Old Fashioned Vegetable, from Campbell’s Soup II (F&S II.54), 1969

Andy Warhol   Master Artists

Born on August 6, 1928, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Andy Warhol is an American painter who revolutionized art from the 1960s to the 1980s, becoming a true legend today.

His real name was Andrew Warhola, and he began his career as a commercial artist. The son of Czech immigrants, he studied at the Carnegie Institute of Technology from 1945 to 1948, where he discovered advertising. He worked for Glamour, Vogue, The New Yorker, and Harper's Bazaar magazines. It was during this time that he began calling himself Warhol. A socialite and eccentric publicist, Andy Warhol left his mark on contemporary art. A leading figure in Pop Art , he understood, before many, the importance of the image in consumer society.

But he quickly abandoned comics, discovering at the exhibition of the famous Leo Castelli gallery, that Roy Lichtenstein had preceded him in this path.

More than twenty years after his death, Andy Warhol remains one of the most influential figures in contemporary art and culture. Warhol's life and work inspire scholars and creators worldwide with his enduring imagery, his personality, and the celebrity image he created for himself. His work continues to be the subject of research by art and cultural scholars. His impact as an artist extends beyond the "15 minutes of fame" of his famous observation: "In the future, everyone will be entitled to 15 minutes of world fame." His curiosity led to a body of work that spans all media and has contributed to the collapse of the boundary between elite and popular culture.

Andy Warhol chose to make reproductions of mass-produced, mass-market products. screen printing . He made Campbell packaging and Coca-Cola bottles the stars of his paintings. He stigmatized American consumer society and the standardization of products. His visuals quickly achieved great success.

In 1962, in addition to Campbell's soups, he revisited photos of stars such as the now famous series that later inspired so many paintings of Marilyn Monroe. His technique was to take black and white photographs , color them, and then reproduce them using screen printing, starting with his own self-portraits. Andy Warhol became the king of Pop Art and reigned over the New York underground scene. Portraits of Elizabeth Taylor, Elvis Presley, and Marlon Brando passed through the artist's hands.

With a keen business sense, Andy Warhol recruited a battalion of assistants in 1963, to whom he delegated the mass production of his creations. He moved into the "Factory," an industrial space that became his studio. The space, whose walls were covered in aluminum foil, became the center of New York's underground life. Andy Warhol made his first films there (Eat and Kiss). He also became interested in the world of music and in 1965 produced the rock band The Velvet Underground, for whom he also designed the album cover.

In 1967, he was the victim of a premeditated assassination attempt by feminist Valérie Solanas, who was one of the actors in his film of the moment, “I, a Man." She declared that “he had too much influence on my life."

Andy Warhol resumed his pictorial activity during the 70s and produced series based on Mao, Mick Jagger, Cassius Clay or commissioned portraits: Ladies and Gentleman, 1975. Often nicknamed the Pope of Pop Art, he encouraged New York artists such as the painter Jean Michel Basquiat, the singer Lou Reed and the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in the early 80s. The genius of Pop art died on February 22, 1987 following an operation.

What should we see in Warhol's work? A reflection of an era, of a society? A great cynicism? "If you want to know everything about Andy Warhol, you only have to look at the surface of my paintings, my films, of me. There I am. There's nothing underneath."