Andy Warhol (1928-1987) was a pioneering artist, filmmaker and music producer who was integral to the Pop Art movement of the 1960s. His works reflect a fascination with celebrity status, consumerism, and the banality of American commercial culture.
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Warhol earned a BA in Pictorial Design from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh before moving to New York to pursue a career in illustration and advertising. The artist’s first commission was a drawing of a pair of shoes for Glamour Magazine, and he forged a space for himself in the shoe industry working for designer Israel Miller. Warhol’s first solo pop art exhibition was held at Stable Gallery in New York in 1962. The show featured some of his eponymous works such as Marilyn Diptych, 100 Coke Bottles and 100 Soup Cans. His studio named “The Factory '' became a popular creative space that was integral to the art scene of the 1960s.
Warhol’s famous repetitive silkscreen prints of everyday objects from Campbell Soup cans to Coca-Cola bottles criticise the materialistic outlook of mainstream American society, and his garish portraits of celebrities comment on the dehumanisation of the public figure. Warhol became a somewhat infamous celebrity figure himself, and was often accused of playing a vapid and impersonal character to the media, further blurring the line between his art and life.
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