Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol is perhaps both the most well-known and important artist of the latter part of the 20th century. He was born Andrew Warhola in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania in 1928. Warhol studied commercial art at Carnegie Mellon University. After graduating, Warhol moved to New York City to pursue a career in magazine illustration and advertising.

After having considerable professional success, Warhol began creating paintings of his own based on advertisement imagery. These works quickly brought him to fame, owing to their shocking embrace of "low art" and detachment of any form of emotion of sentiment. During this time he produces his infamous series of Campbell's Soup Cans, Disasters, Electric Chairs, and celebrity portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Kennedy, and Elvis Presley, among others, using commercial techniques such as screen printing and stenciling. His fame and fortune allowed him to build the so-called "Factory" studio on 47th street. It quickly became a venue of eccentrics he called "Superstars". Together they created a series of experimental films which were often censored or banned by police for their vulgarity.

In 1968 he was shot several times by former Factory frequenter, Valerie Solanas, author of the radical-feminist SCUM-Manifesto. Warhol narrowly survived and withdrew from Bohemians circles in order to work on his well-known, well-sold celebrity portraits. In the 1980s Warhol's work experienced a renaissance through his collaborations with artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francesco Clemente and Keith Haring.

Warhol died in 1987 following a complication from an operation. The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts was established after his death. A constant topic of debate, praise and criticism, none other has probably reflected our moment in cultural history with more accuracy than Andy Warhol. To this day he remains one, if not the, most influential artistic figure of the late 20th century.

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