Andy Warhol is one of America’s most talented and famous artists. He is most known for his unique and quirky style of paintings. When Warhol was eight, he caught a disease that forced him to spend a lot of time in bed. To help him pass the time, his mother taught him how to draw. Warhol quickly fell in love with the pastime; this was the beginning of his career as an artist. Warhol was already popular, but he really became famous when he revealed his idea of Pop Art in 1961.
When Warhol was painting, art was a very serious thing that focused on themes like morals, mythology and religion. Warhol thought that art should be more fun. He also felt that artists could find inspiration and make beautiful and important works from everyday objects in life. Pop Art focuses on popular icons in a culture like movie stars, hamburgers or soda and depicts them in bright colors. Often, the paintings are several versions of one subject in different colors and textures. Pop Art was also different from the standards of the time because it often combined different media. A work could be a mix of painting, photography and other styles.
• Pop art made people question what defines good art.
• One of Warhol’s most famous works is pictures of brightly colored soup cans.
• His painting of Elvis called “Eight Elvises” sold for $100 million in 2008.
• His studio was called “The Factory.”
• He also wrote books in the 1970s.
• Warhol died at the age of 58 on February 22, 1987.
• His original name was Andrew Warhola.
• He worked for Glamour Magazine in the 1950s.
• While working for the magazine, he became a very popular commercial artist, especially for the way he drew shoes.
• He was born in 1928.
• His parents were immigrants from Slovakia.
• He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
• One of his very first famous paintings was of a soup can.
• At the gallery opening, autographed soup cans were sold for $6 each.
• He claimed that he ate this soup for most of the lunches of his life.
