Andy Warhol: Biography and the Most Important Artwork

Andy Warhol was a renowned and highly paid illustrator and filmmaker who lived and worked in New York even though he began to produce artworks for galleries much later. The following Andy Warhol essay will briefly analyze the biography of the painter. The paper will also examine his major artworks that still remain on top of popularity. Andy Warhol was a bright representative of pop art. He is known for his highly recognizable screenprinted versions of Marilyn Monroe images and newspaper stories that became a part of the contemporary world art. Andy Warhol was born to a poor immigrant family from Eastern Europe, but managed to become a charismatic and influential figure not only in the United States, but internationally. Ultimately, he found his place in the bohemian society. Many people believe that he had great ambitions and managed to bring them to life by entering the world of pop art. His status of a widely popular and iconic painter was solidified by his celebrity and fame as a talented artist.

Early works of Andy Warhol in the sphere of commercial illustration greatly influenced the tastes of the public. His illustrations can be characterized as comic and whimsical, which made them differ from impersonalized and quite cold moods prevalent in the pop art of those times. The screenprinted works of Warhol are associated with much debate as a result of which the artist gained a reputation of a pop art painter back in the 1960s. Among his most renowned works are a series of Death and Disaster and pictures of Marilyn Monroe. These were dare expressions of the artist’s sorrow at various public occasions. Some people perceive them as the first expressions of the artist’s “compassion fatigue” as a way to show that people lose their ability to empathize with various events that happen every day. There is also an opinion that Andy Warhol tried to depict the terrifying events across the world and express the shock of the public.

Throughout the 20th century, various artists became a part of the pop culture, and popular art marked a highly significant stage in the on-going breakdown of high and low artistic forms. The paintings of Andy Warhol have made an important contribution into the development of pop art, and it is debatable that various activities of the later years of his life were as significant for the world of pop art as his previous works. Andy Warhol managed to expand the boundaries between the worlds of high culture and popular art. Andy Warhol was likely to continue creating illustrations in the course of his career, but in 1965, he proclaimed that he retired from the work as a painter in order to focus on creating experimental movies. Despite the fact that his movies were at first neglected and ignored by the public, they soon attracted public interest, and today, Andy Warhol is also known as a renowned filmmaker of that period.

Critics argue that Andy Warhol’s career reached a decline at the end of the 1960s. Most people highly appreciate his early works of art and ignore the activities that he undertook in the later years of his career. This includes movies, publications, painting portraits and attending parties. However, some people still think that these activities are justifiable as they reflect the diversity of interests and open-mindedness of the artist. The most important work of art of Andy Warhol is known as 100 Cans created in 1962. It is considered that the idea of depicting soup cans was suggested to the artist by the owner of an art gallery and the designer of interior Muriel Latow who assumed that Andy Warhol ought to depict the objects that everyone sees every day. The artwork 100 Cans was painted at the beginning of the 1960s as an early example of the repeated depiction of mass produced goods.

It should be noted that Andy Warhol started his painting by projecting an image to the canvas and then tracing it repeatedly in order to produce a two dimensional artwork. Andy Warhol then produced several images of the soup cans that are sometimes perceived as a unified portrayal. The soup can portrayals can be separated into two different categories based on the way of depiction. One of them is derived from the logo of the company whose products have been chosen as an idea for the painting. This type of representation is often called the “Ferus” due to the fact that the artwork had been exhibited in a gallery in Los Angeles bearing the same name. The artwork was made public in the year of its creation and gained wide-scale popularity with numerous admirers of pop art.

In later years of his career, Andy Warhol worked as a printmaker, painter, filmmaker, illustrator and writer. Back in the 1960s, after moving to New York, the most fruitful period of his career started. After moving from his mother’s place where he had no room for working efficiently, he now had a much wider space for creative work. Therefore, the period of the 1960s can be considered the most efficient and productive period for the artist. Throughout this period, his artworks were mainly based on illustrations taken from printed media and reflecting the ideas of graphic design. In order to create wide-scale canvases, Andy Warhol used a projector that helped him to make images larger to fit the entire wall. Later he started drawing images directly on the canvas without using a pencil to trace the paintings underneath. Consequently, his works became more diverse and had a number of features that were peculiar only to Andy Warhol’s creative works.

Between the 1970s and 1980s, Andy Warhol produced abstract works, including his easily recognizable series Oxidation Painting. This work was created through urinating on the canvas, which largely reflected the creative ideas of abstract painters of the past. Andy Warhol died in 1987 after suffering from post-surgery complications. The memorial service took place in New York, and over 2,000 people were present in the Cathedral. Andy Warhol remains a highly acknowledged artist who has made a huge contribution into the world of pop art.

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