ANDY WARHOL Biography

The artist whose name is synonymous with Pop Art was born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania and studied art at the Carnegie Institute of Technology from 1945 to 1949. He then went to New York City and became an illustrator until 1960 when he began making paintings based on comic strip characters such as Popeye, Dick Tracy, and Superman.

He turned from the prevailing abstract-expressionist styles and the emphasis on the artist's emotion to a hard-line realism, using many common images associated with the popular media such as a Campbell Soup can. The first images were handpainted, but many were reproduced with a silk-screen process.

In May, 1999, "ARTNews" magazine named him one of the twenty-five most influential artists-ever. About him, it was written: . . . "it all began with the first Campbell's soup can in 1962. . . With this simple image, the concepts of appropriation and commidification were let loose for good. Warhol's celebration of his screen sirens, hustler hunks, and cafe-society wanna-bes
. . .had an equally dramatic effect."

In 1964, he began making sculpture, often with labels from supermarkets, and in the 1970s, he turned to portraits, two of the most famous being Jackie Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe. These images reflected his fascination with
the topic of death, something he carried into a series called "Death and Disaster," that included depictions of car crashes and gang warfare.

Source: http://www.askart.com/