Andy Warhol

Childhood (1928–1936) , and his brother, John, 1930|297x297pxWarhol was born on August 6, 1928, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was the fourth child of Andrej Varchola (Americanized as Andrew Warhola; c. 1886–1942) and Julia Warhola (, 1891–1972). His parents were working-class Rusyn emigrants from Mikó, Austria-Hungary (now Miková in northeast Slovakia). In 1912, Warhol's father emigrated to the United States and found work in a coal mine. His wife joined him nine years later in 1921. The family lived at 55 Beelen Street and later at 3252 Dawson Street in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh. They were Ruthenian Catholic and attended St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church. Warhol had two older brothers, Paul (1922–2014) and John (1925–2010), as well as an older sister, Maria (1912; died in infancy). At the age of eight, Warhol had a streptococcal infection that led to scarlet fever. Because there were no antibiotics to treat the illness, it progressed to rheumatic fever and ultimately the neurological condition Sydenham's chorea, sometimes referred to as St. Vitus' Dance. At times he was confined to bed and made to remain home from school. He would spend these days drawing, creating scrapbooks from Hollywood magazines, and cutting out images from comic books that his mother bought him. The competition drew high school entries from across the United States, with tens of thousands of works submitted and regional selections exhibited at the Carnegie Museum of Art. McKibbin later claimed Warhol won a Scholastic award. However, biographer Blake Gopnik notes that contemporary coverage of the 1944 and 1945 contests suggests he did not receive a major prize, scholarship, or War Bond award. At most, Warhol appears to have earned an unpublicized "honorable mention," the gold pin for which he reportedly still wore in the 1980s. After graduating from Schenley High School in 1945, Warhol won a scholarship to the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh. While working as a produce huckster in 1946, Warhol created a series of pen-and-ink drawings satirizing his customers and documenting social contrasts encountered during his route, from affluent to working-class families. His illustrations depicted everyday interactions and behaviors, including demands from "new rich" customers and chaotic scenes involving families and children. These are believed to be his first two published artworks. Warhol earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in pictorial design in 1949. == Life and career ==

Commercial illustration and early exhibitions (1949–1954) After graduating from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in June 1949, Warhol moved to New York City with his classmate Philip Pearlstein. They lived in a sixth-floor walk-up tenement building on St. Mark's Place near Tompkins Square Park in the East Village. On his second day in New York, Warhol visited Tina Fredericks, the art director of Glamour magazine, whom he had met during a brief visit to the city the previous year. He presented a portfolio of work completed at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, which Fredericks received favorably, purchasing a small $10 drawing of an orchestra for her personal collection. She subsequently commissioned Warhol to produce shoe illustrations; after more than one attempt, his drawings were accepted. The publication marked the beginning of his career as a commercial artist., February 1953Warhol was hired by prominent fashion magazines, including Glamour, Mademoiselle, Vogue, and Harper's Bazaar, and produced a prolific body of advertisements throughout the 1950s. During this period, gallerist Alexander Iolas is often credited with discovering Warhol and organizing his first solo exhibition, Andy Warhol: Fifteen Drawings Based on the Writings of Truman Capote'', at the Hugo Gallery in New York in 1952. Warhol designed several covers for Interiors magazine between 1953 and 1954. In 1954, Warhol exhibited his work on multiple occasions at Vito Giallo's Loft Gallery in New York. ARTnews observed that Warhol had "developed an original style of line drawing," noting that his technique produced "the effect of the reverse side of a negative, although his lines are broken and the spaces not clouded." His "blotted line" technique combined aspects of printmaking and graphite drawing on paper. Photographer John Coplans recalled that "nobody drew shoes the way Andy did. He somehow gave each shoe a temperament of its own, a sort of sly, Toulouse-Lautrec kind of sophistication, but the shape and the style came through accurately and the buckle was always in the right place." By 1956, Warhol's distinctive style had made him widely recognized as a fashion illustrator. His drawings for I. Miller attracted considerable attention, and he was so busy that he had to turn down assignments. In a 1956 interview with Mademoiselle, Warhol described his approach to combining commercial and fine art: "Every time I draw a shoe for a job, I do an illustration for myself." He acknowledged that "you almost have to specialize to get assignments," but noted that most New York art directors were eager to "give you a chance to do things." They sold for $50 to $225 apiece when they were presented at the Bodley Gallery in New York in December 1956. In 1956, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) politely declined Warhol's gift of his drawing Shoe, citing limited storage space and asking him to retrieve it. Nevertheless, that same year one of his shoe drawings was included in MoMA's Recent Drawings U.S.A. group exhibition, marking Warhol's first museum showing. That year, he traveled around the world with his friend, production designer Charles Lisanby, studying art and culture in several countries. While in Kyoto, Japan, Warhol drew a stylized portrait of business tycoon Madame Helena Rubinstein. Commercial expansion (1957–1961) Warhol habitually used the expedient of tracing photographs projected with an epidiascope. Using prints by Edward Wallowitch, the photographs would undergo a subtle transformation during Warhol's often cursory tracing of contours and hatching of shadows. Warhol used Wallowitch's photograph Young Man Smoking a Cigarette () for a 1958 design for a book cover he submitted to Simon and Schuster for the Walter Ross pulp novel The Immortal, and later used others for his series of paintings. To promote himself as an artist, Warhol produced and distributed self-published books of his illustrations, including 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy (1957) and A Gold Book (1957), which he gave to potential clients and contacts to generate work. He frequently incorporated calligraphy by his mother, Julia Warhol, to accompany his drawings. in Carnegie Hill, Manhattan With the rapid expansion of the record industry, RCA Records hired Warhol to design album covers and promotional materials. By the late 1950s, he was also working for high-end advertising clients, including Tiffany & Co. Warhol became widely recognized as one of "New York's more stylish window dressers and top shoe illustrators." At a time when traditional artists rarely purchased the work of their peers, Warhol actively collected it. To survive, gallery artists typically did commercial work, such as window displays, and avoided using their real names because it was frowned upon. In contrast, Warhol gained recognition as a commercial artist, which caused tension with other artists. In 1960, Warhol purchased a Victorian townhouse at 1342 Lexington Avenue, now part of the Hardenbergh/Rhinelander Historic District, in the Carnegie Hill neighborhood of Manhattan. He used the house as both a residence and a studio, and his mother lived in the basement apartment. Five paintings based on comic strips and newspaper ads served as the backdrop for mannequins wearing spring dresses: ''Saturday's Popeye, Little King, Superman, Before and After, and Advertisement''. In 1961, Warhol sold paintings directly to collector Robert Scull and soon attracted major buyers such as Emily Tremaine and Burton Tremaine, but dealer Ivan Karp's efforts failed to secure him gallery representation. When Karp introduced him to Leo Castelli, Castelli declined, feeling Warhol's work was too close to that of Roy Lichtenstein and concern over potential conflicts within his roster. Out of desperation, Warhol considered returning to the Bodley Gallery, but its director dismissed his new paintings as "ridiculous." Karp subsequently approached Sidney Janis, Richard Bellamy, Martha Jackson, and Robert Elkon, with only Jackson expressing interest in a future exhibition. After seeing Claes Oldenburg's storefront installation The Store in December 1961, Warhol returned home frustrated, telling friends Ted Carey and Muriel Flatow that his comic-strip paintings no longer felt original enough. Determined to create something more distinctive and impactful, he accepted Flatow's tongue-in-cheek suggestion—offered in exchange for $50—that he focus on what he liked most: money. Warhol began considering silkscreened images of dollar bills, drawn to the idea of mechanically reproducing currency like counterfeit cash. Seeking technical guidance, he turned to Floriano Vecchi of Tiber Press, who introduced him to the basics of silkscreen printing—transferring designs onto acetate, preparing screens, and pulling ink with a squeegee. These experiments marked a turning point in Warhol's practice and soon led to some of his earliest silkscreen works. Dealer Allan Stone took several works on consignment and offered Warhol a three-man exhibition alongside Robert Indiana and James Rosenquist, but all three artists declined, each holding out for a solo show. As Pop art gained momentum in New York in 1962, Warhol remained without major gallery representation, increasingly determined to secure his place within the emerging movement. ''Campbell's Soup Cans'' and breakthrough success (1962–1964) (1961–62)In May 1962, Warhol was featured in Time'' magazine's article "The Slice-of-Cake School," alongside Lichtenstein, Rosenquist, and Wayne Thiebaud. At the time, he was working on his ''Campbell's Soup Cans'' (1961–62) paintings and had completed sixteen of them. When Los Angeles dealer Irving Blum visited, he was surprised to learn that Warhol lacked gallery representation. With an opening available in July, Blum offered him a solo exhibition at the Ferus Gallery. Warhol sent 32 canvases to Los Angeles, each depicting a different variety of Campbell's Soup. The exhibition opened on July 9, 1962, marking his West Coast debut. During the run of the exhibition, a forthcoming December show at the Martha Jackson Gallery was canceled due to concerns about negative repercussions. Despite the cancellation, Jackson's assistant John Weber sold ten Warhol paintings that had been taken on consignment. In July 1962, Warhol's ''Big Campbell's Soup Can with Can Opener (Vegetable) (1962) became the first of his soup-can paintings to enter a museum exhibition when it was shown at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut. The following month, his painting S&H Green Stamps (1962) was included in the exhibition New Painting of Common Objects'' at the Pasadena Art Museum in Pasadena, California. The show featured works drawn from commercial labels, consumer goods, and advertising imagery, contributing to the movement's early critical recognition. Filmmaker Emile de Antonio introduced Warhol to dealer Eleanor Ward of the Stable Gallery, who agreed to give him a solo exhibition in exchange for a painting of a two-dollar bill. Warhol's first solo New York Pop show opened there on November 6, 1962. The exhibition included Gold Marilyn Monroe, the Marilyn Diptych, eight Flavor Marilyns, 100 Soup Cans, 100 Coke Bottles, and 100 Dollar Bills. Gold Marilyn Monroe was purchased by architect Philip Johnson, who later donated it to the MoMA. In December 1962, the MoMA hosted a symposium on Pop art, during which artists such as Warhol were attacked for "capitulating" to consumerism. Critics were appalled by Warhol's open acceptance of market culture, which set the tone for his reception. The next year, Warhol formed The Druds, a short-lived avant-garde noise band that included figures from the New York minimal art and proto-conceptual art scenes, including Larry Poons, La Monte Young, Walter De Maria, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, and Lucas Samaras. In January 1963, Warhol rented his first studio, an old firehouse at 159 East 87th Street, where he produced his Elvis series, including Eight Elvises (1963) and Triple Elvis (1963). These works, along with a series of portraits of Elizabeth Taylor, were exhibited later that year at his second exhibition at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. The Factory scene, expansion into sculpture and film (1964–1967) By 1964, Warhol had relocated his studio to 231 East 47th Street, which became known as the Factory. Warhol used assistants to increase his productivity, and these collaborations would remain a defining aspect of his working methods throughout his career. During this period, poet Gerard Malanga assisted him with the production of silkscreens and films at the Factory, which was covered in aluminium foil and silver paint by Billy Name in 1964. Warhol was among the artists commissioned to create an artwork for the New York State Pavilion at the 1964 World's Fair in Queens, New York. He created the mural Thirteen Most Wanted Men (1964), which was painted over after government officials objected to the images before the fair opened in April 1964. For the exhibition, Warhol custom ordered wooden boxes and silkscreened graphics onto them. The sculptures of commercial cartons—Brillo Soap Pads, Del Monte Peach Halves, Heinz Tomato Ketchup, Kellogg's Corn Flakes, Campbell's Tomato Juice, and Mott's Apple Juice—sold for $200 to $400 depending on the size of the box. and the Factory cats, Black Lace and White Pussy, in 1964. In the background is Warhol's Most Wanted Men (1964) A pivotal event in Warhol's career was The American Supermarket exhibition at Paul Bianchini's Upper East Side gallery in October 1964. The show was presented as a typical small supermarket environment, except that everything in it—from the produce, canned goods, meat, and paintings on the wall—was created by prominent Pop artists of the time. Warhol designed a paper shopping bag and contributed his box sculptures along with a ''Campbell's Soup Can'' painting, and genuine signed Campbell's soup cans. In November 1964, Warhol's first Flowers series was exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York. In May 1965, his second Flowers series, which had more sizes and color variation that the previous, was shown at Galerie Ileana Sonnabend in Paris. During this trip Warhol announced that he was retiring from painting to focus on film. Warhol made a conscious decision to oppose conventional painting, stating that he no longer believed in painting. Later that year, Warhol's first solo museum exhibition was held at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia in October 1965. In response to art dealer Ivan Karp's suggestion to paint cows, Warhol produced Cow, screenprints on wallpaper for his April 1966 exhibition at the Leo Castelli Gallery. In November 1966, Warhol was hired by the Abraham & Straus department store in Brooklyn to promote the "Paint-your-own-dress" collection by the Mars Manufacturing Company, which included a white paper dress that came with a paintbrush and a box of watercolors. In his capacity as the manager of the experimental rock group the Velvet Underground, he included them as a key component of his Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia happenings in 1966 and 1967, and he funded their debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967). Warhol intended to present the film Chelsea Girls (1966) at the 1967 Cannes Film Festival, but it wasn't shown because "the festival authorities explained that the film was too long, there were technical problems." Warhol's Factory became a hub for a group of "superstars," including Baby Jane Holzer, Edie Sedgwick, International Velvet, Ultra Violet, Viva, and Candy Darling, who appeared in his films and embodied his concept of fleeting celebrity. His remark that "everyone will be famous for 15 minutes" first appeared in a 1967 Time magazine article and became closely associated with the Factory scene. '' sculptures at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, 1968|263x263px Lecture tours, assassination attempt and recovery (1967–1968) To finance his film productions, Warhol began going on college lecture tours, where he screened some of his underground films and answered audience questions. Warhol sent actor Allen Midgette to impersonate him during a West Coast college tour in October 1967. Around this time, Warhol met Fred Hughes, then working for the Menil Foundation, who soon became closely involved in his activities. At the time, Warhol had largely paused painting, but he resumed work shortly thereafter, producing the Big Electric Chair paintings for his retrospective at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 1968. Hughes quickly took on a central role in both Warhol's artistic and film projects, arranging a commission from the de Menils for Warhol to film a sunset as part of a project for the restoration of a bombed church in Texas. The remaining funds from that commission were used to finance Lonesome Cowboys (1968), which was filmed in Arizona. On June 3, 1968, radical feminist writer Valerie Solanas shot Warhol and Mario Amaya, art critic and curator, at the Factory. Solanas had been a marginal figure in the Factory scene before the shooting. She authored the SCUM Manifesto, a separatist feminist tract that advocated the elimination of men; and appeared in the Warhol film I, a Man (1967). Amaya received only minor injuries and was released from the hospital later the same day. Warhol was seriously wounded by the attack and barely survived: he remained in hospital for nearly two months. Solanas turned herself in to the police a few hours after the attack and said that Warhol "had too much control over my life." She was subsequently diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and eventually sentenced to three years in prison. Jed Johnson, an assistant who was present at the Factory during the shooting, Shortly after Warhol was discharged, Johnson moved in with him to aid in his recovery and to help care for his ailing mother. During Warhol's hospitalization that summer, Paul Morrissey assumed primary filmmaking responsibilities and directed his first film, Flesh (1968), starring Joe Dallesandro. and Ultra Violet on the cover of The New York Times Magazine, 1968The assassination attempt had a profound effect on Warhol's life and art. Complications from a second operation the following year left his abdominal muscles improperly repaired, requiring him to wear a surgical corset for the rest of his life to prevent his stomach from distending when he ate. The Factory became more regulated, and Warhol focused on making it a structured business enterprise. He credited Morrissey with transforming the Factory into a "regular office." In August 1968, Warhol made an appearance in court after Phillip "Fufu" Van Scoy Smith, an investor in a canceled film adaptation of the Charlotte Brontë novel Jane Eyre, sued him for $80,000. A legal battle ensued for two years, ending after the backer failed to show up in court. Warhol reemerged on the public social scene that fall. In September 1968, Warhol and Ultra Violet attended a party celebrating the completion of the film Midnight Cowboy. The film includes a party scene featuring members of the Factory that was shot during Warhol's hospitalization. Warhol, Viva, and Ultra Violet also appeared on the cover of The New York Times Magazine on November 10, 1968. New ventures in film, photography, publishing, theater, and commercial work (1969–1971) In February 1969, Warhol and his entourage traveled to Los Angeles to discuss a prospective movie deal with Columbia Pictures. Warhol, who had always had an interest in photography, used a Polaroid camera to document his recuperation after the shooting. A few of his photographs were published in the May 1969 edition of Esquire magazine. He would become well known for always carrying his Polaroid camera to chronicle his encounters. Eventually, he used instant photography as the basis for his silkscreen portraits when he resumed painting in the 1970s. and superstar Jay Johnson at the Factory by Cecil Beaton, 1969 After the release of the erotic film Blue Movie (1969), Warhol rented the Fortune Theater at 62 East 4th Street, where he screened male pornographic films from June 25 to August 5, 1969. The project was managed by Gerard Malanga under his business, Poetry on Film. The theater was called "Andy Warhol's Theater: Boys to Adore Galore." Morrissey came up with the idea to rent the theater and set the admission price at $5. Warhol and British journalist John Wilcock founded Interview magazine in the fall of 1969. The magazine was initially published as inter/VIEW: A Monthly Film Journal. It was revamped a few years later and came to represent Warhol's social life and fascination with celebrity. In 1969, Warhol received an invitation to curate an exhibition using items from the permanent collection of the Rhode Island School of Design Museum (RISD Museum) in Providence. In October 1969, the exhibition Raid the Icebox opened at Rice University's Institute for the Arts in Houston. Compared to the success and scandal of Warhol's work in the 1960s, the early 1970s were much quieter years, as he became more entrepreneurial. He was generally regarded as quiet, shy and a meticulous observer. Art critic Robert Hughes called him "the white mole of Union Square". His fashion evolved from what Warhol called his "leather look" to his "Brooks Brothers look," which included a Brooks Brothers shirt and tie, DeNoyer blazer, and Levi jeans. and Jane Forth at the opening of his retrospective at the Pasadena Art Museum, 1970As Warhol continued to forge into filmmaking, he had established himself as "one of the most celebrated and well-known Pop art figures to emerge from the sixties." The Pasadena Art Museum organized a retrospective of his work in 1970. The show traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Tate Gallery, London; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. The Whitney exhibition in 1971 distinctly featured Warhol's Cow (1966) wallpaper as the backdrop for his paintings. Meanwhile, Warhol produced the play ''Andy Warhol's Pork'', which opened at New York's La MaMa Experimental Theatre in May 1971. Warhol also came up with the cover concept and did the photography for the Rolling Stones' album Sticky Fingers (1971), which features a close-up image of a man's crotch in jeans with a real zipper. He received a Grammy nomination for Best Album Cover at the 14th Annual Grammy Awards in 1972. Montauk, social life, and domestic life (1971–1974) In late 1971, Warhol and his business partner Paul Morrissey purchased Eothen, an oceanfront estate in Montauk, New York on Long Island. They began renting the main house on the property in 1972. Lee Radziwill, Jackie Kennedy, the Rolling Stones, Elizabeth Taylor, Truman Capote, and Halston were among the estate's guests. at the Factory, 1974In 1972, Warhol planned the Halston runway presentation at the Coty Awards. Although Warhol was considered to be apolitical, he participated in an exhibition with the poster Vote McGovern (1972) in an effort to raise funds for George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign. In October 1972, Warhol's work was included in the inaugural show at the Art Museum of South Texas in Corpus Christi, Texas. The following month, Warhol's Mao screenprints debuted at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York. In November 1972, Warhol and his live-in boyfriend Jed Johnson acquired a dachshund puppy they named Archie. By this time, Warhol's public presence had increased significantly due to his attendance at parties. In 1974, he said, "I try to go around so often so much and try to go to every party so that they'll be bored with me and stop writing about me." Warhol began traveling more frequently to Europe during this period and developed a particular fondness for Paris after filming ''L'Amour'' (1972) around the city. While in Paris, Warhol and his circle socialized with members of the city's jet set, including Karl Lagerfeld, Yves Saint Laurent, Loulou de la Falaise, and Paloma Picasso. This lifestyle shift has been attributed in part to Hughes, who sought to cultivate a more polished public image for Warhol and to position the Factory as an international social and artistic presence. The Philosophy of Andy Warhol, Studio 54, and Exposures (1975–1979) Warhol designed the sets for the Broadway musical Man on the Moon by John Philips of the Mamas & the Papas, which opened in January 1975 at the Little Theatre in New York. In May 1975, Warhol attended President Gerald Ford's state dinner in honor of the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, at the White House. In September 1975, he went on an eight-city U.S. book tour for his book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B & Back Again), followed by stops in Italy, France, and England. In 1976, Warhol and painter Jamie Wyeth were commissioned to paint each other's portraits by the Coe Kerr Gallery in Manhattan. That year, Warhol traveled to Iran to do a portrait of Empress Farah Pahlavi. He returned to the Middle east in January 1977, when he traveled to Kuwait for the opening of his exhibition at the Dhaiat Abdulla Al Salem Gallery. at the White House, 1977|left The opening of Studio 5 April 1977 ushered in a new era in New York City nightlife. Warhol was a regular and was often seen partying with his friends Halston, Bianca Jagger, and Liza Minnelli. Around this time, Warhol was taking explicit photographs of men—referred to as "landscapes"—for what became known as the Torsos and Sex Parts series. Most of the men were street hustlers and male prostitutes brought to the Factory by Halston's lover Victor Hugo. This caused tension in Warhol's relationship with Johnson who did not approve of his friendship with Hugo. "When Studio 54 opened things changed with Andy. That was New York when it was at the height of its most decadent period, and I didn't take part. I never liked that scene, I was never comfortable. … Andy was just wasting his time, and it was really upsetting. … He just spent his time with the most ridiculous people," said Johnson., Bianca Jagger, and Halston at the Studio 54 first anniversary party, 1978 In May 1977, Warhol and entrepreneur Geoffrey Leeds announced plans for the "Andy-Mat," a modern automat-style restaurant on Madison Avenue in New York City. Designed as a self-service dining space, the 115-seat restaurant was to feature pre-prepared frozen foods alongside luxury items such as champagne, served through pneumatic tubes, and a waitstaff would deliver orders. That year, Warhol was commissioned by art collector Richard Weisman to create Athletes, ten portraits consisting of the leading athletes of the day, for an exhibition that opened at New York's Coe Kerr Gallery in December 1977. In 1979, Warhol formed a publishing company, Andy Warhol Books, which was an imprint of Grosset & Dunlap. In October 1979, he released the photography book Exposures. The following month, he embarked on a three-week book tour before the Whitney Museum of American Art mounted the exhibition Andy Warhol: Portraits of the 70s. The exhibition showcased Warhol's portrait commissions of the decade—including Yves Saint Laurent, Gianni Agnelli, Marella Agnelli, David Hockney, Roy Lichtenstein, Brooke Hayward, Carolina Herrera, Mick Jagger, and Liza Minnelli. Popism, late-career series, and new direction (1980–1983) at the Piazza dei Martiri in Naples, 1980|left|311x311px In March 1980, Warhol released his memoir POPism: The Warhol '60s, a retrospective account of his 1960s career and the cultural environment of the Factory. That year, his series Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century drew a wide range of responses, some of them strongly critical. Warhol also co-founded the New York Academy of Art in 1980, an institution dedicated to restoring traditional approaches to artistic training. Fellow co-founder Stuart Pivar later observed that "Modernism got boring [for Warhol] … But his overall game plan, what he really believed, was that the modern age was going away and that we were entering a neoclassical period." His longstanding fascination with celebrity and Hollywood glamour also persisted; he once remarked, "I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They're so beautiful. Everything's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic." Following the end of his relationship with Jed Johnson, his only sustained romantic partnership, Warhol experienced a period of depression and significant weight loss. He shifted his attention to modeling, signing with the Zoli Agency in 1981, and was later represented by Ford Models. In 1981, Warhol collaborated with Peter Sellars and Lewis Allen on a project titled A No Man Show, a traveling stage production featuring a life-sized animatronic robot modeled after Warhol. Known as the Andy Warhol Robot, the figure was designed to read from Warhol's diaries as part of the performance, reflecting his long-standing interest in mechanization and authorship. In 1982, Warhol created a limited edition of 100 silkscreen portraits of actress Jane Fonda to support the California State Assembly campaign of her husband, Tom Hayden. Donated to the campaign, the signed prints were sold for $2,000 each. He also produced a series of silkscreen prints depicting endangered species for ''Warhol's Animals: Species at Risk, an exhibition held in April 1983 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Of the 150 sets created, Warhol donated 10 to wildlife organizations to support fundraising efforts. Ahead of the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics, Warhol participated in the poster campaign by contributing the lithograph Speed Skater'' (1983). Later collaborations and last exhibitions (1984–1987) , Bruno Bischofberger, and Francesco Clemente, 1984 By 1984, Warhol had affiliated himself with a number of prolific younger artists, who were dominating the "bull market" of 1980s New York art: Julian Schnabel, David Salle and other so-called Neo-Expressionists, as well as members of the Transavantgarde movement in Europe, including Francesco Clemente and Enzo Cucchi. He also supported artists in the downtown art scene such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, and Stefano Castronovo. In September 1985, Warhol's joint exhibition with Basquiat, Paintings, opened to negative reviews at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery. That same month, despite his apprehension, Warhol's silkscreen series Reigning Queens (1985) was exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery. Later that year, he collaborated with Haring to design the poster for the 1986 Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, which was also used for the 1986 Montreux-Detroit Jazz Festival in Detroit. In April 1986, Warhol's exhibition 10 Status of Liberty (1986) opened at the Galerie Lavignes-Bastille in Paris in conjunction with the centennial of the Statue of Liberty, presenting the symbol of freedom in camouflage and layered colors. The following month, one of the paintings was used for the cover New York magazine. That same year, he completed a new series of Self-Portraits (1986), characterized by his "fright wig" and stark contrasts, which premiered at London's Anthony d'Offay Gallery in July 1986. In January 1987, Warhol traveled to Milan for the opening of his last exhibition, Il Cenacolo (The Last Supper), at the Palazzo delle Stelline. The next month, Warhol modeled with jazz musician Miles Davis for Koshin Satoh's fashion show at the Tunnel in New York City on February 17, 1987. == Death ==

Warhol was initially diagnosed with a gallstone in 1973, but he adamantly rejected surgery because he feared hospitals. When he was insistent about avoiding surgery, his physician Denton Cox attempted to obtain an experimental medication from Japan. Warhol was admitted to New York Hospital in Manhattan on February 20, and he underwent gallbladder surgery on February 21. His surgeon Bjorn Thorbjarnarson found his gallbladder "on the verge of perforating" and in danger of "spilling the infection into (Warhol's) belly." He was pronounced dead at 6:31 a.m. from sudden cardiac arrhythmia. The solid bronze casket had gold-plated rails and white upholstery. Warhol was dressed in a black cashmere suit, a paisley tie, and a platinum wig. He was laid out holding a small prayer book and a red rose. After the liturgy, the casket, covered with white roses and asparagus ferns, was driven to St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery in Bethel Park, a south suburb of Pittsburgh, where Warhol was buried near his parents. The priest said a brief prayer at the graveside and sprinkled holy water on the casket. Before the casket was lowered, Warhol's close friend Paige Powell tossed copies of the February and March issues of Interview magazine along with a bottle of Estée Lauder's Beautiful Eau de Parfum into his grave. A memorial service for Warhol was held at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan on April 1, 1987. It was attended by over 2,000 people, including Warhol collaborators and numerous celebrities such as Raquel Welch, Debbie Harry, Liza Minnelli, Claus von Bülow, and Calvin Klein, among others. Eulogies were given by John Richardson and Yoko Ono. Wrongful death lawsuit In April 1987, the New York State Health Department released a report that Warhol was given inadequate care by New York Hospital from the time he was admitted until the hours before his death. These included not performing the appropriate work-up tests prior to surgery, giving Warhol antibiotics to which he may have experienced an allergic response, causing him to become overhydrated, and repeatedly failing to take accurate notes on his chart. There were no issues with the procedure itself, according to the report. However, the hospital claimed that the nursing deficiencies were not significant enough to cause Warhol's death. The malpractice case was quickly settled out of court; Warhol's family received an undisclosed sum of money. Prior to his surgery, doctors expected Warhol to survive, though a re-evaluation of the case about thirty years after his death showed many indications that Warhol's surgery was in fact riskier than originally thought. It was widely reported at the time that Warhol had died of a "routine" surgery, though when considering factors such as his age, a family history of gallbladder problems, his previous gunshot wound, and his medical state in the weeks leading up to the procedure, the potential risk of death following the surgery appeared to have been significant. ==Art works==

Drawings Although Warhol is best known for his work in printmaking, particularly silkscreen, he was also a highly skilled illustrator and draughtsman. Paintings and prints By the beginning of the 1960s, the Pop art movement was an experimental form that several artists were independently adopting. Warhol, who would become famous as the "Pope of Pop", turned to this new style, where popular subjects could be part of the artist's palette. He experimented with his artistic style and painting techniques before he became synonymous with the movement. His early paintings show images taken from cartoons and advertisements, hand-painted with paint drips. Those drips emulated the style of famous abstract expressionists such as Willem de Kooning. From these beginnings, he developed his later style and subjects. Instead of working on a signature subject matter, as he started out to do, he worked more and more on a signature style, slowly eliminating the handmade from the artistic process. Warhol was an early adopter of the silkscreen printmaking process as a technique for making paintings. His later drawings were traced from slide projections. Warhol had several assistants through the years, including Gerard Malanga, Ronnie Cutrone, and Jay Shriver, who produced his silkscreen multiples, following his directions to make different versions and variations. For his first major exhibition in 1962, Warhol painted his famous cans of Campbell's soup, which he claimed to have had for lunch for 20 years. Warhol began to make paintings of iconic American objects such as dollar bills, mushroom clouds, electric chairs, cans, Coca-Cola bottles, and celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and Elizabeth Taylor, as well as newspaper headlines. His work became popular and controversial. Warhol articulated an egalitarian view of consumer goods, noting that products such as Coca-Cola were shared across social classes: "You can know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke too." Warhol produced both comic and serious works; his subject could be a soup can or an electric chair. Warhol used the same techniques—silkscreens, reproduced serially, and often painted with bright colors—whether he painted celebrities, everyday objects, or images of suicide, car crashes and disasters, as in the 1962–63 Death and Disaster series. In 1967, Warhol established Factory Additions as his printmaking and publishing enterprise, issuing portfolios of ten images in editions of 250 to reach a wider audience. Warhol initially signed and numbered one edition of 250, but after a dispute with some studio employees, unauthorized unsigned editions were produced in Brussels using the same photo negatives and color codes he had provided. These later prints were stamped "Sunday B Morning" or "Add Your Own Signature Here," and some carried Warhol's disclaimer, "This is not by me, Andy Warhol." The most widely known of these are the 1967 Marilyn Monroe portfolio prints, which continued to be produced into the 2010s. Sunday B Morning editions have also been issued for other works, including ''Flowers, Campbell's Soup I, Campbell's Soup Cans II, Gold Marilyn Monroe, and Dollar Bill''. Early versions bore black stamps on the verso, shifting to blue by the 1980s. In the 1970s, Warhol evolved into a portraiture artist, painting commissioned portraits of celebrities and socialites. In 1975, Warhol completed the Ladies and Gentlemen series, followed by Cats and Dogs in 1976 and the Skulls series later that year. In 1977, he debuted his Torsos series, and then began Shadows (1978–79). In 1979, Warhol was commissioned to paint a BMW M1 Group 4 racing version for the fourth installment of the BMW Art Car project. He was initially asked to paint a BMW 320i in 1978, but the car model was changed, and it didn't qualify for the race that year. Warhol was the first artist to paint directly onto the automobile himself instead of letting technicians transfer a scale-model design to the car. Racecar drivers Hervé Poulain, Manfred Winkelhock and Marcel Mignot drove the car at the 1979 24 Hours of Le Mans. are also noteworthy in this context. It's also important to notice the way these works—and their means of production—mirrored the atmosphere at Warhol's Factory. Former Interview editor Bob Colacello recalled that Victor Hugo was a "ghost pisser" on the Oxidations, urinating on canvases primed with copper paint by Warhol and Ronnie Cutrone—whose vitamin B, Warhol said, made the colors prettier. Warhol sometimes used his own urine early on, along with various visitors who found it amusing to help him paint. After many years of silkscreening, oxidation, and photography, Warhol returned to painting with a brush in hand. In 1983, Warhol began collaborating with artists Jean-Michel Basquiat and Francesco Clemente. Warhol and Basquiat created a series of more than 50 large collaborative works between 1984 and 1985. Despite criticism when these were first shown, Warhol called some of them "masterpieces." In 1985, Warhol used Amiga computers to generate digital art, including the short film You Are the One. He also did a demonstration on live TV with singer Debbie Harry as a model. Late in his career, Warhol was commissioned by gallerist Alexander Iolas to produce work based on Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper. In the period just before his death, Warhol was also working on Cars, a series of paintings for Mercedes-Benz. Sculptures '' (1964) Warhol's most well-known sculptures are his Brillo Boxes—silkscreen ink on wood replicas of the large branded cardboard boxes used to hold 24 packages of Brillo soap pads. The original Brillo design was by commercial artist James Harvey. Warhol's Brillo Boxes were part of a series of "grocery carton" works that also included Heinz ketchup and Campbell's tomato juice boxes. Other famous works include the Silver Clouds—helium filled, silver mylar, pillow-shaped balloons. A Silver Cloud was included in the traveling exhibition Air Art (1968–1969) curated by Willoughby Sharp. Clouds was also adapted by Warhol for avant-garde choreographer Merce Cunningham's dance piece RainForest (1968). Warhol's Invisible Sculpture made in 1980 consisted of burglar alarms placed around the perimeter of a room at the Factory and aimed toward an empty center. When a visitor stepped into the center point, all the alarms were triggered simultaneously. A version of Invisible Sculpture without the burglar alarms was installed at New York's Area nightclub in 1984 as part of its "Art" theme. Warhol's market began to gain momentum at auction during his lifetime. In 1970, ''Campbell's Soup Can with Peeling Label (1962) sold for $60,000 at Parke-Bernet Galleries, then the highest price ever paid at public auction for a work by a living American artist. In 1978, 19 Cents'' (1962) sold for $95,000—setting a new auction record for Warhol—after having originally been purchased for $1,300 in 1962. Following Warhol's death in 1987, the value of his work continued to rise significantly, establishing him as one of the most consistently high-performing artists in the global art market. In 2014 alone, Warhol's works generated approximately $569 million at auction, accounting for more than one-sixth of the global art market that year. Despite occasional downturns, his market has demonstrated long-term resilience. Art dealer Dominique Lévy characterized Warhol's market as "a seesaw being pulled uphill," noting that while prices fluctuate, each successive peak and decline occurs at a higher level than the previous one. She attributed this pattern to the continual influx of new collectors, observing that different generations and demographics periodically enter the market, driving renewed demand before stabilizing and giving way to the next cycle of interest. Warhol's celebrity imagery commands high prices, and Marilyn Monroe remains one of his most iconic subjects. In 1998, industrialist S.I. Newhouse Jr. purchased Orange Marilyn (1964) at Sotheby's for $17.3 million, setting a new record at the time for the highest price paid for a Warhol work. After Newhouse's death in 2017, hedge fund manager Kenneth C. Griffin reportedly purchased Orange Marilyn in a private sale for approximately $200 million. Warhol's market continued to strengthen in the 2000s. In 2007, collectors Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson sold Turquoise Marilyn (1964) to financier Steven A. Cohen in a private transaction reportedly valued at $80 million. In May 2007, Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I) (1963) realized $71.1 million at Christie's, while Lemon Marilyn (1962) sold for $28 million in the same auction. In November 2009, 200 One Dollar Bills (1962) sold for $43.8 million at Sotheby's. The Elvis series remains among Warhol's most important bodies of work; of the 22 versions produced, eleven are held in museum collections. Portraits of Elizabeth Taylor have also been highly sought after. In 2007, Liz (Colored Liz) (1963), formerly owned by actor Hugh Grant, sold for $23.7 million at Christie's. In November 2010, Men in Her Life (1962) sold for $63.4 million at Phillips de Pury, while Coca-Cola (4) (1962) sold for $35.3 million at Sotheby's. In May 2011, Liz No. 5 (Early Colored Liz) sold for $26.9 million at Phillips. In May 2015, Silver Liz (1963, diptych) sold for $28 million, while Colored Mona Lisa (1963) achieved $56.2 million at Christie's. Warhol's self-portraits have likewise performed strongly at auction. In May 2010, a purple self-portrait from 1986, formerly owned by fashion designer Tom Ford, sold for $32.6 million at Sotheby's. In May 2011, Warhol's earliest self-portrait from 1963–64 sold for $38.4 million at Christie's, while a red self-portrait from 1986 realized $27.5 million at the same auction house. Several major sales in the 2010s further cemented Warhol's status as one of the most valuable artists in the world. In 2010, his work sold for a total of $313 million, accounting for 17% of all contemporary auction sales. In November 2013, Warhol's rarely exhibited diptych Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) (1963) sold for $105.4 million at Sotheby's, setting a new auction record for the artist at the time. In May 2014, Race Riot (1963), sold for $62.9 million and White Marilyn (1962), sold for $41 million at Christie's. Warhol's portrait of Marlon Brando, Four Marlons (1966), realized $69.6 million at Christie's in November 2014. In July 2015, Warhol's hand-painted canvas One Dollar Bill (Silver Certificate) (1962) fetched $32.8 million at Sotheby's. Warhol's market continued to expand globally into the 2020s. In March 2022, Silver Liz (Ferus Type) sold for ¥2.3 billion ($18.9 million) at Shinwa Auction, setting a new auction record in Japan. In May 2022, Shot Sage Blue Marilyn (1964) sold for $195 million at Christie's, becoming the most expensive American artwork ever sold at auction. Collectors Emily and Burton Tremaine were among Warhol's earliest collectors and most influential supporters. They acquired more than 15 of his works, including Marilyn Diptych (1962), now in the collection of Tate Modern in London, and A Boy for Meg (1962), now held by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC; both were purchased directly from Warhol's studio in 1962. Robert Scull and Ethel Scull were also early and significant patrons of Warhol's work. Ethel Scull became the subject of Warhol's first commissioned portrait, Ethel Scull 36 Times (1963), which is now part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection. == Business art ==

Warhol was an advocate of "Business Art", as he stated in his book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again: "I went into business art. I wanted to be an art business man or a business artist. Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art," he said. His transformation into a mere business artist was a point of criticism. In hindsight, however, some critics have come to view Warhol's superficiality and commerciality as "the most brilliant mirror of our times", contending that "Warhol had captured something irresistible about the zeitgeist of American culture in the 1970s." In addition to his paintings and drawings, Warhol directed and produced films, managed the Velvet Underground, and authored numerous books, as well as producing works in such diverse media as audio, photography, sculpture, theater, fashion, and performance art. His ability to blur the lines between art, commerce, and everyday life was central to his creative philosophy. "That's probably the greatest thing about Warhol: the way he penetrated and summarized our world, to the point that distinguishing between him and our everyday life is basically impossible, and in any case useless," said artist Maurizio Cattelan. Films and Warhol superstars from Empire (1965)|alt= Grainy, black-and-white still frame of the illuminated Empire State Building against the night sky Between 1963 and 1968, Warhol produced more than 600 underground films, including short black-and-white Screen Tests, which offered silent, close-up portraits of Factory visitors. Warhol's "superstars" were a retinue of bohemian and counterculture eccentrics who appeared in Warhol's films in the mid-1960s to early 1970s, including Baby Jane Holzer, Brigid Berlin, Ondine, Edie Sedgwick, Ingrid Superstar, Nico, International Velvet, Viva, Ultra Violet, Joe Dallesandro, Candy Darling, Holly Woodlawn, Jackie Curtis, and Jane Forth. Warhol's early experimental films were minimalist studies of duration and everyday life. Sleep (1964) documents poet John Giorno sleeping for over five hours; Kiss (1964) presents a series of couples kissing; Eat (1964) shows Robert Indiana consuming a mushroom in real time; and Blow Job (1964) consists of a single, unbroken shot of DeVeren Bookwalter's face during an implied sexual act. For these efforts, Jonas Mekas awarded Warhol the Independent Film Award in 1964, calling attention to his growing influence in avant-garde cinema. Newsday's Mike McGrady hailed Warhol as "the Cecil B. DeMille of the Off-Hollywood movie makers." In 1964, Warhol also created Batman Dracula, an unauthorized homage to the comic-book hero, screened only at his exhibitions. The film was never finished, but it is considered the first depiction of a blatantly campy Batman film. The following year, he released Empire (1965), an eight-hour static shot of the Empire State Building, and Vinyl (1965), a loose adaptation of the dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. Warhol's films didn't have a script; he encouraged the actors to improvise their dialogue. His most celebrated film of the period, Chelsea Girls (1966), innovatively used dual 16mm projections running simultaneously with alternating sound, becoming the first underground film of the decade to achieve widespread critical attention. and Louis Waldon in Flesh (1968), directed by Paul MorrisseyAfter Warhol survived a near-fatal shooting in 1968, filmmaking responsibilities increasingly shifted to his collaborator Paul Morrissey. Most of Warhol's films were withdrawn from circulation by Warhol and his associates who managed his business affairs. In 1984, with Warhol's cooperation, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art began restoration efforts, and the films have since been screened periodically at museums and film festivals. In 2022, the Andy Warhol Museum launched The Warhol TV, a streaming platform offering free museum content as well as rentals of select films from its collection. Theater and television Warhol's play ''Andy Warhol's Pork'', premiered at New York's La MaMa Theater in May 1971 and ran for two weeks. It was brought to the Roundhouse in London for a longer run in August 1971. Pork was based on tape-recorded conversations between Brigid Berlin and Warhol. Berlin would play Warhol tapes she had made of phone conversations between herself and her mother, socialite Honey Berlin. In 1974, Warhol designed the sets for the musical Man on the Moon. Warhol dreamed of a television special about a favorite subject of hisNothingthat he would call Nothing Special. Music and cover art In 1963, Warhol founded The Druds, a short-lived avant-garde noise music band that featured prominent members of the New York proto-conceptual art and minimal art community. Warhol and Paul Morrissey acted as the band's manager, introducing them to Nico, who would perform with the band at Warhol's request. While managing the Velvet Underground, Warhol would have them dressed in all black to perform in front of movies that he was also presenting. In 1966, he "produced" their first album The Velvet Underground & Nico, as well as providing its album art. His actual participation in the album's production amounted to simply paying for the studio time. In 1989, Reed and John Cale reunited for the first time since 1972 to write, perform, record and release the concept album Songs for Drella, as a tribute to Warhol. In October 2019, an audio tape of publicly unknown music by Reed, based on Warhol's 1975 book, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again, was reported to have been discovered in an archive at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. Warhol designed many album covers for various artists beginning during his days as an illustrator in the 1950s. The album covers he designed include for ''I'm Still Swinging (1955) by The Joe Newman Octet, Blue Lights, Vols. 1 & 2 (1958) by Kenny Burrell, This Is John Wallowitch!!! (1964) by John Wallowitch, Sticky Fingers (1971) and Love You Live (1977) by The Rolling Stones, The Academy in Peril (1972) by John Cale, Silk Electric (1982) by Diana Ross, and Aretha'' (1986) by Aretha Franklin. In 1984, Warhol co-directed the music video "Hello Again" by the Cars, and he appeared in the video as a bartender. In 1986, Warhol co-directed the music video "Misfit" by Curiosity Killed the Cat and he made a cameo in video. Books and magazines Beginning in the late 1950s, Warhol produced several unbound portfolios of his work. In 1957, his bound book 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy was printed by Seymour Berlin. Warhol's book A La Recherche du Shoe Perdu marked his "transition from commercial to gallery artist". The title is a play on words by Warhol on the title of French author Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu. • A, a Novel (1968, ) is a literal transcription—containing spelling errors and phonetically written background noise and mumbling—of audio recordings of Ondine and several of Warhol's friends socializing at the Factory and going out. • The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B & Back Again) (1975, ) comprise of transcriptions and text by Pat Hackett based on daily phone conversations and audio cassettes that Warhol gave her. The cassettes contained conversations with Brigid Berlin and Bob Colacello. • Exposures (1979, ) by Warhol and Colacello is a book of Warhol's photographs of his famous friends with anecdotes. • ''POPism: The Warhol '60s'' (1980, ) by Warhol and Hackett is a retrospective view of the 1960s and the role of Pop art. • ''Warhol's America'' (1985, ) features Warhol's photographs gathered over a decade of travels, paired with anecdotes and wry, often unexpectedly deep reflections, presenting an idiosyncratic love letter to the United States. • ''Andy Warhol's Party Book'' (1988, ) by Warhol and Hackett discusses his partygoing habits and tips for what makes a great party. • The Andy Warhol Diaries (1989, ) is a diary dictated by Warhol to Hackett in daily phone conversations between November 1976 and February 1987, offering an intimate account of his life, social circle, business dealings, and artistic concerns. Later that year, Warhol co-founded Interview, which was initially focused on film criticism before evolving into a pop culture magazine by 1972. Warhol also produced covers for major publications, including Time, Vogue, and Vanity Fair. For Time, he created artworks for cover stories such as "Today's Teen-Agers" (January 29, 1965), featuring a grid of seven photographic portraits; "The Flying Fondas and How They Grew" (February 16, 1970), depicting actors Jane, Henry, and Peter Fonda; "Why He's a Thriller" (March 19, 1984), portraying pop star Michael Jackson and resulting in the painting Michael Jackson (1984); "America Loves Listening to Lee" (September 1, 1985) depicting Lee Iacocca; and "Gotti on Trial" (September 19, 1986), featuring crime boss John Gotti. His magazine work also included a portrait of Princess Caroline of Monaco, for Vogue Paris (December 1983/January 1984), and Vanity Fair's commission of musician Prince for the November 1984 article "Purple Fame," resulting in Orange Prince (1984). During portrait sessions, Warhol typically shot dozens of photographs of his subject, then selected one that would underlie the painting. Warhol was also an avid photographer and used the Polaroid SX-70 as a portable camera in the 1970s. He primarily used a Minox 35 EL from 1976 until his death in 1987 to produce a large, candid, diaristic body of photographs of Factory visitors, parties, friends, and celebrities. At one point, Warhol carried a portable tape recorder and camera wherever he went, recording nearly everything said and done. He referred to the recorder as his 'wife.' Some of these recordings became the basis for his literary work. He also taped interviews for Interview magazine and regularly published his Polaroid photos in its pages. Warhol's photography has been the subject of numerous exhibitions following the digitization of his archive, acquired by Stanford University in 2014 and comprising approximately 3,600 contact sheets and 130,000 negatives. That same year, the Rhode Island School of Design Museum presented ''Andy Warhol's Photographs, featuring more than 150 Polaroid and black-and-white images. Subsequent highlights include Contact Warhol: Photography Without End at the Cantor Arts Center from 2018 to 2019, which explored the scope of his contact sheet archive. From April 30 to October 19, 2026, the Whitney Museum of American Art will present Andy Warhol: Family Album'', an exhibition of 732 Polaroids taken between 1972 and 1973 depicting Warhol's family and friends. His photographic work has also been featured in publications such as Andy Warhol: Polaroids 1958–1987 (2015). Fashion Drawing on his early career as a commercial illustrator and his engagement with celebrity and consumer culture, Warhol helped bridge the gap between fine art, fashion, and commerce. He once remarked, "Fashion is more art than art is … I'd rather buy a dress and put it, you know, up on the wall than put a painting." Often described as a modern dandy whose authority "rested more on presence than on words," Warhol moved fluidly between art and fashion, producing department store window displays, illustrations for Vogue and ''Harper's Bazaar, hosting a television program titled Fashion'', and even working as a model. In 1965, Warhol designed furs for Coopchik-Forrest, and in 1966, he participated in the paper dress craze when Brooklyn's Abraham & Straus invited him to decorate Mars Manufacturing paper dresses in-store. Several of Warhol's "superstars" also found success in the fashion world, including Baby Jane Holzer, Donyale Luna, International Velvet, Carol LaBrie, Jane Forth, and Donna Jordan, who worked as professional models in the 1960s and 1970s. == Public persona ==

The early 1960s was a key moment in the development of Warhol's persona. Some have suggested that his frequent refusal to comment on his work, to speak about himself, confining himself in interviews and even the evolution of his Pop style can be traced to the years when the inner circles of the New York art world first dismissed Warhol. Early in his career, Warhol deliberately gave reporters conflicting accounts of his background, habits, and working methods, treating the press as the subject of a study. As he told People Weekly in 1976: "I used to like to give different information to different magazines because it was like putting a tracer on where people get their information." He once said, "If you want to know all about Andy Warhol just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me. There I am, there's nothing behind it." His boyfriend Jed Johnson recalled, "He felt an artist should keep a neutral expression on his face when he showed his work to other people, that to betray pleasure or displeasure was... 'corny.' I'd watch him at many museum and gallery openings of his shows and he followed that policy consistently." Journalist Jerry Adler of the New York Daily News observed that what Warhol projected was "not merely nothing, but nothingness—a streak of nihilism… It is the charisma of the void; what draws people to Warhol is not his magnetism, but a vacuum." In private, however, Warhol could reveal a markedly different side from his carefully constructed public persona. Former Interview editor Bob Colacello recalled that, in more intimate moments, Warhol expressed deep uncertainty about human relationships, noting that he often struggled to understand why others were happy. When Colacello suggested he show more emotion toward Johnson, Warhol replied, "If I let myself have emotions I would have a nervous breakdown." ==Personal life==

Sexuality and relationships Warhol lived as a gay man before the gay liberation movement but often veiled his personal life in the press. In the 1950s, he submitted homoerotic drawings of nude males to a gallery, which were rejected for being too overt. Throughout his career, Warhol produced erotic photography and drawings of male nudes. Some of his most famous works—portraits of Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland, and Elizabeth Taylor and films such as Blow Job (1964), My Hustler (1965), and Lonesome Cowboys (1968)—draw from gay underground culture or openly explore the complexity of sexuality and desire. Many of his films premiered in gay porn theaters in the 1960s. In 1980, Warhol told to Forum magazine that he was still a virgin. Former Interview editor Bob Colacello considered this plausible, suggesting that what little sex Warhol had was "a mixture of voyeurism and masturbation—to use [Warhol's] word abstract." However, conflicts with Warhol's 1960 hospital treatment for condylomata, a sexually transmitted disease, and by friends who said they witnessed him having sex or heard him boast about it. Warhol had unrequited romantic feelings for production designer Charles Lisanby, who later recalled that Warhol said he had sex a few times but found it "messy and distasteful." Jay Johnson, whose twin brother was Warhol's longtime partner, stated, "He enjoyed the idea that he was considered a voyeur and that he was considered asexual. That was his mystique." Factory assistant Philip Fagan, art historian Robert Pincus-Witten, aspiring filmmaker Danny Williams, and Factory associates Richard Rheem and Rodney La Rod. His longest romantic relationship was with Jed Johnson, who cared for him after he was shot, collaborated with him on films, and later achieved fame as an interior designer. They "functioned as husband and husband, sharing a bed and a domestic life" for 12 years. Warhol's close friend Stuart Pivar said he "had no sex life after Jed." After Johnson, Paramount Pictures executive Jon Gould described his relationship with Warhol as "asexual" and called him a "voyeur." Factory assistant Sam Bolton, who spent time with Warhol after Gould said, "He was not asexual. He would have had sex with me, if I had let him. He was too possessive. … I knew he considered me his boyfriend even though I wasn't." Religion in Last Supper (1986) |250x250px Warhol was a practicing Ruthenian Catholic who regularly volunteered at homeless shelters and church soup kitchens in New York City. Additional religious works were found posthumously in his estate, reflecting the influence of Eastern Christian iconography. Time Capsules and collection in Lenox Hill, Manhattan. In 1998, the townhouse was designated a cultural landmark.Warhol was an avid collector and was described as a "pack rat" who'd save everything. Beginning in 1974, he assembled his Time Capsules, a long-running conceptual project consisting of 610 containers filled with letters, photographs, memorabilia, and ephemera from his daily life. These materials, along with similar items stored at his home, were later transferred to the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. He had an extensive folk art collection, which was the subject of the exhibition ''Andy Warhol's Folk and Funk'' at the Museum of American Folk Art in 1977, though the full extent of his holdings remained largely unknown during his lifetime. Warhol kept his wealth and possessions largely concealed, storing valuables in unconventional places such as cookie tins atop the canopy of his bed and his mattress. He owned luxury cars, including a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow, though he did not drive. In 1974, Warhol and his partner Jed Johnson moved into a townhouse at 57 East 66th Street, where Johnson decorated the interiors in a mix of Neoclassical, Art Deco, and Victorian styles and kept the household organized. After Johnson's departure in December 1980, the townhouse became filled with Warhol's accumulating purchases. In his later years, Warhol frequently browsed flea markets and auction houses with collector Stuart Pivar, envisioning a large-scale retail and exhibition space dubbed "Warhol Hall." His collection ranged widely, including American Indian artifacts, cookie jars, gemstones, antique furniture, and fine art. Following Warhol's death in 1987, his collection was auctioned at Sotheby's in 1988, dispersing nearly 10,000 objects and generating $25.3 million during the 10-day sale. A further cache of jewelry was later discovered and sold separately for $1.6 million. == Legacy ==

in Manhattan's Lenox Hill neighborhood In 1991, the Warhol Family Museum of Modern Art was established in Medzilaborce, Slovakia by Warhol's family and the Slovak Ministry of Culture. In 1996, it was renamed the Andy Warhol Museum of Modern Art. In 1992, Warhol's estate donated 15 acres of land on his former property Eothen to The Nature Conservancy. Now called The Andy Warhol Preserve, it is part of a 2,400-acre protected area in Montauk. In 1994, the Andy Warhol Museum opened in Pittsburgh. It holds the largest collection of the artist's works in the world. In 2002, the US Postal Service issued an 18-cent stamp commemorating Warhol. Designed by Richard Sheaff of Scottsdale, Arizona, the stamp was unveiled at a ceremony at the Andy Warhol Museum and features Warhol's painting "Self-Portrait, 1964". , Slovakia In 2005, the Seventh Street Bridge in Pittsburgh was renamed the Andy Warhol Bridge in his honor. Commissioned by the Public Art Fund, artist Rob Pruitt created a chrome sculpture of Warhol that was installed outside 860 Broadway—the former site of the Factory—in Manhattan's Union Square from March to October 2011. The International Astronomical Union named a crater on the planet Mercury after Warhol in 2012. In 2013, to honor the 85th anniversary of Warhol's birthday, the Andy Warhol Museum and EarthCam launched a collaborative project titled Figment, a live feed of Warhol's gravesite. In 2024, Warhol was posthumously awarded the Order of the White Double Cross of the Second Class by the Slovak Republic's ambassador to the U.S. on the 37th anniversary of his death, at the behest of Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová, "for promoting the Slovak Republic's good name abroad." In 2025, Warhol was selected as one of the first 10 inductees into the Pittsburgh Walk of Fame. The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Warhol's will stipulated that his entire estate—aside from modest bequests to family members—be used to establish a foundation. Owing to the scale of his possessions, it took Sotheby's 10 days to auction the estate after his death, generating $25.3 million. In 1987, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts was established to serve as Warhol's estate and to advance its mission of fostering innovative artistic expression and the creative process, with a particular emphasis on supporting challenging and experimental work. In 1995, the foundation established the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board to review works of art and determine their authenticity. The board was dissolved in 2012 after facing multiple costly lawsuits, totaling around $10 million, despite winning each case. Foundation President Joel Wachs explained that the decision allowed the foundation to focus its resources on supporting artists rather than litigation. The Artists Rights Society is the US copyright representative for the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for all Warhol works with the exception of Warhol film stills. The US copyright representative for Warhol film stills is the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. Additionally, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has agreements in place for its image archive. All digital images of Warhol are exclusively managed by Corbis, while all transparency images of Warhol are managed by Art Resource. The foundation is one of the largest grant-giving organizations for the visual arts in the United States. In 2007, it marked its 20th anniversary with the publication of a three-volume annual report: Vol. I, 1987–2007; Vol. II, Grants & Exhibitions; and Vol. III, Legacy Program. Many of Warhol's works and personal possessions are displayed at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, to which the foundation has donated more than 3,000 works of art. The foundation is responsible for compiling the Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné of paintings and sculptures, published in volumes covering specific periods of the artist's career. The project was initiated in 1977 by Swiss art dealer Thomas Ammann, while Warhol was still alive and mid-career. In 1993, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts partnered with Thomas Ammann Fine Art on the catalogue, and in 2004 assumed full stewardship of the project. The sixth and most recent volume was published in 2024, and a seventh volume is currently in preparation. ==In pop culture==

Films on the set of Cocaine Cowboys (1979) at Eothen, in which Warhol made a cameo Warhol appeared in several films during his lifetime, including Dynamite Chicken ''(1971), The Driver's Seat (1974), Cocaine Cowboys (1979) and Tootsie (1982). Following his death, he has been frequently depicted in film and other media. Actors who have portrayed Warhol include Crispin Glover in The Doors (1991), Jared Harris in I Shot Andy Warhol (1996), David Bowie in Basquiat (1996), Guy Pearce in Factory Girl (2006), Greg Travis in Watchmen (2009), and Cary Elwes in The Billionaire Boys Club'' (2017). He has also appeared as a character in Michael Daugherty's opera Jackie O (1997), as well as in comedic and fantastical portrayals, such as Mark Bringelson in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), Bill Hader in Men in Black 3 (2012), Tom Meeten in ''Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy'' (2012), and Conan O'Brien in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022). In 2020, actor Jared Leto confirmed that he had been cast to portray Warhol in the biographical film Warhol, produced by Michael De Luca and written by Terence Winter, based on the book Warhol: The Biography by Victor Bockris. Documentaries • Andy Warhol and his Clan (1970), a 46-minute documentary by German filmmaker Bert Koetter that explores the Warhol Factory and the habitats of several of his superstars. In 1971, it was released in theaters in the UK. • Warhol (1973) is an ITV documentary by British photographer David Bailey. Initially banned by British courts for containing "indecent material," the film features candid interviews with the artist and his associates. • Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol (1990), a feature-length documentary by Chuck Workman, premiered at the 40th Berlin International Film Festival. • Absolut Warhola (2001) was produced by Polish director Stanislaw Mucha, featuring Warhol's parents' family and hometown in Slovakia. • Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film (2006) is a two-part documentary by Ric Burns that aired on PBS as part of the American Masters series. It won a Peabody Award in 2006. • ''Andy Warhol's People Factory'' (2008), a three-part television documentary directed by Catherine Shorr that features interviews with several of Warhol's associates. • The Andy Warhol Diaries (2022), a six-part Netflix docuseries directed by Andrew Rossi that chronicling Warhol's life from the vantage point of his diaries. Television and advertisements Warhol made numerous television appearances and enthusiastically embraced advertising, viewing both as extensions of his artistic engagement with mass media and consumer culture. In 1955, Warhol created illustrated backdrops for a television performance by jazz bandleader Duke Ellington on the CBS program ''Music '55''. One of Warhol's earliest appearances on television occurred in 1963, when he was filmed in his studio for the CBS-TV special "Exhibitions: Contemporary American Painters," a survey of living American artists at work in their studios. In 1965, Warhol appeared with his muse Edie Sedgwick on The Merv Griffin Show. During the interview, Warhol spoke minimally—often responding with brief gestures or whispered answers—while Sedgwick articulated his ideas about Pop art and its emotional detachment from traditional artistic expression. Warhol was enthusiastic about product endorsements. In 1969, he appeared in two commercials for Braniff International Airways' "When You Got It – Flaunt It" campaign, including one alongside heavyweight boxer Sonny Liston. These commercials marked the beginning of Warhol's active participation in advertising as a form of public performance. Warhol's first regular endorsement contract followed in 1973, when he signed a deal with Pioneer Electronics. The first campaign featured Warhol alongside his dachshund Archie, posed among stereo speakers, turntables, and tape recorders under the headline "Andy Warhol's Unfinished Symphony." In the 1980s, Warhol became increasingly visible on television. In 1981, Warhol was featured on the BBC series Arena in a segment alongside writers William S. Burroughs and Victor Bockris and later that year filmed a segment for Saturday Night Live. That same year, he appeared in a Sony Beta tapes commercial, posed beside a Marilyn portrait to emphasize the tape's ability to reproduce "brilliant color and delicate shading." He went on to appear in commercials for TDK videotape in 1983 and Diet Coke in 1985. Posthumously, Warhol has been portrayed on television by John Cameron Mitchell in Vinyl (2016) and by Evan Peters in American Horror Story: Cult (2017). Music Warhol has had a lasting influence on popular music and musicians across genres. He was a key inspiration for the new wave and punk band Devo, as well as English musician David Bowie, who recorded the song "Andy Warhol" for his 1971 album Hunky Dory. Warhol's life and experiences also directly inspired specific works. Lou Reed wrote "Andy's Chest" in response to Warhol's near fatal shooting; although first recorded by the Velvet Underground in 1969, it was later released in a new version on Reed's solo album Transformer (1972). The Canadian rock band Triumph referenced Warhol in "Stranger in a Strange Land," from their 1984 album Thunder Seven. During his lifetime, Warhol also appeared in several music videos, including "Hello Again" (1984) by The Cars, "Misfit" (1986) by Curiosity Killed the Cat, and "I'm Not Perfect (But I'm Perfect for You)" (1986) by Grace Jones. His cultural presence has continued beyond his lifetime. In the 1995 video for "Scream" by Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson, a self-portrait of Warhol morphs into a splatter painting by Jackson Pollock. Books, comic books, and video games Warhol has been the subject of numerous books, including authorized biographer David Bourdon's Warhol (1989), Victor Bockris' Warhol: The Biography (1989), and Bob Colacello's memoir Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close Up (1990). Later biographies include Wayne Koestenbaum's Andy Warhol (2001), and Blake Gopnik's comprehensive Warhol (2020). Warhol has also appeared in popular media, including the Miracleman comic series, Nick Bertozzi's Becoming Andy Warhol (2016), and Typex's graphic novel Andy: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol (2018). He also appears in the video game The Sims: Superstar (2003). ==See also==