Andy Warhol Essay

In the late 1950’s, Warhol began to have the interest in painting. He painted his first well-known paintings, which was based on comics, and ads he found in 1961. The next year the big spots lights came on and he had his big introduction on the Campbell’s Soup Can series, which changed him completely. Shortly after, Warhol got the inspiration and started working on a large variety of movie star portraits, including Elvis Presley, Elizabeth Taylor, and the biggest of all Marilyn Monroe. Using screen-printing process, and knowing that Marilyn was one of the biggest deaths in a while, he decided to take that for granted and come up with this marvilent idea to make him go viral.

In Andy Warhol’s time he was seen as very commercial and not truly a defined artist. Warhol was very popular to average society but never quite Throughout his whole life he has had struggles with Sydenham’s chorea, terrible shyness, and lastly making artwork acceptable to other artists. And as we get farther from his time we see how much value and meaning there was in his work.

When considering the life and works of Andy Warhol, one thing is agreed upon for good or bad, he changed the visual construction of the world we live in. His window advertisements were the beginning of an era, where art would be seen in an array of forms away from the traditional paintings and sculptures of the old world. He made people see everyday material objects in a whole new light; through "Pop Art" he could transform mundane into extraordinary. He was a working man, a social climber, a builder, an acquirer of goods, and a known homosexual. These attributes all contributed to the interesting and complicated nature of his art.

Andy Warhol was born on August 6, 1928 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He had two older brothers, John and Paul. At the age of six, due to an illness, he was confined to his bed. Andy had chorea. Chorea is a disease that causes involuntary movements, that get worse in situations of stress or anxiety. Some cases it only looked like the kid was clumsy, but in Andy’s case it was pretty bad. Woth that disease, it gave his mother the perfect opportunity to teach her son how to trace, draw, take pictures, and things like that. With his mo His mother bought him his first camera at the age of nine. He went to school at Carnegie Institute ( Carnegie Museum of Art), Schenley High

Only living in New York City for a short period of time Warhol had already developed an upscale list of clients such as Columbia Records, Glamour magazine, Harper's Bazaar, NBC, and Vogue.(2) Warhol quickly proved himself as a successful graphic artist which ultimately led to him holding his first solo exhibition at Huge Gallery in New York City.(3) However his first pop art exhibition in 1962, which is some of Warhol's most iconic work, was held in Eleanor Ward's Stable Gallery. This was the first display of some his most acclaimed works of art such as 100 Coke Bottles, Marilyn Dipych, 100 Dollar Bills, and 100 Soup Cans. During the years that followed Warhol began to use the movement of pop art in many of his other paints with a combination of influential celebrities such as Marylin Monroe, Mohmand Ali and Elizbeth Taylor. Then he would also use things in everyday life as well for his works like soup cans and glass

Andy Warhol. I have been curious about his life ever since I saw his work in

The death of very popular movie star Marilyn Monroe sparked Warhol’s interest to expose the realities of the pop culture. Monroe was a sex icon, fashion icon, as well as a cultural icon for the nineteen fifties and sixties. “The potent memory of the pathos and mystery of Marilyn’s death with the long-lived speculation surrounding it elevated her to the greatest modern star status. Warhol’s paintings participated in the public consolidation” (Copplestone 25). “Andy exaggerated the features of Marilyn Monroe that had made her beautiful” (Bolton 19). Also, the popularity of celebrities such as Jackie Kennedy and Elvis Presley soon began to sweep the nation (Wrbican). Warhol saw these people as icons for the sixties and also saw them as an inspiration to what would become his new art works. Despite how happy, pretty, or ideal the celebrities seemed on television, they were disasters in reality and Warhol executed his exposure of these secrets through pop art.

Andrew Warhola was born on August 6th, 1928 just outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was the third son of Slovakian immigrants Julia and Ondrej, whom moved to the United States in 1914. Throughout his entire childhood they were very poor, with his father working as a coal miner and mother creating different crafts to sell around the neighborhood. From an early age, Andrew was extremely shy and had trouble making friends. While his brothers and father saw this as a flaw, his mother embraced it. She tried to find activities that he enjoyed that did not involve interacting with other kids. This all culminated in finding out that he loved to draw. At around 5 years old, Andrew and his mother would spend all their free time drawing in their kitchen (Burns et al.). While many thought this could not be good for him, it was ultimately the start of a fantastic career as a distinguished artist that led to him becoming one of the world’s most recognizable icons of the time.

Andy was not just a typical misunderstood artist, he was much more. Andy Warhol’s first career was a commercial artist.” His first work appeared in Glamour Magazine. Throughout the 1950’s he became one of the most successful illustrators or his time.

This proved to be a great career move for him, because his work debuted in Glamour magazine in September, 1949. This was the same year that he graduated from college. Throughout his time at the magazine, he was able to win numerous awards for his unique style of art. After a life-changing vacation around the world with one of his close friends in the late 1950’s, Warhol decided to devote his time and effort into creating paintings instead of simple illustrations (“Andy Warhol Biography”). This proved to yet again be a profitable career move for him. In 1961 he was able to publish his infamous Campbell’s Soup Can series of Pop paintings, which ended up being an absolute sensation in the artistic world. From here, Warhol began working on his famous celebrity portraits including that of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, and even Elizabeth Taylor. His first sculpture exhibition was held in 1964, in a place known as “The Factory” (“Andy Warhol Biography”). This exhibition hall quickly became a very popular spot in New York. Later in his career, Warhol was able to publish an artist’s book, and even co-founded Interview magazine, which is still in publish today. In 1974, Warhol began a series of Time Capsules. These were everyday cardboard boxes that he filled with common materials from his everyday life. Today,

Andy dropped the A from his last name, Warhola, when he went to college. He went to New York City to pursue a career as a commercial artist. His thriving career almost ended when he was shot by Valerie Solana’s, an aspiring writer. She was arrested. Warhol was seriously wounded in this attack. Doctor had to cut open his chest and massage his heart to get it started again.

He aspired to be a commercial illustrator, but during his education, he worked in the display department in Home’s department store. After pursuing his education, Andy Warhol moved to New York City to become a commercial artist. In September of 1949, Warhol’s work was first published in Glamour magazine. He won many awards for his work, therefore, becoming one of the most accomplished illustrators in the 1950s. Warhol’s mother, Julia Warhola, fled Pittsburgh in 1952 to live with her son Andy. Julia lived with Andy for about 20 years, but died in Pittsburgh in 1972. Because of his hard work and success, Warhol rewarded himself by taking a trip around the world in the summer of 1956 with his friend Charles Lisbany. In the early 1960s, Andy Warhol created his first Pop artwork, which is art based on comics and ads. These paintings got Warhol recognized as a celebrity. The first appearance of his acclaimed Campbell Soup Can series started a phenomenon around the art world. Soon after, he created a series of movie star portraits such as Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe. He also began his “death and disaster” series paintings during this

Andy Warhol’s parents came from a village in the Carpathian Mountains, in what is now Slovakia. Andy was the third child born to his Czechoslovakian immigrant parents in a working class neighborhood of Pittsburgh. As a child, Andy was smart and creative. When Andy was eight years old he came down with rheumatic fever causing him to miss two months of school that year. He spent his time at home reading comic books and movie star magazines. It was this exposure to current events at a young age that he later said shaped his obsession with pop culture and celebrities. His mother always encouraged his artistic urges and enrolled him in the Carnegie Institute’s free art classes at nine years old. Warhol’s father was a construction worker who died of peritonitis when Andy was thirteen. His father left money to be specifically used towards higher learning for Andy because he knew Andy had a great talent for art.

One of his jobs was to design the weather map for NBC’s morning news. In 1952 Warhol held his first exhibit, it was not a financial success, but it enhanced Warhol’s reputation as a commercial artist. But his spare time was now taken up with pop art, inspired by Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, two young pop artist, Warhol had come across in 1958. He began to paint, draw and print everyday objects such as, dollar bills, soup cans, postage stamps, comic strips, and soda bottles. According to Warhol, these were some of the consumer products “on which America is built.”

He continued his education at the Carnegie Institute in Pennsylvania graduating with a BA in Fine Art. Warhol moved to New York in 1948-49 where he started work as a graphic designer, creating adverts for fashion magazines such as Glamour, Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. Andy Warhol shot to fame and soon became highly respected as a commercial artist. ”Tina Fredrick, then art director of Glamour” says “She was thrilled by Andy’s drawings but could not find a commercial use for them. She told him his drawings were good, but Glamour could only use drawings of shoes at the moment. The next day Warhol came back with 50 drawings of shoes” footwear being an important part of his advertising career until the mid 1960s.