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Andy Warhol

WARHOL, Andy (Warhol, Andy) (1928-1987) is the American artist, sculptor, designer, film director, publisher of magazines, writer, collector, producer. His works became the embodiment of triumph and commercial success of the artistic school of pop art, and he himself was the embodiment of the Renaissance idea of «homo universale» in the epoch of mass culture.

Andy Warhol (real name of Andrew Warhol) was born in Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania, USA) in a family of Slovak emigrants. Andy was the youngest, looked real weakling, and his mother tried not to let him go far from her: all his childhood he spent holding her mother’s skirt in a literal sense. He has remembered forever the golden peacocks, freely spread out among the bright red peonies on a lush blue background. The critics, who admired riot of colors of Warhol, will not know that the whole matter is in the fantasy of Chinatown nameless embroideresses; right there, on the cheap sale, where Mrs. Warhol bought her treasure.

The school was an inevitable evil for him, and it was impossible to hide from it. Andy served ten years, as others serve prison sentence. In order not to go mad, Andy began to draw and make collages. The other world opened in front of him in the old issues of color magazines and cheap comics, the world where kings and Hollywood stars lived. Batman defended outraged virtue, Mickey Mouse mucked around with strong and stupid persecutors, and charming blondes smiled appealingly to homely but honest guys. Andy rummaged in bins, begging stallkeepers for the old issues, cut them, glued together, redrew them. Batman lowered powerful wing on shoulder of welsh Prince who was waving with a tennis racket; Greta Garbo got married to Mickey Mouse; a gangster killed in a shoot were overgrown with coat, cap and beard of Santa Claus, and happily smiling president of the United States looked out of a bag full of presents. Every evening, Andy did these things with solemnity on his desk: he mixed pains, diluted glue, handled the scissors. Andy Warhol never learned writing skills but the whole street admired his drawings. From 1945 to 1949, he studied at the Art Department of the Carnegie Institute of Technology, and then moved to New York where he initially worked as an artist - illustrator for various magazines, including «Vogue» and «Harper’s Bazaar », designed shop-windows, made cards and posters. The graphic works in the field of advertising, especially the drawings of shoes for “I. Miller” brought him success.

Andy has worked like a maniac, but in rare moments of rest he wrote enthusiastic letters to Hollywood celebrities, imploring them to send anything from personal effects, or at least drop a few lines. He did not envy their success; he did not try to derive any benefit: this was something childlike sense of admiration for the stars with which a small Andek cut out the pictures of famous singers and actors, and hung them over the bed. Andy was blinded by their magnificence until his death. His friend Bianca Jogger told that once at a White House reception Warhol, who was already world-renowned artist, leaning toward her, had whispered:”Do you see? No, do you see that? “Sting and Elton Joh n are sitting next to me, I cannot believe in it”

Warhol was made absolutely for nightlife. Since the childhood, he suffered from insomnia and he either worked before dawn in the studio, or disappeared in the nightclubs. “Do you know those plants that grow in the dark? – His friends used to say. – They are whitish, but very persistent and in their own beautiful. And Andy is the same.” He really very rarely appeared on the sun, always under an umbrella and wearing dark glasses: tender skin burnt quickly. Many years later, Andy would make his version of “Dracula”: a lone, pale vampire, lost in a big city and diving into bed with the first ray of sun is an exact copy of the Warhol.

He has appeared on any party, where he could get in. Andy was a born party-goer and later he admitted: “If there was an inauguration of the toilet in New York, I would come there first.” In addition to the entertainment, he had pursued another, very specific aim: as much as possible to be noticed in a public, build up his name as a trademark. For many years, he has succeeded in this as anyone: Warhol was called as a genius of promotion.

Meeting friends, Andy continually complained: nothing comes out, new ideas were necessary. The idea, that brought glory to him, he bought from his friend for $ 50. “What do you like most of all? - She asked Warhol and she answered herself: - Money. So draw a dollar. The idea is to take something simple and all known, for example dollar or a can of soup” - she continued already taking off a note. Warhol smiled: canned tomato soup was his only food for many years.

In 1952, Warhol’s works have been exhibited already in New York, and in 1956, he received an honorary prize of the “Club of art editors”. By this time, the artist was earning about a hundred thousand dollars a year, but he had never stopped dreaming about “high art”.

In 1960, he has created a cult product of Coca-Cola. In 1960-1962, there was a number of paintings depicting cans with Campbell’s Soup (Campbell’s Soup Can).

In the beginning, “portraits” of soup cans were performed in the technique of painting: the Can of Campbell’s Soup (rice-tomato) (Campbell “s Soup Can (Tomato Rice), 1961), and from 1962 – in serigraphy (Thirty-two cans of Campbell’s soup), One hundred cans of Campbell’s soup, two hundred and Campbell’s soup cans -and all in 1962).

In 1963, Warhol moved the studio in downtown Manhattan; it has been painted with silver metallic paint. Studio was called “Factory”. The reigned atmosphere of permissiveness, excesses and creative enthusiasm overthrew the traditional notion of the artist’s studio as a secluded place.

Innovation of Warhol was that he created a “business art”, where he took a role of entrepreneur than worker, assuming executor’s management. “Factory” was organized as a commercial enterprise, it produced up to 80 silk-screen printings per day, and in a year, it produced about a thousand works. The whole team of workers labored here, the foundations of classical art were rejected and were placed upside down here, and in particular, the work on “mass production” of portraits of celebrities was arranged. A person who was portrayed by Warhol, came to his studio, where artist did a series of snapshots with the “Polaroid” camera, then he selected the best picture, increased it, and image was transferred to canvas using the method of silk-screen. Warhol either painted the surface of a canvas until reproduction, or painted in oils on already reproduced image. Warhol often created several versions of one painting.

The artist believed that everybody should seem as “superstars” at the portrait: pictures “Before and after” (series of Advertisements, 1960) provides a standard advertising promise of a new face “by Warhol”, an improved version of yourself, like all advertising of consumer goods.

Warhol’s stormy life was in an atmosphere of general holiday until June 3, 1968, when a mentally unbalanced writer, feminist Valerie Solanas, who had acted in one of his films, seriously injured him with a shot from a pistol. After the attempt, Warhol began to attend constantly the nearest church to confess and receive communion.

Fear of death has impelled him to create numerous works on the theme of a random violent death. Even before the attempt Warhol paid tribute to this subject, he had a subtle understanding of the appeal of disasters. Electric chairs, race riots, suicides, horrific car crashes, funerals, atomic bombs, Jacqueline Kennedy’s mourning, posthumous portraits of Marilyn Monroe and sick Taylor with surprising certainty convey the fear of injury and death that Warhol ever experienced. A brilliant illustration of this is “Catastrophe Tuna” (1963), which reproduces newspaper photos and article about two women who died from poisoning; mortal can of Tuna is also depicted A&P.

Picture of Elizabeth Taylor that Warhol used for a series of paintings “Liz”.

Andy Warhol. Elizabeth Taylor. Private Collection, New York.

Photo of Marilyn Monroe, where Andy made notes for future paintings.

Andy Warhol. Lenin 1987.

Andy Warhol Мао Zedong.

Andy Warhol. Queen Elizabeth

Elvis Presley by Andy Warhol.

Andy Warhol, Mick Jagger, 1975

Self-portrait of Andy Warhol.

Andy Warhol, Life savers (trademark of candy in the form of miniature life buoys).

During five years (from 1963 to 1968), Warhol created hundreds of films, including 472 four-minute black-and-white portrait auditions (Screen Tests), dozens of short films and more than 150 movies with a certain subject (60 of them were published).

Warhol sought to expand the traditional boundaries of film, making first so-called “motionless films”. The best of them were the Empire (Empire) (evening of July 25 - morning, July 26, 1964), where during the eight hours he shot one of the tallest buildings in the world - the Empire State Building illuminated at night with a stationary movie camera in slow-motion shot; and Sleep (Sleep ) (1963), where the image of a sleeping man (the poet John Dzhiorno) was projected on the screen for 5.5 hours or less unchanged in the complete absence of sound.

In the film The outer and inner space (Outer and Inner Spase) (1965) with participation of Edie Sedgwick, Warhol shots an actress, sitting in front of the TV, watching the video in which she was depicted. Doubling, thus, his model, Warhol made the next step - multiplying her image by adding a second screen, similar to what he did in easel painting. Here he first applied the technique of “split screen”, when at the same time two films were projected on the screen, and each of them had its own soundtrack and sound was mixed at display.

Subsequently, the double screen became very important form for his film creativity, such as a commercially successful film Girls from Chelsea (Chelsea Girls), (1966-1967), where black and white picture on one screen, side by side with a color on another and there was a large number of abrupt alternations and general plans.

In 1968 Warhol with Paul Morrissey created the first live-action film Flesh (Flesh)..

In 1980, Warhol decided to create his own television, he developed a draft of a new cable channel (Andy Warhol”s TV) and became its director.

In 1968, Warhol’s first novel A was published, consisting of fragments of recordings of telephone conversations at the factory. In 1969, he founded the magazine “Interview”. In 1975, the philosophy of Andy Warhol appeared (from Э to Ъ and back), and in 1980, a book Popis: Warhol in the 60’s was published. The Andy Warhol Diaries (The Andy Warhol Diaries) were published in 1989, after his death.

Throughout his life, Warhol collected paintings, furniture, jewelry, objects of decorative art. Sated with pop culture, in 1980 he began to buy antiques and decorate his home with masterpieces of classical art. In due course, his 27-room mansion in Manhattan at East 33rd Street was bursting with furniture in the style of Art Deco and Empire, Navajo Indian blankets and pieces of American folklore. After his death, his collection was sold at Sotheby’s.

Andy Warhol died in New York on February 12, 1987, memorial service at St. Patrick’s Cathedral was attended by about 2 thousand people. He was buried in Pittsburgh, and his fortune estimated at one hundred million dollars, the artist bequeathed to his foundation to help art organizations.

Warhol’s name has become virtually pop art synonym. In 1989, the Museum of Modern Art in New York dedicated a full-scale retrospective exhibition. In 1994 Warhol Museum was opened in Pittsburgh, whose collection includes 4258 items, including 800 paintings created in the period from 1940 to 1987, a number of silk-screen printing, graphic works, photographs and sculptures, film and video works.

Andy Warhol, 1965

Portrait of Andy Warhol in the performance of a famous photographer David Lachapelle).

Andy Warhol and Chancellor of Germany Willy Brandt, 1976

Andy Warhol, Jane Forth, Joe Dalessandro

Andy Warhol and legendary football player Pele, 1977

Andy is taking a picture of Mohammad Ali and his daughter, 1977

Running art workers: Andy Warhol, a singer Grace Jones, a showman Bill Boggs, kinder star Manson Reese, an actress Dina Merrill and a photographer Gordon Parks.

Andy Warhol in legendary nightclub Studio 54 with Jerry Hall.

Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat (joint exhibition at the New York Gallery Tony Shafrazi, 1985).

Photo of Andy at work on a series of paintings “Campbell’s Soup”. Gerard Malang helps him.

Such was the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh during the exhibition of Andy Warhol entitled "TotalArt", timed to the 20th anniversary of the death.

Andy Warhol on a cover of Helmut Newton’s Illustrated.

Andy Warhol in 1987, before his death.

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.

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