Monday, October 8, 2007

Who is Andy Warhol actually?


Andy Warhol was an artist and a filmmaker. His work comprises images of American popular culture. At his death in 1987 he was a multimillionaire who had used the technique of mass production to create an enormous output of art and photography. Many of his biographers agree that he was born as Andrew Warhola in 1928 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is the youngest son of parents who emigrated from Eastern Europe. Sad to say, he suffered from the nervous disorder which is known as St. Vitus’ Dance and was taunted by other youngsters for his sallow complexion and physical frailty. How sad as a person like him who was a famous artist has become like this. Warhol’s father died when the artist was only fourteen. However the family was able to scrape together enough money for Warhol to attend the Carnegie Institute of Technology. Today this institute is known as Carnegie – Mellon University. His family supported him a lot and guess what finally, he majored in pictorial design and later graduated in 1949. Immediately after his graduation, Warhol set out for New York City. Within three months, he was commissioned to do major illustrations for Glamour magazine. By 1955, he was one of the best-paid commercial artist in New York, with clients such as Tiffany’s, I.Miller shoes, Bonwit Teller, Vogue, and the New York Times. He also designed book jackets, magazine covers and greeting cards in a wide variety of styles. By the mid-1960s he begin working in a large studio called “The Factory”. Here he turned out silk screens and recruited “superstars” for his movies. In this year also he was quite well known for his renditions of Campbell’s soup tins and Coca-Cola bottles. I think everyone of us know the Campbell soup very well. So now we know who created the two items. He also features celebrity such as Marilyn Monroe or Elvis Presley. Warhol’s earliest experimental films such as “Eat”, “Sleep”, “Kiss”, and “Empire” were considered as boring recordings that ran as long as twenty-four hours. In “Empire”, for example, a single camera focuses only on the Empire State Building from a position across the street. The angle never varies through the eight hours of shooting. I think if I were to just stare on the building, I will be right now sick. Very strange indeed. Apart from that during the 1970s and 1980s he continued to experiment with silk screen, cut-paper collage, and art for children. For your information, he even shocked the art world by displaying works created by urinating on bronze-covered canvases. Hmmm, I think I don’t dare to do that. However Warhol’s most note of works of the period are his photographs. He had a long Polaroid camera. By 1980 he had published two volumes of his photographs which is the Andy Warhol’s Exposures and Andy Warhol: Portraits of the ‘70s. Furthermore, Warhol’s writing was produced mechanically as his art work. He eventually combined writing and art together. He also would record telephone and personal conversations. Warhol’s writing comprises Interview and books such as POPism: The Warhol Sixties and The Andy Warhol Diaries. Warhol also worked right up to his untimely death, completing a version of Leornardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper”. He died of heart failure following gall bladder surgery on February 22, 1987, in New York, NY.The proceeds from the auction, as well as profits from Warhol’s business and real estate holdings, have been used to create the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. The foundation hopes to aid young painters and schools that teach paintings and sculpture. Also constructed is The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh that would be the most only single-artist museum to date in the United Stated.

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