Born on August 6th, 1928, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Andy Warhol was one of the most prolific and popular artists of the 20th century and the leading figure of Pop art. Warhol’s work explore the relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture, and advertising blurring the lines between fine art and mainstream aesthetics. He ventured into a wide variety of art forms, including performance art, filmmaking, video installations and writing.
When he graduated from college with his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1949, Warhol moved to New York City to pursue a career in advertisement. He quickly became one of the most successful commercial artists of the 1950s.
In the late 1950s, Warhol began devoting more attention to painting, and in the early 1960s he started painting iconic American objects such as dollar bills, electric chairs, Campbell’s Soup Cans, Coca-Cola bottles and celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley or Elizabeth Taylor.
Instead of working on a signature subject matter, Warhol worked more and more on a signature style, slowly eliminating the handmade from the artistic process. He frequently used silk-screening and his later drawings were traced from slide projections. At the height of his fame as a painter, Warhol had several assistants who produced his silk-screen multiples, following his directions to make different versions and variations.
Warhol is also famous for creating “The Factory”, his own art studio which quickly became one of New York City’s premier cultural hotspots, where the city’s wealthiest socialites and celebrities mingled.
In his later life, Warhol suffered from chronic issues with his gall bladder. He died on February 22, 1987 at the age of 58.