Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol was a pop artist of the 20th century. He was born to Roman Catholic Czech immigrant parents and grew up near the mills in Pittsburgh PA. About the age of nine he had a nervous breakdown and as he grew older, realized he did not like his appearance. Always fascinated with beauty and stardom, he had cosmetic surgery but to his dismay, it didn't satisfy his physical insecurities.

Throughout his career, he expressed himself through the use of drawings, paintings, films, gold leaf pictures and photo-silk screening with the later being the most prominent of his career. He considered himself a mediator more than an artist and had many assistants that worked for him often asking for their advice when putting a piece of work together. He relied upon the collaborative efforts of his helpers to complete many of his works, as he didn't feel comfortable with his own ideas all the time.

Campbell's Soup Cans by Andy Warhol, 1962. Display...

Campbell's Soup Cans by Andy Warhol, 1965. Display...

Cheddar Cheese canvas from Campbell's Soup Cans by...

Early in his career after graduating from Carnegie Institute of Technology, he went to work as a commercial artist working for "Vogue" and "Harper's Bazaar" and did his first advertisements for the I. Miller show company. He experimented with a blotted line technique that would become his commercial art trademark. Because of his outstanding work, he received numerous awards for his newspaper artwork throughout his early career.

Later in his career, he felt our culture was overloaded with information through the repetition of advertisement images from media sources. He capitalized on this idea and created many works shown as a repetition of subject. In 1961, he created Campbell's Soup Cans that display this line of thinking showing 32 identical soup cans except for the flavor. "In his Twenty Five Colored Marilyn's, he portrays Marilyn Monroe not as a person but a media-blitzed sex...