Introduction
One of the prominent and gifted artists, who made a great difference in the art, is Andy Warhol. Andy became a symbol of what is now called the pop art movement. So, let us reveal Andy’s path to success.
Andy was born in 1928 as a fourth child in a family. He is said to be given birth in Slovakia, and in a little while, his parents moved to the USA. As a child, Andy always took an interest in art and showed his drawing skills. Everything would be great if not chorea which confined him to bed during the period of studying at school. Disease affected Andy’s muscles, so he was not able to control his movements. That was a time when he started painting landscapes, portraits and even some colleges. By practising to draw the objects that surrounded him, he managed to develop his own unique and special style. These were the first steps to success and fame.
Life after school
After graduating from high school, Warhol enrolled at Carnegie Institute of Technology to study the art of graphics. Later he started working as a commercial designer. He worked in the fashion and advertising industries. While creating shoe designs for a British publisher of magazines and comics L. Miller and Son, he used a special technique. Andy painted the shoe with pencil and then covered the outline with wet ink. The final step was to blot the outline onto another piece of paper and then color the shoe with vivid shades.
The late 50s was the period when Warhol turned onto photography, which became his new passion. At the beginning of the 60s, the artist made his contribution to the development of Coca-Cola, by designing its cans. That was quite a profitable experience for Andy. Due to his exhibition of works in a gallery in the 60s, the artist gains another recognition. Along with others, there were works where he painted Campbell soup jars and Coca-Cola bottles.
It was the year of 1964 when Andy’s creativity resembled in making films. According to his words, to be a moviemaker is much easier than a painter. The only thing required in moviemaking is switched on cameras. “Empire” is one of his first films, where Andy wanted the Empire Building to become a star. The director managed to find a great audience, even though some found Andy as a beginner of a graphics screen sexuality. His “Blue Movie” depicts a man and a woman, who live there every day loving each other. Warhol made a documentary about real love, as it is, worth attention.
The bright page in life
1964 was also the year when Andy Warhol created two of his works – a huge mural “Thirteen Most Wanted Men” and another artwork under the title “Electric chair”. The last one belongs to a series of artworks, which is called Death and Disaster series. Although all the previous pictures belonging to this series depict the human suffering and tragedies, Electric Chair was deprived of any presence of a man.
The broadsheet of “Thirteen Most Wanted Men” became the main topic of a thesis written by Richard Meyer. In the first part, he dwells upon the possible reasons for Robert Moses’ censorship of Warhol’s artwork and his forbiddance to install it. The second part contains an analysis of the possible connection between a gay male culture and Andy Warhol.
Being widely known, the artist opened his own studio under the title “The Factory”. It was a place where he worked as well as had parties and meetings with other celebrities.
In 1968, one of Andy’s models Valerie Solanas, who was a feminist, shot him. Warhol had a long and difficult surgical operation, during which he experienced apparent death. Now, when his life was saved, and he started recovering from injuries, he declined to roll over on Valerie. Nonetheless, Valerie got in prison for three years.
Such an incident had a great impact on Warhol’s further life. It had changed him to a great extent. His further artworks contain elements of death and depict it. For instance, Marilyn Monroe’s death had gone to Andy’s heart so deep, that he decided to devote a picture to the actress. Some critics separate this period of Andy’s creativity from the rest. Andy, himself, was now focused not on making artworks, but more on making good money. During the next 16 years, his works brought him a good fortune. However, not everything was about money. Andy wanted so that everyone could afford to buy his work, so he produced the prints of his works all around.
Andy Warhol also stood a chance to create silk screen painting of endangered animals entitled “Edangered Species” for the organization which defended wild animals.
The painter died at the age of 58 in 1987 in New York because of a heart arrest. His body was taken to Pittsburgh. The body rests next to his mother and father. Andy Warhol is a perfect example of how doing what you may transfer a person from rags to riches.
