Pop Art Summative Questions

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol was born in Pittsburgh with the name Andrew Warhola. When he moved to New York to pursue his career as a commercial artist, after a newspaper spelled his name “Warhol”, he decided to remove the ‘a’ from his last name. A lady who worked with a shoe designing company recognized Warhol’s unique and interesting style of art, and hired him to design shoes. He had the reputation as one of New York’s top commercial artists, and did work for magazines, designing department store window displays, as well as working for other well known companies. In 1961, Warhol made his first “pop” paintings based on comics and ads. In 1962, he released his Campbell’s Soup Cans series, and he was instantly declared a celebrity. Warhol took an interest in Hollywood, and was interested in doing portraits of celebrities. His first individual art show was in 1962, and it was an instant hit. There was a line outside of the building waiting to see his art, and everything sold out very fast. In 1963, Warhol also began to make films. He was the first one to use video as a form of art. His films were considered odd by some, such as his film entitled Sleep, which shows nothing but a man sleeping for six hours. Andy Warhol also worked with musicians on their album covers such as The Rolling Stones, and most famously The Velvet Underground. Andy Warhol said that one of his big influences was when he was younger, he enjoyed tracing and copying magazine pictures, and a picture of Shirley Temple was his favourite. Warhol’s art was the first of its kind, and once his art was released, it was as if a new era had started. Warhol was the first to take commercial objects and images and portray them as art. After Warhol’s paintings and art, people began to discuss the question “What is art?” more. Artists widened their variety of art and expanded on their idea of what art was. Andy Warhol started a completely new type of art based on simple pictures and images, and he influenced and inspired many artists of his era, and many of the current era as well.