Andy Warhol: The Prince of Pop
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The 1920s in America were known as the “Jazz Age” or the “Roaring Twenties” and it was a time when the countrys culture was beginning to change. The era was marked with many technological, scientific, and stylistic advances as well as strong economic prosperity. During this time the television was introduced to the public, penicillin was discovered, and fashion was at the forefront of everyones mind. It is arguably most famous, though, for the rise of radical political movements and social statements. Perhaps this is why it is so fitting that in the midst of all this, a new life began – a life that eventually was consumed by the culture surrounding its birth, and death.
Andrew Warhola was born into an immigrant family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania during the summer of 1928. With English as a second language, his father worked as a coal miner and often had long periods away from home until he died in 1942. Andrews mother became a housewife and spent a great deal of time at home. Andrew spent much of his childhood and early teenage years sick in bed with chorea, a disease that after three relapses caused his skin to be blotchy and left his body frail.
During his illnesses, Andrew was encouraged by his mother to send fan letters to young movie stars in order to help pass the time. He began collecting autographs from people like Freddie Bartholomew, Truman Capote, Mickey Rooney, and the beautiful blonde Shirley Temple. It was perhaps during this time that he developed an admiration for the Hollywood lifestyle, in which this dream world appealed to the shy, awkward, and pale young boy. This dream had a profound impact on his lifestyle and career later in life. After graduating from high school, Andrew attended the Carnegie Institute of Technology where he studied pictorial design with the intention of becoming a commercial illustrator. He quickly moved to New York City upon completion of his degree and began a new life under his simplified name, Andy Warhol.
His career began with a free-lance job at Glamour magazine and over the next several years he worked as a commercial illustrator for various major fashion magazines, record labels, and advertising companies. Sometime during this period, he presented a gift to a client with a note reading, “This Vanity Fair Butterfly Holder was designed for you by Andy Warhol, whose paintings are exhibited in many leading museums and contemporary galleries.” At the time this statement was untrue; his work was not yet featured or famous, though he believed it would be if he made it appear as though it was.
Throughout his early career he wanted to become famous and continued his childhood fascination with celebrities. He focused his increased obsession specifically onto Truman Capote, a famous American writer whose works later became known as literary classics. Capote wanted nothing to do with the nearly unknown Warhol and once said, “He used to stand outside my househe wanted to become a friend of mine, wanted to speak to me, to talk to me. He nearly drove me crazy.”
But Warhol did not give up. During the summer of 1952, he held his first exhibition in a rented room at the Hugo Gallery in New York City. In an obvious attempt to gain Capotes attention and acceptance, Warhol titled it “Fifteen Drawings based on the Writings of Truman Capote.” Although invited to the opening, Capote did not attend. Following this otherwise successful event, Warhol spent the next ten years continuing work as an artist.
During this time he traveled the world and socialized with other young New Yorkers, many of which shared in Warhols homosexual lifestyle. He attended social functions, movie screenings, and art shows. In the spring of 1961, Warhol purchased a work by Jasper John called Lightbulb. This drawing of a light bulb lying on its side was done in black and white with a rustic appearance. Using this as inspiration, he continued developing his artistic style and eventually became interested in painting with black and white as well as color based on comic strips.
Warhol began to associate himself more and more with icons of the art world and eventually had a professional relationship with art dealer Leo Castelli. This connection moved Warhol up to the same social level as artists Jasper Johns and Roy Lichtenstein, but also caused tension with design styles. Lichtenstein was famous for using a comic style and therefore Warhol began to move into a new direction, which ultimately defined a major step forward in his career.
Irving Blums Ferus Gallery in West Hollywood was home to Warhols first solo pop exhibit in the summer of 1962. This exhibition featured a series of 32 different canvases of Campbells soup cans, each using the same can design but different labels for different flavors of the soup. During the painting process, he got bored and switched to rubber stamps and silk screening techniques because they were easier and faster.
During this exhibition, Hollywood actress and blonde bombshell Marilyn Monroe was found dead less than ten miles away. Warhol reacted to this news by immediately creating a silkscreen painting featuring the late actress. This work was the first of many which featured a silkscreen format that included other female celebrities such as Elizabeth Taylor and Jacqueline Kennedy. Through a use of photographs, silkscreen techniques, cheerless color, repetition, and the grid, he drained the body and face of substance and turned his subjects into ghostly copies.
The style he presented during this time established Warhol in the artistic world, although he was not satisfied and had a strong desire to move into other mediums as well. Not long after producing the silkscreen prints, he purchased his first video camera and began experimenting with film. The camera he purchased allowed him the opportunity to shoot only a few minutes worth of video.
Warhols first film, entitled Sleep, featured poet John Giorno sleeping. The two had met during an exhibition at Eleanor Wards Stable gallery in New York and began a sexual relationship. Warhol wanted to film his lover sleeping, and he did; that is all he did. Originally planned as an eight-hour-long movie, the film was in fact made by looping much of the short footage of Giorno sleeping. This became very indicative of Warhols cinematic style as most of his movies were silent, simple, and seductive.
Warhol worked with his film partner Paul Morrissey on numerous other works as time progressed, all of which had the same common theme. Blow Job featured a young man receiving fellatio, although it only showed a stable view of the man from his neck up. Other movies include Kiss (scenes of