Andy Warhol · ART WIKI

Andy Warhol (born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American artist and filmmaker. Widely regarded as the most important artist of the second half of the 20th century, Warhol's practice spanned various media, including painting, filmmaking, photography, publishing, and performance art. A leading figure in the pop art movement, his work explores the relationship between advertising, consumerism, mass media, and celebrity culture. His embrace of mechanical reproduction challenged traditional boundaries between high and low culture. He is also credited with popularizing the expression "15 minutes of fame".

Born to working-class Rusyn immigrant parents in Pittsburgh, Warhol began his career as a commercial artist in New York before transitioning to fine art. Among his best-known early silkscreen paintings are Campbell's Soup Can (1962), Marilyn Diptych (1962), and Coca-Cola (3) (1962). In the mid-1960s, Warhol began devoting his attention to creating experimental films such as Blow Job (1964) and Empire (1965). He subsequently directed a number of underground films—including Chelsea Girls (1966), Four Stars (1967), and Blue Movie (1969)—featuring a shifting group of personalities known as Warhol superstars. His studio, the Factory, became a hub for avant-garde experimentation, bringing together drag queens, poets, bohemians, musicians, and wealthy patrons. Warhol also managed the influential rock band the Velvet Underground, who performed at his Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1966–67) multimedia events.

After Warhol survived an assassination attempt in 1968, the Factory evolved into a business enterprise. He founded Interview magazine, produced the play Pork (1971), and published various books such as The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975) and Popism (1980). He executed several series of paintings—notably Mao (1972–73), Athletes (1977), and Last Supper (1986)—and commissioned portraiture, while expanding into television with Andy Warhol's TV (1980–83) and Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes (1985–87). He meticulously documented his social life through photography and daily recordings, published posthumously as The Andy Warhol Diaries (1989). Warhol died of cardiac arrhythmia at the age of 58 following gallbladder surgery in 1987.

Chronicle

1928
Born · 6 August 1928
Pittsburgh

1936
Health · c. 1936 – 1937 · Pittsburgh
Sydenham's chorea in childhood
At eight, Warhol had scarlet fever that progressed to rheumatic fever and then to Sydenham's chorea (“St. Vitus' dance”). Confined to bed at times and kept home from school, he drew, made scrapbooks from Hollywood magazines and cut pictures out of comic books.
1937
Career · Pittsburgh
First drawing lessons
When Warhol began art classes at Holmes School in 1937, his teacher recognised his talent and arranged Saturday drawing classes for him at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh.

1942
Event · May 1942
Death of his father
In May 1942, as Warhol was preparing to finish Holmes School, his father died of tubercular peritonitis, having drunk contaminated water at a coal mine in West Virginia years earlier.
1949
Career · New York City
Move to New York
After graduating from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in June 1949, Warhol moved to New York with his classmate Philip Pearlstein. They lived in a sixth-floor walk-up tenement on St. Mark's Place in the East Village.
Career · New York City
First commission from Glamour
On his second day in New York, Warhol went to see Glamour's art director Tina Fredericks, who bought a drawing of an orchestra for $10 and commissioned shoe illustrations for the September 1949 issue. It marked the start of his career as a commercial artist.

1950
Meeting · early 1950s
Friendships with television designers
Warhol befriended television designers, among them John J. Graham, who designed the NBC peacock, and the CBS set designer Charles Lisanby, who became one of his closest companions. He was interested in Lisanby's television work and wanted to follow artists such as Ben Shahn who occasionally worked in the medium.
1952
Exhibition · New York City
First solo exhibition
The gallerist Alexander Iolas organised Andy Warhol: Fifteen Drawings Based on the Writings of Truman Capote at New York's Hugo Gallery, Warhol's first solo exhibition.
1955
Career
Shoe advertising for I. Miller
In 1955 Warhol began designing advertisements for the shoe manufacturer Israel Miller; the drawings drew so much attention that in 1956 they won him the Art Directors Club Award for Distinctive Merit. The photographer John Coplans recalled that nobody drew shoes the way Andy did — each had a temperament of its own.
1956
Travel

1961
Career · 1961–1962
Mastering silkscreen
Seeking technical advice, Warhol turned to Floriano Vecchi of Tiber Press, who showed him the basics of silkscreen printing: transferring designs to acetate, preparing screens and pulling ink with a squeegee. The experiments became a turning point and soon led to some of his earliest silkscreen works.
Artwork · 1961–1962
Paints “Campbell's Soup Cans”
Warhol first painted the Campbell's Soup Cans cycle in paint and from 1962 made it in silkscreen: Thirty-Two Campbell's Soup Cans, One Hundred Campbell's Soup Cans and Two Hundred Campbell's Soup Cans (all 1962).
Career · New York City
Leo Castelli turns him down
In 1961 Warhol sold paintings directly to the collector Robert Scull and attracted major buyers, but the dealer Ivan Karp could not find him a gallery: Leo Castelli declined, feeling the work was too close to Roy Lichtenstein's.
Exhibition · April 1961 · New York City
Pop paintings in the Bonwit Teller window
Five paintings based on comic strips and newspaper advertisements — Saturday's Popeye, Little King, Superman, Before and After and Advertisement — were displayed in the window of the Bonwit Teller department store on Fifth Avenue as a backdrop for mannequins in spring dresses.

1970
Exhibition · 1970–1971
The retrospective from Pasadena to the Whitney
In 1970 the Pasadena Art Museum organised a Warhol retrospective that travelled on to Chicago, Eindhoven, Paris, London and, in 1971, the Whitney Museum in New York. At the Whitney the Cow wallpaper (1966) served as the backdrop for the paintings.
1971
Travel · c. 1971 – 1974
More and more often in Paris
Warhol began travelling to Europe more often and grew especially fond of Paris after filming L'Amour (1972); he kept an apartment on the Left Bank, on Rue du Cherche-Midi, shared with Fred Hughes. In Paris his circle socialised with Karl Lagerfeld, Yves Saint Laurent, Loulou de la Falaise and Paloma Picasso.
- Untitled from Electric Chairs1971
- Untitled from Electric Chairs

1980
Family · early 1980s
The end of his relationship with Jed Johnson
After the end of his relationship with Johnson, his only sustained romantic partnership, Warhol went through depression and significant weight loss. He turned to modelling, signing with the Zoli Agency in 1981 and later being represented by Ford Models.
Artwork
Creates “Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century”
The series Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century drew a wide range of responses, some of them strongly critical.
Career · New York City
Co-founder of the New York Academy of Art
In 1980 Warhol co-founded the New York Academy of Art, a school devoted to restoring traditional approaches to artistic training. Fellow co-founder Stuart Pivar later observed that Modernism had become boring for Warhol.
Publication · March 1980
The memoir “POPism” is published
POPism: The Warhol '60s is a retrospective account of his 1960s career and of the cultural environment of the Factory.

Chronicle

Posthumously