Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol

Andrew Warhola is considered to be the “founder and a major figure of the pop art movement”. He was born in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania in 1928. He graduated from the Carnegie Institute of Technology, where he majored in pictorial design. He worked as an illustrator in many magazines including Vogue, Harpers Bazaar and the New Yorker, but, his big break was in 1949, when he illustrated for Glamour Magazine. Andy Warhol was born with the name Andrew Warhola, he dropped the “a” when his credit for his drawing read, “Drawings by Andy Warhol”. Warhol was obsessed by ambition to become famous and wealthy, and he knew the only was to achieve this was with hard work.

In the 1950s, he moved to a place on East 75th Street, his mother moved with him. Warhol had successful career as a commercial artist, he won several commendations from the Art Director's Club and the American Institute of Graphic Arts. In 1952, the artist had his first individual show at the Hugo Gallery, exhibiting �Fifteen Drawings based on the Writing of Truman Capote’. His work was exhibited in several other venues during the 1950s, including his first group show at The Museum of Modern Art in 1956.Soon He had all of New York copying his work

The 1960’s was when Warhol began to make his first prints. They started off mostly based on comic strips like, Dick Tracy, Superman, and Popeye. In 1962 Warhol made prints of dollar bills and Campbell soup cans. He also did many prints on famous people, including, Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne and Anney Oakley. He was well known for making prints with slight colour change. Warhol’s favorite printmaking technique was �silkscreen’. In this same year, 1962, he founded The Factory, it was an art studio where he employed in a rather chaotic way “art workers” to mass produce mainly prints and posters, but also some other things like shoes designed by the artist. Other from art, the Factory also served as a filmmaking studio. He made a series of 16mm films about time, boredom and repetition which became

underground classics such as the Empire, The Chelsea and Blow Job. In November of this year, Eleanor Ward showed his paintings at Stable Gallery, it became a sensation. November, 1964, his first solo exhibition in the U.S was held at Leo Castelli Gallery. This is when he began his self Portrait Series. Summer of 1966, six of his self portraits was shown at Expo 67 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. In August of this year he began to go to different colleges across the Los Angeles area and give Lectures, they became so popular that some colleges hired Allen Midgette to impersonate him for lectures. Warhol later moved and met Fred Hughes, who later became president of Enterprises and Interview Magazine. Then, on June 3rd, 1968, Valerie Solanis, a member of the entourage surrounding Warhol, and the sole member of SCUM (Society for Cutting up Men) walked into Warhol’s Studio, The Factory, and shot Andy Warhol 3 times in the