Bookmark
this Page - Ctrl+D
Fantasy
Art - Fine Art -
Renaissance - Surrealism - Pop
Art - Abstract Art -
Cubism
Modernism -African
American Art - Impressionism -
Romanticism - Victorian Era
Angels
-
Dragons - Children
- Animals - Birds -
Flowers - Landscapes
- Beaches
College - Comics
- Family - Home
Decor - Vintage Posters
-
Americana
Movies - Music
- Sports - People
- Scenic - Travel
- Photography
Andy
Warhol Biography
Andy Warhol was born Andrew
Warhola in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1928. In 1945 he entered the
Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University)
where he majored in pictorial design. Upon graduation, Warhol moved
to New York where he found steady work as a commercial artist. He
worked as an illustrator for several magazines including Vogue, Harper's
Bazaar and The New Yorker and did advertising and window displays
for retail stores such as Bonwit Teller and I. Miller. Prophetically,
his first assignment was for Glamour magazine for an article titled
"Success is a Job in New York." Throughout the 1950s, Warhol enjoyed
a successful career as a commercial artist, winning several commendations
from the Art Director's Club and the American Institute of Graphic
Arts. In these early years, he shortened his name to "Warhol." In
1952, the artist had his first individual show at the Hugo Gallery,
exhibiting Fifteen Drawings Based on the Writings of Truman Capote.
His work was exhibited in several other venues during the 1950s, including
his first group show at The Museum of Modern Art in 1956. The 1960s
was an extremely prolific decade for Warhol. Appropriating images
from popular culture, Warhol created many paintings that remain icons
of 20th-century art, such as the Campbell's Soup Cans, Disasters and
Marilyns. In addition to painting, Warhol made several 16mm films
which have become underground classics such as Chelsea Girls, Empire
and Blow Job. In 1968, Valerie Solanis, founder and sole member of
SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) walked into Warhol's studio, known
as the Factory, and shot the artist. The attack was nearly fatal.
At the start of the 1970s, Warhol began publishing Interview magazine
and renewed his focus on painting. Works created in this decade include
Maos, Skulls, Hammer and Sickles, Torsos and Shadows and many commissioned
portraits. Warhol also published The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (from
A to B and Back Again). Firmly established as a major 20th-century
artist and international celebrity, Warhol exhibited his work extensively
in museums and galleries around the world. The artist began the 1980s
with the publication of POPism: The Warhol '60s and with exhibitions
of Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century and the Retrospectives
and Reversal series. He also created two cable television shows, "Andy
Warhol's TV" in 1982 and "Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes" for MTV in
1986. His paintings from the 1980s include The Last Suppers, Rorschachs
and, in a return to his first great theme of Pop, a series called
Ads. Warhol also engaged in a series of collaborations with younger
artists, including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francesco Clemente and Keith
Haring. Following routine gall bladder surgery, Andy Warhol died February
22, 1987. After his burial in Pittsburgh, his friends and associates
organized a memorial mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York that
was attended by more than 2,000 people. In 1989, the Museum of Modern
Art in New York had a major retrospective of his works. The Andy Warhol
Museum opened in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in May 1994.
Frame
Andy Warhol art prints by
clicking the Framed Link or Mounted
Link.
