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Guide To Art History
Famous ArtistsArt Styles and PeriodsArt MediumsAncient Art
Introduction to the Artist Andy Warhol (19281987) By ArtHistory.net
Andy Warhol is often remembered as the father of Pop Art. He was trained as acommercial artist and worked for years for “Vanity Fair.” However, he also made films,screen tests, portraits, paintings, photos, and other works.
Born in 1928 in Pittsburgh, Warhol tells a lot about his essence in portraits. In “ArtPress”(April 2009), Leydier et al published an interview with curator, Alain Cueff, regarding theexhibition “le Grande Monde d’Andy Warhol” (The Grand World of Andy Warhol).Regarding the 2009 exhibit at the Grand Palais in Paris, Alain Cueff notes the importanceof portraits in Warhol’s record.
When many think of Warhol art, they think Pop Art. Cueff notes that the Pop Art part ofhis career was only a small piece, consisting of works created between 1961 and 1963.According to Cueff, “Already, at the end of 1962, his ‘Suicides’ and, in early 1963, his‘Car Crash’ works had broken with the dominant imagery. From this point onwards, rightto the end, the most important thing in his work was the question of the face and thepossibility of representing it.” Cueff goes on to reflect how Warhol portraits (i.e. theMarilyns) suggest a delicate balance between life and death. Beginning in the 1960s,Warhol created prints of famous celebrities, especially Marilyn Monroe, Michael Jackson,Elizabeth Taylor, and Jackie Kennedy Onassis.
Cueff notes Warhol’s process for making silkscreen and paint portraits in the 1960s usedthe powerful concept of negative space. He began with a photograph and cropped it toget the right closeup of the subject’s face. Next, he transferred the photograph imageonto acetate (a clear plastic film). On this film, he corrected the person’s face. Usingcarbon, the facial outline was copied onto canvas. He then traced the image andunderpainted the canvas with bright paint. Finally, he applied the silk screen and blackink by matching the image on the screen to the canvas image. The result was a beautifuldark image with brilliant colors beneath.
More than just a brilliant printer, photographer, and painter, Andy Warhol was a hugepublic icon. It was later in the 1960s after Marilyn’s death that he began to be mobbedin public. When he worked on portraits for celebrities, Warhol got what Cueff calls the“economic question” settled in the early part of a portrait session, rattling off how manythousands a client would be required to pay for the work.
Warhol led an illustrious life, crossing many social boundaries in the changing societystruggling with civil rights and war. He died from the complications of gallbladdersurgery in 1987 at age 59.
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