Andy Warhol: biography and works of the greatest exponent of pop art in America. Summary of his life and the characteristics of his art.Andy Warhol , born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on August 6, 1928, was one of the most important exponents of Pop Art , as well as one of the most famous artists of the 20th century.
The son of two Slovakian immigrants of Ruthenian ethnicity, Ondrej Varchola and Júlia Justína Zavacká, Andy Warhol studied at the Carnegie Institute of Technology from 1945 to 1949, when he moved to New York.
The Big Apple immediately offered the artist several job opportunities: Warhol soon began working as a graphic designer for magazines such as Vogue , Glamour and Harper’s Bazaar , immediately obtaining numerous acclaims.After suffering serious gunshot wounds at the hands of the mad feminist Valerie Solanas, the only member of SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men), who shot Warhol and his then partner, Mario Amaya, on June 3, 1968, the eclectic artist decided to slowly reduce his presence on the public scene.On February 22, 1987 in New York, during a simple gallbladder surgery, Andy Warhol died ; The funeral took place in Pittsburgh.
ANDY WARHOL, WORKS
Painter, graphic designer and director, Andy Warhol was an all-round artist , as well as the greatest supporter of the concept of reproducibility and commercialization of the work of art . After his first exhibitions dating back to the 1950s, the eclectic artist began to create his first silkscreen prints around 1962, choosing comic book characters, commercial products and the symbolic icons of his time as subjects for his works . From Superman to Popeye, via Coca Cola bottles and soup cans, the images chosen by Warhol were drawn from American mass culture and then elaborated in series, in order to take to the extreme consequences the concept of an art that had to be consumed , exactly like all commercial products.
ANDY WARHOL AND POP ART
Wanting to devote himself to a larger project, in 1962 Andy Warhol founded the Factory , a studio where the collaborators of the initiator of pop art produced silkscreens, but also a meeting point for artists and superstars.
It was in these years that Marylin , Andy Warhol’s most famous work, came to life. In 1967, the artist created 10 silkscreens on paper depicting the face of the American diva. These became part of a larger collection, started a few years earlier, in which Warhol portrayed several famous people of the time, including Mao Tse-Tung and Che Guevara.
Andy Warhol’s genius did not stop at painting, but invaded various sectors of art. From the world of cinema – a field in which he managed to bring out the most transgressive aspects of his art, talking about drugs, prostitution and homosexuality – to that of publishing and journalism , also appearing in the world of music where he became the financier of the first Velvet Underground album. In 1980 he became the producer of Andy Warhol’s TV , a television he founded.
