Transcript Document 7154367

Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol 1928-1987
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Born Aug 6th 1928 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Studied in the Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh.
He studied with various artists such as Balcomb
Greene, Robert Lepper and Samuel Rosenberg. He
experimented with his name by signing holiday
cards. He graduated in 1949 with a B.A. in Fine Art
in Pictorial Design.
Soon after graduating he moved to New York to
work as a commercial artist. First work appeared on
Glamour magazine Sept 1949.
Most successful illustrator of the 1950s winning
awards from the American Inst. of Graphic Arts. His
clients included Tiffany & Co., The New York Times,
Columbia Records, Vogue and others.
Most of his work was based on photographs and he
used his mother’s quirky handwriting in a lot of his
work from this time (she had won an award for her
lettering in a children’s book she wrote and
illustrated. His mother joined him in New York in
1952 and lived together till 1071. Warhol painted
memorial portraits of her after her death made a film
on her and shot video tapes of her.
In1956 visited Asia and Europe.
1950’s first Pop Art paintings based on comics and
ads
The 1960’s
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Campbell’s Soup 1, 1968
“what’s great about this country is that America
started the tradition where the richest consumers
buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You
can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you
know that the president drinks Coca-Cola, LIZ
Taylor drinks Coca-Cola and just think, you can
drink Coca-Cola, too. A coke is a coke no amount of
money can get you a better coke than the one the
bum on the corner is drinking. All the cokes are the
same and all the cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows
it, the president knows it, the bum knows it, and you
know it.”
During the 1960’s Warhol began to make paintings
of American products such as ‘Campbell’s Soup
Cans’ and Coca-Cola as well as paintings of
celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor
and Elvis.
The factory was founded i.e. his studio during this
time and he gathered around himself a wide range
of artists, writers, musicians, and underground
celebrities.
He switched to silkscreen prints. Producing huge
series seeking not only to make art of massproduction items but to mass produce the art itself.
By minimising the role of his own hand in the
production of his work and declaring that he wanted
to be “a machine”. He worked quickly and became
very controversial and popular.
1960’s
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“Three Coca-Cola bottles”
“Coca-Cola bottles”
Warhol’s work began to revolve around
American Pop culture. He painted
dollar bills, celebrities, brand name
products and iconic images from
headline stories of the decade.
1964 exhibit 2The American
Supermarket” presented as a typical
small supermarket environment,
except that everything in it from the
produce, canned goods, meat, posters
on the wall, etc. were created by six
prominent pop artists. The exhibit was
one of the first mass events that
directly confronted the general public
with both Pop Art and the question of
“what is Art”?
1960’s
1960’s
1960’s
1960’s
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June 1968, Valerie Solanas shot
Warhol and art critic and curator Mario
Amaya at Warhol’s studio. She had
gone to the studio asking for her script
back that she had handed into Warhol
some time before that and had been
told it was misplaced.
After this incident the Factory scene
became much more tightly controlled.
1970’s
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Warhol devoted much of his time now
to rounding up new rich patrons for
portrait commissions – including Mick
Jagger, Liza Minnelli, John Lennon,
Diana Ross and Michael Jackson.
1970’s
Mick Jagger portrait
Cover of the Rolling Stones
Warhol’s Work
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Warhol went from being a painter to
being a designer of paintings. At the
height of his fame he had several
assistants who produced his silkscreen multiples, following his
directions to make different versions
and variations.
1962-1963 Warhol did a series called
“Death and Disaster”. They were
paintings such as ‘Red Car Crash’,
Purple Jumping Man’ and ‘Orange
Disaster’. They transformed personal
tragedies into public spectacles, and
signal the use of images of disaster in
the then evolving media.
Warhol refused to explain his work
often saying that ”all you need to know
about him and his work is already
there on the surface”.
Other works
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Throughout 1970’s Warhol frequently
socialised with celebrities such as Jackie
Kennedy and Truman Capote. He started to
receive dozens and soon hundreds of
commissions for painted portraits from
wealthy socialites, music and film stars. He
was a regular partygoer at Studio 54, the
famous New York disco.
1970 was a period of experimentation. He
made 3 versions of a sculpture called rain
Machine. These consisted of a large shower
of water in front of a wall of 3-D lenticular
prints of daisies.
1978 produced a large series of work called
Oxidation paintings, made from human urine
on canvases covered with metallic paint.
The chemical interaction produced beautiful
abstract shapes in contrast to their shocking
medium.
Oxidation
1970’s
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1974 he started a series of Time
Capsules made from cardboard boxes
that he filled with the materials of his
everyday life, including mail, photos,
art, clothing, collectibles, etc.
1970’s onwards he produced a prolific
number of paintings, prints,
photographs and drawings on Skulls,
Hammer and Sickles, Guns, Knives,
Camouflage and much more.
1980’s
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mid 1980’s his television shows, Andy
Warhol’s Fifteen Minutes and Andy
Warhol’s TV aired nationally on MTV
and on Madison Square Garden cable
television in New York. He appeared
on the Love Boat and produced music
videos for rock bands such as The
Cars. He modelled in fashion shows
and in numerous print and television
ads for Sony, Vidal Sassoon and many
others.
1984 he returned to painting with a
brush and briefly abandoned
silkscreening. Nearly all of Warhol’s
works in every medium were created
with the help of friends, paid assistants
and managers.
1987
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Warhol died in New York on Feb 22,
1987 due to complications following
surgery to remove his gall bladder. In
1988 a ten day auction of his
enormous estate of art and antiques
raised over 20 million dollars for The
Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual
Arts. The Andy Warhol Museum was
announced in 1989 and opened in
Pittsburgh in 1994.