After researching many artists, I decided to blog about one of the most revolutionary artists of the 20th century, the man who took ordinary objects and make them into extraordinary art, I’m talking about the prince of pop, the revolution in revolutionary, I’m talking about Andy Warhol. Andrew Warhola, born August 6, 1928, was a film maker who moved into becoming the leading art revolutionist in the visual art movement called pop art. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a city where I share my child hood. He was the fourth child of Andrej Warhola and Ulja Warhola. He came from a working class family of immigrants from Slovakia. They were a catholic Family living in Oakland at the time. He drew from a young age, when he was sick in bed with hypochondria or when he was interested in a movie star or celebrity. He went to Carnegie institute of technology for commercial art and he began as a successful pop artist for magazines such as vogue. In 1960 he had a one man gallery where he showed his exhibit of commonly known object such as coca-cola bottles and Campbell’s soup. He then started to paint and silk screen famous American icons such as Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, as well as international figures like Muhammad ail.
In 1968, Warhol’s employee, Valerie Solanas shot Warhol two to three times in the chest area. Solanas, known for being involved actively in S.C.U.M (society for cutting up men), was an actress in Warhol’s I, A Man. Supposedly (found on Wikipedia) “Earlier on the day of the attack, Solanas had been turned away from the Factory after asking for the return of a script she had given to Warhol. The script, apparently, had been ‘misplaced’.” Warhol having barley survived had dramatic changes physically and in his art.
Warhol is such an amazing influence on me. His use of ordinary objects painted in extraordinary ways is baffling. It seems as a cliché to do a blog about him as my revolutionary artist but when writing about Warhol nothing is cliché. Everyone has so many opinions on him, but personally I find it hard to express my enthusiasm accurately, all I can say is he’s an inspiration.
