Andy Warhol

“When you think about it, department stores are kind of like museums”.

Andy Warhol

Andy was born in 1928 (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) in Pittsburgh as the son of Slovak immigrants. His original name was Andrew Warhola. His father was as a construction worker and died in an accident when Andy was 13 years old. He was an American artist, 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 that flourished by the 1960s, and span a variety of media, including painting, silkscreening, photography, film, and sculpture.

Three portraits of Ingrid Bergman by Andy Warhol

Ice Cream Dessert - Andy Warhol 1959 — Ice Cream Dessert – Andy Warhol 1959

Andy Warhol - Three Marilyns 1962 National Gallery of Victoria — Andy Warhol – Three Marilyns 1962 National Gallery of Victoria

Key Service - Andy Warhol — Key Service – Andy Warhol

Fish - Andy Warhol 1983 — Fish – Andy Warhol 1983

Three Coke Bottles - Andy Warhol — Three Coke Bottles – Andy Warhol

Knives - Andy Warhol 1981 — Knives – Andy Warhol 1981

After high school he studied commercial art at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh. Warhol graduated in 1949 and went to New York where he worked as an illustrator for magazines like Vogue and Harpar’s Bazaar and for commercial advertising. He soon became one of New York’s most sought of and successful commercial illustrators.

In 1952 Andy Warhol had his first one-man show exhibition at the Hugo Gallery in New York. In 1956 he had an important group exhibition at the renowned Museum of Modern Art. In the sixties Warhol started painting daily objects of mass production like Campbell Soup cans and Coke bottles. Soon he became a famous figure in the New York art scene. From 1962 on he started making silkscreen prints of famous personalities like Marilyn Monroe or Elizabeth Taylor.

The quintessence of Andy Warhol art was to remove the difference between fine arts and the commercial arts used for magazine illustrations, comic books, record albums or advertising campaigns. Warhol once expressed his philosophy in one poignant sentence:

The pop artist not only depicted mass products but he also wanted to mass produce his own works of pop art. Consequently he founded The Factory in 1962. It was an art studio where he employed in a rather chaotic way “art workers” to mass produce mainly prints and posters but also other items like shoes designed by the artist. The first location of the Factory was in 231 E. 47th Street, 5th Floor (between 1st & 2nd Ave).

Warhol’s favorite printmaking technique was silkscreen. It came closest to his idea of proliferation of art. Apart from being an Art Producing Machine, the Factory served as a filmmaking studio. Warhol made over 300 experimental underground films – most rather bizarre and some rather pornographic. His first one was called Sleep and showed nothing else but a man sleeping over six hours.

The philosopher of art mass production now spent most of his time making individual portraits of the rich and affluent of his time like Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson or Brigitte Bardot.

Warhol’s activities became more and more entrepreneurial. He started the magazine Interview and even a night-club. In 1974 the Factory was moved to 860 Broadway. In 1975 Warhol published THE philosophy of Andy Warhol. In this book he describes what art is: