"Andy Warhol (August 6, 1928 - February 22, 1987) was an American painter and major figure in the pop art movement.
Warhol was born Andrew Warhola in Pittsburgh, PA, United States, to Slovakian immigrants of Ruthenian ethnicity. He showed early artistic talent, and studied commercial art at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now known as Carnegie Mellon University) in Pittsburgh. Upon graduating in 1949, he relocated to New York City and began a successful career in magazine illustration and advertising. He became well-known mainly for his whimsical ink drawings of shoes done in a loose, blotted style.
In the 1960s, he started to make paintings of famous American products like Campbell's soup cans and Coca-Cola. He switched to silkscreen prints, seeking not only to make art of mass produced items, but to mass produce the art itself. He hired and supervised "art workers" engaged in making prints, shoes, films, and other items at his studio, The Factory, located on Union Square in New York City. The Factory became a meeting place of artists and would-be artists such as Mick Jagger, Lou Reed and Truman Capote. Warhol became the manager of the influential New York rock band The Velvet Underground in 1965.
On June 3, 1968, Valerie Solanas, one of the Factory regulars, entered Warhol's studio and fired three shots, nearly killing him. Although the first two rounds had missed, the third bullet passed through Warhol's left lung, spleen, stomach, liver, esophagus and right lung. Solanas then turned the gun on a companion of Warhol, injuring his thigh. Although Warhol survived these injuries, he never fully recovered. Solanas later explained that "he had too much control over my life."
In 1970s and 1980s he mainly made prints of famous people such as Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley.
Besides his influence as a painter, Warhol was known as a highly proficient filmmaker. Between 1963 and 1968, he made more than sixty films. His most famous one is Sleep (1963), which shows a man (John Giorno, who had a relationship with Warhol) sleeping for eight hours. In the 35 minute film Blow Job (1963), he shows the face of a man receiving fellatio. Warhol's character has also been represented in several theatrically released movies; he has been portrayed by Crispin Glover, David Bowie, and Jared Harris, in The Doors, Basquiat and I Shot Andy Warhol, respectively.
Warhol created the fashion magazine Interview that is still in print. The loopy title script on the cover is thought to be either his own handwriting or his mother's, who would often do text work for his early commercial pieces.
Warhol used to socialize at Serendipity, a club in New York City.
Warhol's favorite pop band was Blondie.
The Andy Warhol Museum is located in the North Shore district of Pittsburgh, PA. It is the largest American art museum dedicated to a single artist.
Andy was generally regarded as very quiet and a meticulous observer. More than one person, half-kidding, referred to him as "death warmed over". He had a keen eye for art in general and is credited with crystallizing the deceptively simple notion that if you simply point at something and call it "art", it is. He was openly gay, rare for celebrities of his stature at the time, and paid tribute to many male friends and workers in his private art and collections. An organized collector, he tossed practically every piece of paper, fan mail and magazine related to his fame along with personal notes, (gay) porn and found artifacts into hundreds of boxes, numbered them, and set them aside. Many of these exist today and are available for research at his Pittsburgh museum.
A kind person at heart, he would regularly volunteer at the homeless shelters in New York, particularly during the busier times of the year (holidays, etc), when he found the time.
Warhol died in New York, NY, United States, following routine gall bladder surgery. He is interred at St. John the Baptist Catholic Cemetery south of Pittsburgh. Fellow artist Yoko Ono was among the speakers at his funeral."
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Things I have said:
"An artist is someone who produces things that people don't need to have but that he- for some reason-thinks it would be a good idea to give them."
"Being born is like being kidnapped. And then sold into slavery.
"Everyone will be famous for 15 minutes."
"I am a deeply superficial person."
"I had a lot of dates but I decided to stay home and dye my eyebrows."
"I have Social Disease. I have to go out every night. If I stay home one night I start spreading rumors to my dogs."
"I like boring things."
"I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They're beautiful. Everybody's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic."
"I met someone on the street who said wasn't it great that we're going to have a movie star for president, that it was so Pop, and when you think about it like that, it is great, it's so American."
"I never think that people die. They just go to department stores."
"I never understood why when you died, you didn't just vansih, everthing could just keep going on the way it was only you just wouldn't be there. I always thought I'd like my own tombstone to be blank. No epitaph, and no name. Well, actually, I'd like it to say 'figment.'"
"It would be very glamorous to be reincarnated as a great big ring on Liz Taylor's finger."
"It's the movies that have really been running things in America ever since they were invented. They show you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how to feel about it, and how to look how you feel about it."
"The most exciting thing is not doing it. If you fall in love with someone and never do it, it's much more exciting."
"They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself."
