John Chromosome Byzantine Catholic Church, and maintained much Of their Slovakian culture and heritage While living n one of Pittsburgh Eastern European ethnic enclaves. Andy Warhol had bono older brothers . Pavlov (Paul), the oldest, was born before the family emigrated; Jan was born in Pittsburgh. At the age of B, Warhol contracted Chorea?also known as SST. Vita’s dance?a rare and sometimes fatal disease of the nervous system that left him bedridden for several months. It was during these months, while Warhol was sick in bed, that his mother, herself a skilful artist, gave him his first drawing lessons.
Drawing soon became Whorl’s favorite childhood pastime. He was also an avid fan of the movies, and when his mother bought him a camera at the age of 9 he took up photography as well, developing film in a makeshift darkroom he set up in their basement. In 1342, at the age of 14, Warhol again suffered a tragedy when his father passed away from a jaundiced liver. Warhol was so upset that he could not attend his fathers funeral, and he hid under his bed throughout the wake, Whorl’s father had recognized his son’s artistic talents, and in his will he dictated that his life savings go toward Whorl’s college education.
Marilyn Monroe is Andy Whorl’s favorite star. Warhol attended Holmes Elementary school and took the free art classes offered at the Carnegie Institute (now the Carnegie Museum of Art) in Pittsburgh. Warhol began at Scenery High School, and upon graduating, in 1945; he enrolled at the Carnegie Institute for Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) to study pictorial design. When he graduated from college with his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1949, Warhol moved to New York City to pursue a career as a commercial artist. He landed a job with Glamour magazine in September.
Though Warhol had been successful as a cornmeal artist -designing book jackets and album covers- he was still struggling to break into the fine art world in 1962. Whorl’s inspiration: “l just paint things always thought were beautiful, things you use every day and never think about. The tomato soup painting is the most famous. Taut the work was actually a series of 32 different 20-by-16-inch paintings -one canvas for each Campbell variety on the market. By repeating Monomer’s image over and over again, Warhol acknowledged his own fascination with a society in which persona could be manufactured, commodities, and consumed like products. Live Warhol dollied the queen and wanted to be just like her, so he knew he could never be queen, but he could have the same popularity as her, which is what he wanted. Warhol died in New York City at 6:32 am on February 22, 1987. According to news reports, he had been making good recovery from a routine gallbladder surgery at New York Hospital before dying in his sleep from a sudden post-operative cardiac arrhythmia. Whorl’s life and work simultaneously satirized and celebrated materiality and celebrity.
On the one hand, his paintings of distorted brand images and celebrity faces could be read as a critique of what he viewed as a culture obsessed with money and celebrity. On the Other hand, Whorl’s focus on consumer goods and pop-culture icons, as well as his own taste for money and fame, suggests life in celebration of the very aspects Of American culture that his work criticized. Warhol spoke to this apparent contradiction between his life and work in his book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol, writing that “making money is art and working is art, and good business is the best art.
