Andy Warhola

Chelsea N Crawford
October 18, 2007
Designer of Paintings: Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola or better known as Andy Warhol was one of most influential pop art artists. Through Andy’s ideas and thought that were considered not normal and very abstract he made a revolution that no one saw coming. His artwork was admired by the public and criticized by critics. He was ‘out there’ and not many people understood his work and always tried to find a point to it when there wasn’t one. Warhol’s main work period, when his greatest works were made was in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Warhol worked across a wide range of media: painting, photography, drawing, and sculpture.

Andy Warhola was born in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania and his parents were Andrew and Julia Warhola. They were from Austria-Hungary and migrated over because of his fathers work. He also had two brothers John and Paul. His family was Byzantine Catholic. Because of a skin disorder when he was younger he later became somewhat of a hypochondriac developing a fear of hospitals and medical doctors. After a secluded childhood Warhol’s artistic talent began to come forth when he went on to the School of Fine Arts at Carnegie Institute of Technology when he was studying commercial art. In 1949 he moved to New York City and began a successful career in magazine illustration and advertising.

Warhol’s associates were all involved in his group called ‘The Factory’. ‘The Factory was founded in 1962. ‘The Factory’ people were like his workers to help produce such mass quantities of art. He wanted to not only depict mass products but also wanted to mass-produce his own works of pop art. Silk screening was also a long process that required more than one set of hands. ‘The Factory’ was busied with his workers who also were his actors and muses when creating the artwork. Besides ‘The Factory’ being a mass silk screening producing place it also became a filmmaking studio. He ended up doing over 300 experimental underground films. ‘The factory’ also produced a music group ‘The Velvet Underground’ and would do performances on Andy’s command. All the factories were in New York City and there were approximately eight of them.

Andy Warhol’s body of work is very vast, there is no account of exactly how many of his works were produced, but a guess could be made taking into consideration that he produced over 300 films and in his museum in Pittsburg holds more than 12,000 of his works, add those and some of the other works around the US and you get probably around 13-14,000. Andy remained famous his whole career but the start of his mark in history was when he began producing the Brillo Pad boxes as art work, then later came the Campbell soup cans. He also did the work entitled ‘Shoes’ but never became famous from it until he was later discovered. After that he became known as the guy with the Brillo Pad Boxes and Campbell soup cans. Almost every art work after that period became an instant ‘hit’. Also in his variety of works there are works called ‘Ten Foot Flowers’, ‘Sam the Cat’, ‘Monkey’, ‘Ambulance Disaster’, and ‘Green Car Crash’. He did many self portraits and portraits of other people, for example of, Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Kennedy, Mao, Mick Jagger, Debbie Harry, and Elvis Presley.

Andy Warhol’s work to me is very interesting and exciting. He made such a display of creativity, the way he could show such glamour in Hollywood’s stars was amazing. His interest in the pop culture is something you don’t see in artists, usually artists are looking for things that are artistic and fancy, but not Andy he did what he thought was pretty. I really like the silk screening he did it shows a variety of colors that he was able to do and how he never tried for perfection.

To conclude Andy Warhol was a great artist he nearly started the pop art revolution. No one will ever exceed the way Andy did his art. His art was unique in his own way and cannot be redone by anyone.