The name Andy Warhol is familiar to most and his art is some of the most recognisable in the world. But Warhol’s art and life went much deeper than a multi-coloured Marilyn Monroe and a can of soup. Warhol was at the center of popular culture in the mid-60s, developing an aesthetic that changed the way we view modern art, and pioneering the interest in celebrity culture that permeates society today.
Warhol was born in 1928 in Pennsylvania, to Slovakian immigrant parents. After a childhood illness left him bedridden for a long period of time, Warhol took up drawing to pass the time, learning from his mother who was also a skilled artist. At the same time he developed an interest in film and photography, which would heavily influence his future artistic career.
When Warhol was 14, his father passed away. A sensitive child, Warhol took the death badly to the point where he could not attend the funeral, and hid under his bed during the wake. Warhol’s father had been a great influence and supporter, and in his will left money for Warhol to go to college. When he graduated high school in 1945, he enrolled at the Carnegie Institute for Technology, where he studied pictorial design.
After graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Warhol moved to New York City where he became a commercial artist at Glamor magazine. Working in commercial art is where Warhol refined the style that would come to be so iconic to this day, debuting it in his famous collection of Campbell’s soup can paintings in 1962. He called his style “pop art” – paintings that focused on mass-produced commercial goods.
British artist Richard Hamilton described pop art as “popular, transient, expendable, low cost, mass-produced, young, witty, sexy, gimmicky, glamorous, big business.” As Warhol himself put it, “Once you ‘got’ pop, you could never see a sign the same way again. And once you thought pop, you could never see America the same way again.” – Biography
After the success of his Campbell’s soup can paintings propelled him into the awareness of the American art scene, Warhol went on to paint other commercial goods like Coke bottles and hamburgers. His childhood interest in film also came into play in this style when he began painting colourful portraits of celebrities like Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor.
In the mid-60s, Warhol’s life became a kind of pop art in itself. He opened his now-legendary art studio, The Factory, which became the site of decadent parties attended by anyone who was anyone in the New York scene. He also attended nightclubs like Studio 54 and Max’s Kansas City. Every day Warhol mingled with celebrities, and observed the beginning of modern celebrity culture. It was during this time he coined the famous phrase “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes”.
During his Factory days, Warhol produced his most iconic art. However, in 1968 Warhol was shot by Valerie Solanis, an associate of his. Naturally, his focus changed somewhat after this traumatic incident, and as the 1970s dawned he began exploring other forms of art, including producing over 60 artistic films. These include Sleep, a 6-hour film showing a man sleeping, and Eat, a 45-minute film showing a man eating a mushroom.
Warhol died on February 22, 1987, at the age of 58. Though he lived a relatively short life, it was a full life which left almost unparalleled influence on modern art, pop culture and celebrity culture.
People need to be made more aware of the need to work at learning how to live because life is so quick and sometimes it goes away too quickly. – Andy Warhol
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