ''Exploding Plastic Inevitable'', sometimes simply called ''Plastic Inevitable'' or ''EPI'', was a series of multimedia events organized by Andy Warhol in 1966 and 1967, featuring musical performances by The Velvet Underground & Nico, screenin ...
in 1966 was the culmination of this area of his work.
*Theater: Warhol's play ''Andy Warhol's Pork'' opened on May 5, 1971, at LaMama theater in New York for a two-week run and was brought to the Roundhouse in London for a longer run in August 1971. ''Pork'' was based on tape-recorded conversations between Brigid Berlin and Andy during which Brigid would play for Andy tapes she had made of phone conversations between herself and her mother, socialite Honey Berlin. The play featured Jayne County as "Vulva" and Cherry Vanilla as "Amanda Pork". In 1974, Andy Warhol also produced the stage musical ''Man on the Moon (musical), Man on the Moon'', which was written by John Phillips (musician), John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas.
* Photography: To produce his silkscreens, Warhol made photographs or had them made by his friends and assistants. These pictures were mostly taken with a specific model of Polaroid Corporation, Polaroid camera, The Big Shot, that Polaroid kept in production especially for Warhol. This photographic approach to painting and his snapshot method of taking pictures has had a great effect on artistic photography. Warhol was an accomplished photographer, and took an enormous number of photographs of Factory visitors, friends, acquired by Stanford University.
* Music: In 1963, Warhol founded The Druds, a short-lived avant-garde noise music band that featured prominent members of the New York proto-conceptual art and minimal art community.
* Computer: Warhol used Amiga computers to generate digital art, including ''You Are the One (Andy Warhol), You Are the One'', which he helped design and build with Amiga, Inc. He also displayed the difference between slow fill and fast fill on live TV with Debbie Harry as a model.
Personal life
Sexuality
Warhol was homosexual. In 1980, he told an interviewer that he was still a virgin. Biographer Bob Colacello, who was present at the interview, felt it was probably true and that what little sex he had was probably "a mixture of voyeurism and masturbation—to use [Andy's] word ''abstract''". Warhol's assertion of virginity would seem to be contradicted by his hospital treatment in 1960 for Genital wart, condylomata, a sexually transmitted disease. It has also been contradicted by his lovers, including Warhol muse BillyBoy*, BillyBoy, who has said they had sex to orgasm: "When he wasn't being Andy Warhol and when you were just alone with him he was an incredibly generous and very kind person. What seduced me was the Andy Warhol who I saw alone. In fact when I was with him in public he kind of got on my nerves....I'd say: 'You're just obnoxious, I can't bear you.'" Billy Name also denied that Warhol was only a voyeur, saying: "He was the essence of sexuality. It permeated everything. Andy exuded it, along with his great artistic creativity....It brought a joy to the whole art world in New York." "But his personality was so vulnerable that it became a defense to put up the blank front." Warhol's lovers included John Giorno, Billy Name, Charles Lisanby, and Jon Gould. His boyfriend of 12 years was Jed Johnson (designer), Jed Johnson, whom he met in 1968, and who later achieved fame as an interior designer.
The fact that Warhol's homosexuality influenced his work and shaped his relationship to the art world is a major subject of scholarship on the artist and is an issue that Warhol himself addressed in interviews, in conversation with his contemporaries, and in his publications (''e.g.'', ''Popism: The Warhol 1960s''). Throughout his career, Warhol produced erotic photography and drawings of male nudes. Many of his most famous works (portraits of Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland, and Elizabeth Taylor and films such as ''Blow Job'', ''My Hustler'' and ''Lonesome Cowboys (1968 film), Lonesome Cowboys'') draw from gay underground culture or openly explore the complexity of sexuality and desire. As has been addressed by a range of scholars, many of his films premiered in gay porn theaters, including the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre and 55th Street Playhouse, in the late 1960s.
The first works that Warhol submitted to a fine art gallery, homoerotic drawings of male nudes, were rejected for being too openly gay. In ''Popism'', furthermore, the artist recalls a conversation with the filmmaker Emile de Antonio about the difficulty Warhol had being accepted socially by the then-more-famous (but closeted) gay artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. De Antonio explained that Warhol was "too swish and that upsets them". In response to this, Warhol writes, "There was nothing I could say to that. It was all too true. So I decided I just wasn't going to care, because those were all the things that I didn't want to change anyway, that I didn't think I 'should' want to change ... Other people could change their attitudes but not me". In exploring Warhol's biography, many turn to this period—the late 1950s and early 1960s—as a key moment in the development of his persona. Some have suggested that his frequent refusal to comment on his work, to speak about himself (confining himself in interviews to responses like "Um, no" and "Um, yes", and often allowing others to speak for him)—and even the evolution of his pop style—can be traced to the years when Warhol was first dismissed by the inner circles of the New York art world.
Religion
Warhol was a practicing Ruthenian Catholic. He regularly volunteered at homeless shelters in New York City, particularly during the busier times of the year, and described himself as a religious person. Many of Warhol's later works depicted religious subjects, including two series, ''Details of Renaissance Paintings'' (1984) and ''The Last Supper'' (1986). In addition, a body of religious-themed works was found posthumously in his estate.
Warhol regularly attended Mass (liturgy), Liturgy, and the priest at Warhol's church, Church of St. Vincent Ferrer (New York), Saint Vincent Ferrer, said that the artist went there almost daily, although he was not observed taking Eucharist#Catholic, Communion or going to Sacrament of Penance (Catholic Church), Confession and sat or knelt in the pews at the back. The priest thought he was afraid of being recognized; Warhol said he was self-conscious about being seen in a Roman Rite church sign of the Cross, crossing himself "in the Byzantine Rite, Orthodox way" (right to left instead of the reverse). His art is noticeably influenced by the Eastern Christian tradition which was so evident in his places of worship. Warhol's brother has described the artist as "really religious, but he didn't want people to know about that because [it was] private". Despite the private nature of his faith, in Warhol's eulogy John Richardson depicted it as devout: "To my certain knowledge, he was responsible for at least one Conversion to Christianity, conversion. He took considerable pride in financing his nephew's studies for the priesthood".
Collections
Warhol was an avid collector. His friends referred to his numerous collections, which filled not only his four-story townhouse, but also a nearby storage unit, as "Andy's Stuff". The true extent of his collections was not discovered until after his death, when The Andy Warhol Museum
The Andy Warhol Museum is located on the North Shore of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is the largest museum in North America dedicated to a single artist. The museum holds an extensive permanent collection of art and archive ...
in Pittsburgh took in 641 boxes of his "Stuff".
Warhol's collections included a Coca-Cola memorabilia sign, and 19th century paintings along with airplane menus, unpaid invoices, pizza dough, pornographic pulp novels, newspapers, stamps, supermarket flyers, and cookie jars, among other eccentricities. It also included significant works of art, such as George Bellows's ''Miss Bentham''. One of his main collections was his wigs. Warhol owned more than 40 and felt very protective of his hairpieces, which were sewn by a New York wig-maker from hair imported from Italy. In 1985, a girl snatched Warhol's wig off his head. It was later discovered in Warhol's diary entry for that day that he wrote: "I don't know what held me back from pushing her over the balcony."
In 1960, he had bought a drawing of a light bulb by Jasper Johns. Another item found in Warhol's boxes at the museum in Pittsburgh was a mummy, mummified human foot from Ancient Egypt. The curator of anthropology at Carnegie Museum of Natural History felt that Warhol most likely found it at a flea market.
Warhol collected many books, with more than 1,200 titles in his collection. Of these, 139 titles have been publicly identified through a 1988 Sotheby's Auction catalog, ''The Andy Warhol Collection'' and can be viewed online. His book collection reflects his eclectic taste and interests, and includes books written by and about some of his acquaintances and friends. Some of the titles in his collection include ''The Two Mrs. Grenvilles: A Novel'' by Dominick Dunne, ''Artists in Uniform'' by Max Eastman, ''Andrews' Diseases of the Skin: Clinical Dermatology'' by George Clinton Andrews, ''D.V.'' by Diana Vreeland, ''Blood of a Poet'' by Jean Cocteau, ''Watercolours'' by Francesco Clemente, ''Little World, Hello!'' by Jimmy Savo, ''Hidden Faces'' by Salvador Dalí, and ''The Dinah Shore Cookbook''.
Legacy
In 2002, the U.S. Postal Service issued an 18-cent stamp commemorating Warhol. Designed by Richard Sheaff of Scottsdale, Arizona, the stamp was unveiled at a ceremony at The Andy Warhol Museum and features Warhol's painting "Self-Portrait, 1964". In March 2011, a chrome statue of Andy Warhol and his Polaroid camera was revealed at Union Square in New York City.
A Warhol (crater), crater on Mercury was named after Warhol in 2012.
In 2013, to honor the 85th anniversary of Warhol's birthday, The Andy Warhol Museum and EarthCam launched a collaborative project titled ''Figment'', a live feed of Warhol's gravesite.
Warhol Foundation
Warhol's will dictated that his entire estate—with the exception of a few modest legacies to family members—would go to create a foundation dedicated to the "advancement of the visual arts". Warhol had so many possessions that it took Sotheby's nine days to auction his estate after his death; the auction grossed more than US$20 million.
In 1987, in accordance with Warhol's will, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts began. The foundation serves as the estate of Andy Warhol, but also has a mission "to foster innovative artistic expression and the creative process" and is "focused primarily on supporting work of a challenging and often experimental nature".
The Artists Rights Society is the U.S. copyright representative for the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for all Warhol works with the exception of Warhol film stills. The U.S. copyright representative for Warhol film stills is the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. Additionally, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has agreements in place for its image archive. All digital images of Warhol are exclusively managed by Branded Entertainment Network, Corbis, while all transparency images of Warhol are managed by Art Resource.
The Andy Warhol Foundation released its ''20th Anniversary Annual Report'' as a three-volume set in 2007: Vol. I, 1987–2007; Vol. II, Grants & Exhibitions; and Vol. III, Legacy Program.
The Foundation is in the process of compiling its catalogue raisonné of paintings and sculptures in volumes covering blocks of years of the artist's career. Volumes IV and V were released in 2019. The subsequent volumes are still in the process of being compiled.
The Foundation remains one of the largest grant-giving organizations for the visual arts in the U.S.
Many of Warhol's works and possessions are on display at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. The foundation donated more than 3,000 works of art to the museum.
''Revelation'' in Brooklyn
From November 19, 2021 – June 19, 2022, the Brooklyn Museum will display the ''Andy Warhol: Revelation'' exhibition. ''Revelation'' examines themes such as life and death, power and desire, the role and representation of women, Renaissance imagery, family and immigrant traditions and rituals, depictions and duplications of Christ, and the Catholic body and queer desire. Among the more than one hundred objects on view are rare source materials and newly discovered items that provide a fresh and intimate look at Warhol's creative process, as well as major paintings from his epic Last Supper series (1986), the experimental film The Chelsea Girls (1966), an unfinished film depicting the setting sun commissioned by the de Menil family and funded by the Roman Catholic Church, and drawings created by Warhol's mother, Julia Warhola, when she lived with her son in New York City.
In pop culture
Warhol founded ''Interview'' magazine, a stage for celebrities he "endorsed" and a business staffed by his friends. He collaborated with others on all of his books (some of which were written with Pat Hackett.) One might even say that he produced people (as in the Warholian "Superstar" and the Warholian portrait). Warhol endorsed products, appeared in commercials, and made frequent celebrity guest appearances on television shows and in films (he appeared in everything from ''Love Boat'' to ''Saturday Night Live'' and the Richard Pryor movie ''Dynamite Chicken'').
In this respect Warhol was a fan of "Art Business" and "Business Art"—he, in fact, wrote about his interest in thinking about art as business in ''The Philosophy of Andy Warhol from A to B and Back Again''.
Films
Warhol appeared as himself in the film ''Cocaine Cowboys'' (1979) and in the film ''Tootsie'' (1982).
After his death, Warhol was portrayed by Crispin Glover in Oliver Stone's film ''The Doors (film), The Doors'' (1991), by Jared Harris in Mary Harron's film ''I Shot Andy Warhol'' (1996), and by David Bowie in Julian Schnabel's film ''Basquiat (film), Basquiat'' (1996). Bowie recalled how meeting Warhol in real life helped him in the role, and recounted his early meetings with him:
Warhol appears as a character in Michael Daugherty's opera ''Jackie O (the opera), Jackie O'' (1997). Actor Mark Bringleson makes a brief cameo as Warhol in ''Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery'' (1997). Many films by avant-garde cineast Jonas Mekas have caught the moments of Warhol's life. Sean Gregory Sullivan depicted Warhol in the film ''54 (film), 54'' (1998). Guy Pearce portrayed Warhol in the film ''Factory Girl (2006 film), Factory Girl'' (2007) about Edie Sedgwick's life. Actor Greg Travis portrays Warhol in a brief scene from the film ''Watchmen (film), Watchmen'' (2009).
In the movie ''Highway to Hell (film), Highway to Hell'' a group of Andy Warhols are part of the ''Good Intentions Paving Company'' where good-intentioned souls are ground into road surface, pavement. In the film ''Men in Black 3'' (2012) Andy Warhol turns out to really be undercover MIB Agent W (played by Bill Hader). Warhol is throwing a party at The Factory in 1969, where he is looked up by MIB Agents K and J (J from the future). Agent W is desperate to end his undercover job ("I'm so out of ideas I'm painting soup cans and bananas, for Christ sakes!", "You gotta fake my death, okay? I can't listen to sitar music anymore." and "I can't tell the women from the men.").
Andy Warhol (portrayed by Tom Meeten) is one of main characters of the 2012 British television show ''Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy''. The character is portrayed as having robot-like mannerisms. In the 2017 feature ''Billionaire Boys Club (2017 film), The Billionaire Boys Club'' Cary Elwes portrays Warhol in a film based on the true story about Ron Levin (portrayed by Kevin Spacey) a friend of Warhol's who was murdered in 1986. In September 2016, it was announced that Jared Leto would portray the title character in ''Warhol'', an upcoming American biographical film, biographical drama (genre), drama film produced by Michael De Luca and written by Terence Winter, based on the book ''Warhol: The Biography'' by Victor Bockris.
Documentaries
*''Absolut Warhola'' (2001) was produced by Polish director Stanislaw Mucha, featuring Warhol's parents' family and hometown in Slovakia.
* ''Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film'' (2006) is a reverential, four-hour movie by Ric Burns that won a Peabody Award in 2006.
* ''Andy Warhol: Double Denied'' (2006) is a 52-minute movie by Ian Yentob about the difficulties authenticating Warhol's work.
* ''Andy Warhol's People Factory'' (2008), a three-part television documentary directed by Catherine Shorr, features interviews with several of Warhol's associates.
* ''The Andy Warhol Diaries (docuseries), The Andy Warhol Diaries'' (2022), a six-part docuseries directed by Andrew Rossi, was released on Netflix chronicling Warhol's life from the vantage point of his diaries.
Television
Warhol appeared as a recurring character in TV series ''Vinyl (TV series), Vinyl'', played by John Cameron Mitchell. Warhol was portrayed by Evan Peters in the ''American Horror Story: Cult'' episode "Valerie Solanas Died for Your Sins: Scumbag". The episode depicts the attempted assassination of Warhol by Valerie Solanas (Lena Dunham).
In early 1969, Andy Warhol was commissioned by Braniff International Airways, Braniff International to appear in two television commercials to promote the luxury airline's "When You Got It – Flaunt It" campaign. The campaign was created by the advertising agency Lois Holland Calloway, which was led by George Lois, creator of a famed series of Esquire Magazine covers. The first commercial series involved pairing unlikely people who shared the fact that they both flew Braniff Airways. Warhol was paired with boxing legend Sonny Liston. The odd commercial worked as did the others that featured unlikely fellow travelers such as painter Salvador Dalí and baseball legend Whitey Ford.
Two additional commercials for Braniff were created that featured famous persons entering a Braniff jet and being greeted by a Braniff hostess while espousing their like for flying Braniff. Warhol was also featured in the first of these commercials that were also produced by Lois and were released in the summer of 1969. Lois has incorrectly stated that he was commissioned by Braniff in 1967 for representation during that year, but at that time Madison Avenue advertising doyenne Mary Wells Lawrence, who was married to Braniff's chairman and president Harding Lawrence, was representing the Dallas-based carrier at that time. Lois succeeded Wells Rich Greene Agency on December 1, 1968. The rights to Warhol's films for Braniff and his signed contracts are owned by a private trust and are administered by Braniff Airways Foundation in Dallas, Texas.
Music
Warhol strongly influenced the New wave music, new wave/punk rock band Devo, as well as David Bowie. Bowie recorded a song called "Andy Warhol (David Bowie song), Andy Warhol" for his 1971 album ''Hunky Dory''. Lou Reed wrote the song "Andy's Chest", about Valerie Solanas, the woman who shot Warhol, in 1968. He recorded it with the Velvet Underground, and this version was released on the ''VU (album), VU'' album in 1985. The band Triumph (band), Triumph also wrote a song about Andy Warhol, "Stranger In A Strange Land" off their 1984 album Thunder Seven.
Books
A biography of Andy Warhol written by art critic Blake Gopnik was published in 2020 under the title ''Warhol (book), Warhol''.
See also
* Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board
* Andy Warhol Bridge, Pittsburgh, PA
* LGBT culture in New York City
* List of LGBT people from New York City
* Moon Museum
* Painting the Century: 101 Portrait Masterpieces 1900–2000
References
Further reading
* "A symposium on Pop Art". ''Arts Magazine'', April 1963, pp. 36–45. The symposium was held in 1962, at The Museum of Modern Art, and published in this issue the following year.
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* Celant, Germano. ''Andy Warhol: A Factory''. Kunstmuseum Wolfsbug, 1999.
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* Doyle, Jennifer, Jonathan Flatley, and José Esteban Muñoz, eds (1996). ''Pop Out: Queer Warhol.'' Durham: Duke University Press.
* Duncan Fallowell, ''20th Century Characters'', ch. Andy Lives (London, Vintage, 1994)
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* James, James, "Andy Warhol: The Producer as Author", in ''Allegories of Cinema: American Film in the 1960s'' (1989), pp. 58–84. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
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* Rosalind Krauss, Krauss, Rosalind E. "Warhol's Abstract Spectacle". In ''Abstraction, Gesture, Ecriture: Paintings from the Daros Collection''. New York: Scalo, 1999, pp. 123–33.
* Lippard, Lucy R., ''Pop Art'', Thames and Hudson, 1970 (1985 reprint),
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* Scherman, Tony, & David Dalton, ''POP: The Genius of Andy Warhol'', New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2009
* Suarez, Juan Antonio (1996). ''Bike Boys, Drag Queens, & Superstars: Avant-Garde, Mass Culture, and Gay Identities in the 1960s Underground Cinema.'' Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
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External links
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Andy Warhol at the National Gallery of Art
Warhol Foundation
in New York City
Andy Warhol Collection in Pittsburgh
spoken about by David Cronenberg
Warholstars
Andy Warhol Films, Art and Superstars
Warhol & The Computer
Andy Warhol at the Jewish Museum
A Piece of Work podcast, WNYC Studios/MoMA, Tavi Gevinson and Abbi Jacobson discuss Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans
Andy Warhol's Personal Book Shelf
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