Andy Warhol Essay

Brief Bio
Andy Warhol was born on the 6th of August 1928,
and lived until February the 22nd 1987. Andy
Warhol was one (and still is) of the most popular
and well-known Pop Art artist of the 1960s. He was
a leading figure in the Pop Art art movement, and is
still well known among artists and artist researchers
alike. His works displayed and explored the
connection between artistic expression, popular and
mainstream culture, and advertising that flourished
and was incredibly prevalent at the start of the
1960s. After his commercial career as a professional
illustrator took off, he became one of the most
renowned and sometimes controversial artist. The
Andy Warhol Museum in his birth city, Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania holds an incredibly large collection of
his work and is the largest museum in the United
States of America dedicated to a single artist.
Warhols work has taken many forms of media,
such as hand-drawing, silk screening, sculpture,
photography, painting, film and also music. He was
also a pioneer of digital art using Amiga computers
that were sold in 1984, two years before he died.
He founded Interview Magazine and was the author
of many books including The Philosophy of Andy
Warhol and Popism: The Warhol Sixties. His studio,
named The Factory, was visited regularly by many
types of people.
Warhol has been the subject of many exhibitions,
books and documentary films. He was the person
who coined the expression Fifteen Minutes of
Fame. Many of his creations were considered to be
highly valuable and collectable.
Andy Warhol by Jack Mitchell

The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

Artistic Career
In 1945 Andy began classes as a freshman at
Carnegie Institute for Technology, in Pictorial
Design. Warhol both impressed and bewildered
teachers with his quirky solutions to problems and
his very unique style. Warhol then moved to NYC
in 1949 and worked as an illustrator for more than
ten years, he received numerous professional awards
for his work and had plenty of clients. Andy had
experimented with changing his name in high school
and after the move to New York City he dropped the
A in Warhola completely. A lot of Warhols early
work was traditional art, such as pencil drawings
and fashion sketches. Warhol invented a blotted line
technique which he used alongside rubber stamps
to create whimsical and quirky and decoration
illustrations.
In 1961 Warhol began creating and exhibiting Pop
Art. Through almost four decades of his work,
Warhol created paintings, films, prints photographs,
television programs, books and magazines. Not to
mention a persona that became world-famous.
Then, in 1964 Warhol created his own studio
space called The Factory as a mature artist. In
this environment he was able to produce large
series of art and sculptures. Warhol created
many experimental pieces within this space, from
collaborating with his own assistants to dancers and
poets.

Even though Andy Warhol has long since

perished, his work is still being displayed and
is still relatively popular, and Andy Warhol
continues to be one of the most popular and
well-known modern artists.

Andy Warhol at The Factory

Hamburger - Andy Warhol

1987
Warhol created works of Pop-Art, using imagery
from consumer culture and advertisements, pushing
the boundaries between more traditional art and
more casual forms of imagery such as advertisements
and packaging.
Some of Warhols most famous works are made from
promotional photographs and stills.
Warhol used photographic silkscreen printing in his
work from 1962 until 1987. The technique allowed
him to distort and manipulate imagery from any
source and to apply this imagery over a painted or
treated surface in either singularity or multiple times.
Beginning in 1964 , Warhol exhibited his work
internationally, mainly in Europe, South America
and Asia and the Middle East. In 1971 a retrospective
of his work was held in NYC after it was seen in
Pasadena, London, Paris and the Netherlands.