Information about Andy Warhol:
Born on August 6, 1928, his parents, Ondrej Warhola and Julia Warhola were immigrants from Slovakia. He was born and grew up in the neighborhood of Oakland in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Andy Warhol was a successful magazine and ad illustrator who became a leading artist of the 1960s Pop art movements. He ventured into a wide variety of art forms, including performance art, filmmaking, video installations and writing, and controversially blurred the lines between fine art and mainstream aesthetics. Warhol died on February 22, 1987, in New York City.
Examples of his artwork:
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| This is an example of Ingrid Bergman; The Hat created by Andy Warhol |
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| This is an example of what he did in his first job, advertising. |
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| This is an example of his work called "Jackie" |
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| This is potentially the most famous Warhol piece. It is of Marilyn Monroe
The reasons behind most of the art work Andy Warhol created is only known by him, however I'd guess that the photos that he created of people were to symbolize their importance to the era. For example, Marilyn Monroe was a massive icon in the 1950's, so Warhol decided to paint her.
In my opinion, I think that Andy Warhol's work was an amazing step forward in art. It is different, colorful and has become a style of art. I also think that it is hyped up too much, however it did help the art world to move on to accepting different art as well as traditional.
Facts about Andy Warhol:
1. A devout Roman Catholic, Warhol attended mass daily.
2. The blank right-hand side of Warhol's Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) mimics the breaking of a strip of projected film and the loss of consciousness upon death.
3. In 1964 the Castelli Gallery showed Warhol's Flowers series, a theme the artist selected in part because the art dealer Ileana Sonnabend sensed New York collectors' resistance to his early Death and Disaster paintings, which had been more popular in Europe.
4. Warhol started to paint depictions of Elizabeth Taylor when the actress got sick while filming Cleopatra and the artist believed she might die.
5. Warhol struck upon series paintings as a way to draw attention at galleries, and to distinguish himself from fellow Pop figure Roy Lichtenstein.
6. Warhol's modest family roots influenced his work: it's thought his mother's choice of lunchtime staple prompted his Campbell Soup series.
7. In 1962, a first solo show in New York featured Warhol's earliest depictions of Marilyn Monroe – and sold out.
8. The Factory had three locations; the original site was called the Silver Factory thanks to walls covered in foil and metallic paint.
9. Warhol had long had premonitions of a violent death, which almost came to pass when Valerie Solanas shot and nearly killed him.
10. After Warhol was shot, he made works in which he figured as a living symbol of death, including self-portraits with skulls photographs by others his scarred body.
11. Paparazzo Ron Gallela was Warhol's favourite photographer.
12. Gallerist Anthony d'Offay found some of Warhol's Fright Wig self-portraits to be so disturbing the dealer would not display them.
13. 210 Coca-Cola Bottles was the first Warhol work to pass the $1-million mark at Sotheby's, hammering down at $1.4 million on 2 May 1988.
14. Warhol's 1988 estate sale at Sotheby's netted $25 million for the then-fledgling Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts – including nearly $250,000 for Warhol's collection of 175 ceramic cookie jars.
15. In November 2009, 200 One Dollar Bills became the top-selling Warhol work ever auctioned at Sotheby's, fetching $43.8 million, more than three times the high estimate of $12 million.
16. Warhol originally painted Double Elvis (Ferus Type) in 1963 for a show at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles, where director Irving Blum cut and stretched the canvas himself.
17. Because of their scarcity and the tragedy and glamour of their topic, canvasses in Warhol's Marilyn seriesare among the artist's most coveted.
18. In 2010, a 1986 purple Self-Portrait set the record for Warhol self-portraits when it sold for at Sotheby's for $32.6 million.
19. Of the four largest canvasses in Warhol's Death and Disaster series, one is featured in the Contemporary Art Evening auction; the other three belong to prestigious museum collections.
20. Warhol likened his process of executing silk-screened canvasses to the workings of a machine.
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