Andrew Warhola, Jr. (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987), known as
Andy Warhol, was an American painter,
printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the
visual art movement known as
pop art. After a successful career as a
commercial illustrator, Warhol became famous worldwide for his work as a painter,
avant-garde filmmaker, record producer, author, and member of highly diverse social circles that included
Bohemian street people, distinguished intellectuals, Hollywood celebrities and wealthy patrons.
Warhol has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions, books, and feature and documentary films. He coined the widely used expression "15 minutes of fame." In his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, The Andy Warhol Museum exists in memory of his life and artwork.
The highest price ever paid for a Warhol painting is US$100 million for a 1963 canvas titled ''Eight Elvises.'' The private transaction was reported in a 2009 article in ''The Economist'', which described Warhol as the "bellwether of the art market." $100 million is a benchmark price that only Jackson Pollock, Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh, Pierre-August Renoir, Gustav Klimt and Willem de Kooning have achieved.
Childhood (1928–48)
Andy Warhol was born in
Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, on August 6, 1928. He was the fourth child of Ondrej Varchola (americanized as Andrej Warhola), who died in 1942, and
Júlia (née Zavacká, 1892–1972), whose first child was born in their homeland and died before their move to the U.S. His parents were working-class
Rusynemigrants from
Mikó (now called Miková), located in today’s northeastern
Slovakia, part of the former
Austro-Hungarian Empire. Warhol's father immigrated to the US 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 neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The family was
Byzantine Catholic and attended
St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church. Andy Warhol had two older brothers – Pavol (Paul), the oldest, was born in Slovakia;
Ján was born in Pittsburgh. Pavol's son,
James Warhola, became a successful children's book illustrator.
In third grade, Warhol had chorea, the nervous system disease that causes involuntary movements of the extremities, which is believed to be a complication of scarlet fever and causes skin pigmentation blotchiness. He became a hypochondriac, developing a fear of hospitals and doctors. Often bed-ridden as a child, he became an outcast at school and bonded with his mother. 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.
Commercial art (1949–61)
Warhol showed early artistic talent and studied
commercial art at the
School of Fine Arts at
Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, (now
Carnegie Mellon University). In 1949, he moved to New York City and began a career in magazine illustration and advertising. During the 1950s, he gained fame for his whimsical ink drawings of shoe advertisements. These were done in a loose, blotted-ink style, and figured in some of his earliest showings at the
Bodley Gallery in New York. With the concurrent rapid expansion of the record industry and the introduction of the vinyl record, Hi-Fi, and stereophonic recordings,
RCA Records hired Warhol, along with another freelance artist, Sid Maurer, to design album covers and promotional materials.
Fine art (1952–67)
He began exhibiting his work during the 1950s. He held exhibitions at the Hugo Gallery, and the
Bodley Gallery in New York City and in California his first one-man art-gallery exhibition was on July 9, 1962, in the
Ferus Gallery of Los Angeles. The exhibition marked his
West Coast debut of pop art.
Andy Warhol's first New York solo
pop art exhibition was hosted at Eleanor Ward's
Stable Gallery November 6–24, 1962. The exhibit included the works ''
Marilyn Diptych'', ''100 Soup Cans'', ''100 Coke Bottles'' and ''100 Dollar Bills''. At the
Stable Gallery exhibit, the artist met for the first time poet
John Giorno who would star in Warhol's first film, ''
Sleep'', in 1963.
It was during the 1960s that Warhol began to make paintings of iconic American products such as
Campbell's Soup Cans and
Coca-Cola bottles, as well as paintings of celebrities such as
Marilyn Monroe,
Elvis Presley,
Troy Donahue,
Muhammad Ali and
Elizabeth Taylor. He founded "
The Factory," his studio during these years, and gathered around himself a wide range of artists, writers, musicians, and underground celebrities. He began producing prints using the
silkscreen method His work became popular and controversial.
Among the imagery tackled by Warhol were dollar bills, celebrities and brand name products. He also used as imagery for his paintings. Newspaper headlines or photographs of mushroom clouds, electric chairs, and police dogs attacking civil rights protesters. Warhol also used Coca Cola bottles as subject matter for paintings. He had this to say about Coca Cola:
}}
New York's Museum of Modern Art hosted a Symposium on pop art in December 1962 during which artists like Warhol were attacked for "capitulating" to consumerism. Critics were scandalized by Warhol's open embrace of market culture. This symposium set the tone for Warhol's reception. Throughout the decade it became more and more clear that there had been a profound change in the culture of the art world, and that Warhol was at the center of that shift.
A pivotal event was the 1964 exhibit ''The American Supermarket'', a show held in Paul Bianchini's Upper East Side gallery. The show was presented as a typical U.S. small supermarket environment, except that everything in it – from the produce, canned goods, meat, posters on the wall, etc. – was created by six prominent pop artists of the time, among them the controversial (and like-minded) Billy Apple, Mary Inman, and Robert Watts. Warhol's painting of a can of Campbell's soup cost $1,500 while each autographed can sold for $6. 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 (or of what is art and what is not).
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; in the 1960s, however, this was particularly true. One of the most important collaborators during this period was Gerard Malanga. Malanga assisted the artist with producing 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, 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 '60s, Warhol also groomed a retinue of bohemian eccentrics upon whom he bestowed the designation "Superstars", including Nico, Joe Dallesandro, Edie Sedgwick, Viva, Ultra Violet, Holly Woodlawn, Jackie Curtis and Candy Darling. 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 of the 1960s, revealing Warhol's connections to a diverse range of artistic scenes during this time.
Attempted murder (1968)
On June 3, 1968,
Valerie Solanas shot Warhol and art critic and curator
Mario Amaya at Warhol's studio. Before the shooting, Solanas had been a marginal figure in the Factory scene. She authored the ''
S.C.U.M. Manifesto'', a
separatist feminist attack on males. Solanas appears in the 1968 Warhol film ''
I, a Man''. 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, apparently, had been misplaced.
Amaya received only minor injuries and was released from the hospital later the same day. Warhol however, was seriously wounded by the attack and barely survived (surgeons opened his chest and massaged his heart to help stimulate its movement again). He suffered physical effects for the rest of his life. The shooting had a profound effect on Warhol's life and art.
Solanas was arrested the day after the assault. By way of explanation, she said that Warhol "had too much control over my life." She was eventually sentenced to three years under the control of the Department of Corrections. After the shooting, the Factory scene became much more tightly controlled, and for many the "Factory 60s" ended. The shooting was mostly overshadowed in the media due to the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy two days later.
Warhol had this to say about the attack: "Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there – I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life. People sometimes say that the way things happen in movies is unreal, but actually it's the way things happen in life that's unreal. The movies make emotions look so strong and real, whereas when things really do happen to you, it's like watching television – you don't feel anything. Right when I was being shot and ever since, I knew that I was watching television. The channels switch, but it's all television."
1970s
Compared to the success and scandal of Warhol's work in the 1960s, the 1970s were a much quieter decade, as Warhol became more entrepreneurial. 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, his wife Empress Farah Pahlavi, his sister Princess Ashraf Pahlavi, Mick Jagger, Liza Minnelli, John Lennon, Diana Ross, and Brigitte Bardot. Warhol's famous portrait of Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong was created in 1973. He also founded, with Gerard Malanga, ''Interview'' magazine, and 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."
Warhol used to socialize at various nightspots in New York City, including Max's Kansas City; and, later in the '70s, Studio 54. He was generally regarded as quiet, shy, and a meticulous observer. Art critic Robert Hughes called him "the white mole of Union Square."
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 '80s New York art:
Jean-Michel Basquiat,
Julian Schnabel,
David Salle and other so-called
Neo-Expressionists, as well as members of the
Transavantgarde movement in Europe, including
Francesco Clemente and
Enzo Cucchi.
During this time Warhol created the Michael Jackson painting signifying his success attributed to his best-selling album ''Thriller''.
By this period, Warhol was being criticized for becoming merely a "business artist". 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. They also criticized his 1980 exhibit of 10 portraits at the Jewish Museum in New York, entitled ''Jewish Geniuses'', 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 of American culture in the 1970s."
Warhol also had an appreciation for intense Hollywood glamour. 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."
Death
Warhol died in New York City at 6:32 a.m. on February 22, 1987. According to news reports, he had been making good recovery from a routine
gallbladder surgery at
New York Hospital before dying in his sleep from a sudden post-operative
cardiac arrhythmia. 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.
Warhol's body was taken back to Pittsburgh by his brothers for burial. The wake was at Thomas P. Kunsak Funeral Home and was an open-coffin ceremony. The coffin was a solid bronze casket with gold plated rails and white upholstery. Warhol was dressed in a black cashmere suit, a paisley tie, a platinum wig, and sunglasses. He was posed holding a small prayer book and a red rose. The funeral liturgy was held at the Holy Ghost Byzantine Catholic Church on Pittsburgh's North Side. The eulogy was given by Monsignor Peter Tay. Yoko Ono also made an appearance. 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 in Bethel Park, a south suburb of Pittsburgh.
At the grave, the priest said a brief prayer and sprinkled holy water on the casket. Before the coffin was lowered, Paige Powell dropped a copy of ''Interview'' magazine, an ''Interview'' t-shirt, and a bottle of the Estee Lauder perfume "Beautiful" into the grave. Warhol was buried next to his mother and father. A memorial service was held in Manhattan for Warhol on April 1, 1987, at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York.
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 official 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 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 remains one of the largest grant-giving organizations for the visual arts in the U.S.
Works
Paintings
By the beginning of the 1960s, Warhol had become a very successful commercial illustrator. His detailed and elegant drawings for I. Miller shoes were particularly popular. They consisted mainly of "blotted ink" drawings (or monoprints), a technique which he applied in much of his early art. Although many artists of this period worked in commercial art, most did so discreetly. Warhol was so successful, however, that his profile as an illustrator seemed to undermine his efforts to be taken seriously as an artist.
Pop art was an experimental form that several artists were independently adopting; some of these pioneers, such as Roy Lichtenstein, 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). Warhol's first pop art paintings were displayed in April 1961, serving as the backdrop for New York Department Store Bronwit Teller's window display. This was the same stage his Pop Art contemporaries Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist and Robert Rauschenberg had also once graced. Eventually, Warhol pared his image vocabulary down to the icon itself – to brand names, celebrities, dollar signs – and removed all traces of the artist's "hand" in the production of his paintings.
To him, part of defining a niche was defining his subject matter. Cartoons were already being used by Lichtenstein, typography by Jasper Johns, and so on; Warhol wanted a distinguishing subject. His friends suggested he should paint the things he loved the most. It was the gallerist Muriel Latow who came up with the ideas for both the soup cans and Warhol's dollar paintings. On 23 November 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. The work sold for $10,000 at an auction on November 17, 1971, at Sotheby's New York – a minimal amount for the artist whose paintings sell for over $6 million more recently.
He loved celebrities, so he painted them as well. 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 hand-made from the artistic process. Warhol frequently used silk-screening; 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.
In 1979, Warhol was commissioned by BMW to paint a Group 4 race version of the then elite supercar BMW M1 for the fourth installment in the BMW Art Car Project. Unlike the three artists before him, Warhol declined the use of a small scale practice model, instead opting to immediately paint directly onto the full scale automobile. It was indicated that Warhol spent only a total of 23 minutes to paint the entire car.
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 celebrities, everyday objects, or images of suicide, car crashes, and disasters, as in the 1962–63 ''Death and Disaster'' series. The ''Death and Disaster'' paintings included ''Red Car Crash'', ''Purple Jumping Man'', and ''Orange Disaster.''
The unifying element in Warhol's work is his deadpan Keatonesque style – artistically and personally affectless. This was mirrored by Warhol's own demeanor, as he often played "dumb" to the media, and refused to explain his work. The artist was famous for having said that all you need to know about him and his works is already there, "Just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There's nothing behind it."
His Rorschach inkblots are intended as pop comments on art and what art could be. His cow wallpaper (literally, wallpaper with a cow motif) and his 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 first portrait of ''Basquiat'' (1982) is a black photosilkscreen over an oxidized copper "piss painting".
After many years of silkscreen, oxidation, photography, etc., Warhol returned to painting with a brush in hand in a series of over 50 large collaborative works done with Jean-Michel Basquiat between 1984 and 1986. Despite negative criticism when these were first shown, Warhol called some of them "masterpieces," and they were influential for his later work.
The influence of the large collaborations with Basquiat can be seen in Warhol's ''The Last Supper'' cycle, his last and possibly his largest series, seen by some as "arguably his greatest," but by others as “wishy-washy, religiose” and “spiritless." It is also the largest series of religious-themed works by any U.S. artist.
At the time of his death, Warhol was working on ''Cars'', a series of paintings for Mercedes-Benz.
A self-portrait by Andy Warhol (1963-64), which sold in New York at the May Post-War and Contemporary evening sale in Christie's, fetched $38.4 million.
Films
Warhol worked across a wide range of media – painting, photography, drawing, and sculpture. In addition, he was a highly prolific filmmaker. Between 1963 and 1968, he made more than 60 films, plus some 500 short black-and-white "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'' 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'' (1964), consists of eight hours of footage of the
Empire State Building in New York City at dusk. The film ''
Eat'' consists of a man eating a mushroom for 45 minutes. Warhol attended the 1962 premiere of the static composition by
LaMonte Young called ''Trio for Strings'' and subsequently created his famous series of static films including ''Kiss'', ''Eat'', and ''Sleep'' (for which Young initially was commissioned to provide music). Uwe Husslein cites filmmaker
Jonas Mekas, who accompanied Warhol to the Trio premiere, and who claims Warhol's static films were directly inspired by the performance.
''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 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'' is an adaptation of Anthony Burgess' popular dystopian 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. Legendary underground artist Jack Smith appears in the film ''Camp''.
His most popular and critically successful film was ''Chelsea Girls'' (1966). The film was highly innovative in that it consisted of two 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.
Other important films include ''Bike Boy'', ''My Hustler'', and ''Lonesome Cowboys'', a raunchy pseudo-western. These and other titles document gay underground and camp culture, and continue to feature prominently in scholarship about sexuality and art. ''Blue Movie'' – a film in which Warhol superstar Viva makes love and fools around in bed with a man for 33 minutes of the film's playing-time – was Warhol's last film as director. The film was at the time scandalous for its frank approach to a sexual encounter. For many years Viva refused to allow it to be screened. It was publicly screened in New York in 2005 for the first time in over thirty years.
After his June 3, 1968, shooting, a reclusive Warhol relinquished his personal involvement in filmmaking. 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 fare with ''Flesh'', ''Trash'', and ''Heat''. All of these films, including the later ''Andy Warhol's Dracula'' and ''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 '70s, 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.
Factory in New York
Factory: 1342 Lexington Avenue (the first Factory)
The Factory: 231 East 47th street 1963–1967 (the building no longer exists)
Factory: 33 Union Square 1967–1973 (Decker Building)
Factory: 860 Broadway (near 33 Union Square) 1973–1984 (the building has now been completely remodeled and was for a time (2000–2001) the headquarters of the dot-com consultancy Scient)
Factory: 22 East 33rd Street 1984–1987 (the building no longer exists)
Home: 1342 Lexington Avenue
Home: 57 East 66th street (Warhol's last home)
Last personal studio: 158 Madison Avenue
Filmography
The following are the films directed or produced by
Andy Warhol.
Music
In the mid 1960s, Warhol adopted the band
the Velvet Underground, making them a crucial element of the
Exploding Plastic Inevitable 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). 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.
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'' in 1981. In 1975, Warhol was commissioned to do several portraits of Mick Jagger, and in 1982 he designed the album cover for the Diana Ross album Silk Electric. One of his last works was a portrait of Aretha Franklin for the cover of her 1986 gold album ''Aretha'', which was done in the style of the ''Reigning Queens'' series he had completed the year before.
Warhol strongly influenced the New Wave/punk rock band Devo, as well as David Bowie. Bowie recorded a song called "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 in 1985.
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 #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''
After gaining fame, Warhol "wrote" several books that were commercially published:
''a, A Novel'' (1968, ISBN 0-8021-3553-6) 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 (From A to B & Back Again)'' (1975, ISBN 0-15-671720-4)– 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, ISBN 0-15-672960-1), authored by Warhol and Pat Hackett is a retrospective view of the sixties and the role of pop art.
''
The Andy Warhol Diaries'' (1989, ISBN 0-446-39138-7), 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 today. 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 (of course) ''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.
Sculpture: Warhol's most famous sculpture is probably his ''
Brillo Boxes'', silkscreened ink on wood replicas of Brillo soap pad boxes (designed by
James Harvey), part of a series of "grocery carton" sculptures 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'' (1968–69) 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 show that he wanted to call ''The Nothing Special'', a special about his favorite subject: Nothing. 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 most well-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.
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
S&M; outfit cracking a whip. The
Exploding Plastic Inevitable in 1966 was the culmination of this area of his work.
Theater: 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 Brigin 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, which was written by
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 camera 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 amount of photographs of Factory visitors, friends.
Computer: Warhol used
Amiga computers to generate digital art, 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. (
video)
Producer and product
Warhol had assistance in producing his paintings. This is also true of his film-making and commercial enterprises.
He founded the gossip magazine ''Interview'', 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.) He adopted the young painter Jean-Michel Basquiat, and the band The Velvet Underground, presenting them to the public as his latest interest, and collaborating with them. One might even say that he produced people (as in the Warholian "Superstar" and the Warholian portrait). He 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''.
Personal life
Sexuality
It is thought that Warhol was
homosexual, and quite likely a virgin. His family maintains that he was not homosexual and was celibate. The question of how Warhol's sexuality 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 Sixties''). 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 like ''
Blow Job,'' ''My Hustler'' and ''
Lonesome Cowboys'') draw from gay underground culture and/or openly explore the complexity of sexuality and desire. Many of his films premiered in gay porn theaters. The first works that he 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 film maker
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.
Religious beliefs
Warhol was a practicing
Ruthenian Rite Catholic. He regularly volunteered at
homeless shelters in New York, 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.
During his life, Warhol regularly attended Mass, and the priest at Warhol's church, Saint Vincent Ferrer, said that the artist went there almost daily, although he was not observed taking communion or going to 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 Latin Rite church crossing himself "in the Orthodox way" (right to left instead of the reverse).
His art is noticeably influenced by the eastern Christian iconographic 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. He took considerable pride in financing his nephew's studies for the priesthood".
Dedicated museums
Two museums are dedicated to Warhol.
The Andy Warhol Museum, one of the
Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, is located at 117 Sandusky Street in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is the largest American art museum dedicated to a single artist, holding more than 12,000 works by the artist.
The other museum is the Andy Warhol Museum of Modern Art, established in 1991 by Warhol's brother John Warhola, the Slovak Ministry of Culture, and the Warhol Foundation in New York. It is located in the small town of Medzilaborce, Slovakia. Warhol's parents and his two eldest brothers were born 15 kilometres away in the village of Miková. The museum houses several originals donated mainly by the Andy Warhol Foundation in New York and also personal items donated by Warhol's relatives.
Movies about Warhol
;Dramatic portrayals
In 1979, Warhol appeared as himself in the film ''Cocaine Cowboys''.
After his passing, Warhol was portrayed by Crispin Glover in Oliver Stone's film ''The Doors'' (1991), by David Bowie in ''Basquiat'', a film by Julian Schnabel, and by Jared Harris in the film ''I Shot Andy Warhol'' directed by Mary Harron (1996). Warhol appears as a character in Michael Daugherty's 1997 opera ''Jackie O''. 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 Andy's life. Sean Gregory Sullivan depicted Warhol in the 1998 film ''54''. Guy Pearce portrayed Warhol in the 2007 film, ''Factory Girl'', about Edie Sedgwick's life. Actor Greg Travis portrays Warhol in a brief scene from the 2009 film ''Watchmen''.
Gus Van Sant was planning a version of Warhol's life with River Phoenix in the lead role just before Phoenix's death in 1993.
;Documentaries
The 2001 documentary, ''Absolut Warhola'' was produced by Polish director Stanislaw Mucha, featuring Warhol's parents' family and hometown in Slovakia.
''Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film'' is a reverential four-hour 2006 movie by Ric Burns.
''Andy Warhol: Double Denied'' is a 52 minute movie by lan Yentob about the difficulties in authenticating Warhol's work.
See also
Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board
Painting the Century 101 Portrait Masterpieces 1900-2000
Andy Warhol Bridge in Pittsburgh.
Bodley Gallery
15 minutes of fame
Moon Museum
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.
Doyle, Jennifer, Jonathan Flatley, and José Esteban Muñoz eds. (1996). ''Pop Out: Queer Warhol.'' Durham: Duke University Press.
Foster, Hal, ''The Return of the Real'' (ch.5), MIT Press / October Book, 1996.
James, James, "Andy Warhol: The Producer as Author", in ''Allegories of Cinema: American Film in the Sixties'' (1989), pp. 58–84. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
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), ISBN 0-500-20052-1
Scherman, Tony & Dalton, David, ''POP: The Genius of Andy Warhol'', HarperCollins, New York, N.Y. 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.
External links
Warhol Foundation in New York City
Andy Warhol Collection in Pittsburgh
Time Capsules: the Andy Warhol Collection
FBI file on Andy Warhol
Documentation of recent exhibitions of work by Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol at Brooke Alexander Gallery
Andy Warhol's Empire group on Facebook
David Cronenberg speaking about the work of Andy Warhol">David Cronenberg speaking about the work of Andy Warhol on UbuWeb
Warholstars: Andy Warhol Films, Art and Superstars
Pop Art Masters – Andy Warhol
Art Directors Club biography, portrait and images of work
"Warhol, Soup Cans, Cowboys" (''Studio 360'' radio program, December 10, 2005)
exhibition of 10 statues of liberty in Gallerie Lavignes bastille, Paris 1986
The Andy Warhol Museum of Modern Art – city of origin
Warhol in Paris – slideshow by ''The First Post''
digital painting of Debbie Harry at the Commodore Amiga product launch press conference in 1985">Andy Warhol makes a digital painting of Debbie Harry at the Commodore Amiga product launch press conference in 1985
Andy Warhol: A Documentary film by Ric Burns for PBS
Footage and interview with Andy Warhol at the Anthony D'Offay Gallery in london 1986
Category:Article Feedback Pilot
Category:1928 births
Category:1987 deaths
Category:20th-century artists
Category:20th-century painters
Category:20th-century writers
Category:American artists
Category:American cinematographers
Category:American Eastern Catholics
Category:American experimental filmmakers
Category:American film directors
Category:American film producers
Category:American painters
Category:American people of Rusyn descent
Category:American people of Slovak descent
Category:American printmakers
Category:American screenwriters
Category:American shooting survivors
Category:American socialites
Category:Artists from New York
Category:Artists from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Category:Attempted assassination survivors
Category:Carnegie Mellon University alumni
Category:Censorship in the arts
Category:Contemporary artists
Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction
Category:Deaths from surgical complications
Category:Fashion illustrators
Category:Gay artists
Category:Gay writers
Category:LGBT artists from the United States
Category:LGBT Christians
Category:LGBT directors
Category:LGBT writers from the United States
Category:Photographers from New York
Category:Pop artists
Category:Postmodern artists
Category:Ruthenian Catholics
Category:The Velvet Underground
Category:Warhola family
af:Andy Warhol
als:Andy Warhol
ar:آندي وارهول
an:Andy Warhol
az:Endi Uorxol
bn:অ্যান্ডি ওয়ারহল
zh-min-nan:Andy Warhol
be:Эндзі Уорхал
be-x-old:Эндзі Ўорхал
bs:Andy Warhol
br:Andy Warhol
bg:Анди Уорхол
ca:Andy Warhol
cs:Andy Warhol
cy:Andy Warhol
da:Andy Warhol
de:Andy Warhol
et:Andy Warhol
el:Άντι Γουόρχολ
es:Andy Warhol
eo:Andy Warhol
eu:Andy Warhol
fa:اندی وارهول
hif:Andy Warhol
fr:Andy Warhol
fy:Andy Warhol
ga:Andy Warhol
gl:Andy Warhol
ko:앤디 워홀
hi:एंडी वारहोल
hr:Andy Warhol
ilo:Andy Warhol
id:Andy Warhol
is:Andy Warhol
it:Andy Warhol
he:אנדי וורהול
jv:Andy Warhol
ka:ენდი უორჰოლი
sw:Andy Warhol
lad:Andy Warhol
la:Andreas Warhol
lv:Endijs Vorhols
lb:Andy Warhol
lt:Andy Warhol
li:Andy Warhol
lmo:Andy Warhol
hu:Andy Warhol
mk:Енди Ворхол
ml:ആൻഡി വോഹോൾ
mi:Andy Warhol
mr:अँडी वॉरहोल
arz:اندى وارهول
mn:Энди Уорхол
nl:Andy Warhol
new:एन्डी वार्होल
ja:アンディ・ウォーホル
no:Andy Warhol
nn:Andy Warhol
oc:Andy Warhol
uz:Andy Warhol
pag:Andy Warhol
pnb:اینڈی وارہول
pms:Andy Warhol
pl:Andy Warhol
pt:Andy Warhol
kaa:Andy Warhol
ro:Andy Warhol
rue:Енді Варгол
ru:Уорхол, Энди
sq:Andy Warhol
scn:Andy Warhol
simple:Andy Warhol
sk:Andy Warhol
sl:Andy Warhol
sr:Енди Ворхол
sh:Andy Warhol
fi:Andy Warhol
sv:Andy Warhol
tl:Andy Warhol
ta:அன்டி வார்ஹால்
th:แอนดี วอร์ฮอล
tr:Andy Warhol
uk:Енді Воргол
ur:اینڈی وارہول
vi:Andy Warhol
vo:Andy Warhol
war:Andy Warhol
zh-yue:安迪華荷
bat-smg:Andy Warhol
zh:安迪·沃荷
