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Andy Warhol paintings today are housed in museums, owned by private collectors and released as prints for public consumption. He was born Andrew Warhola in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1928. Though he died in 1987 from complications after gall bladder surgery, his name is still well known today. He’s known as the father of Pop Art, an artistic movement that began to take shape in the 1960s. He also published books and made dozens of short homoerotic films that were often premiered in gay movie theaters.

The famous phrase “15 minutes of fame” was coined by Warhol, who himself was fascinated by celebrities and pop culture. He began his career in the 1960s as a commercial artist and illustrator, and met with resistance when he attempted a career as a serious artist because of his vast commercial work. When his artwork provided the debut of pop art on the West Coast in 1962 in LA, the Andy Warhol paintings on display featured Campbell’s Soup cans, dollars bills, Coke bottles and his very famous brightly-colored portrayal of Marilyn Monroe.

Andy Warhol paintings often depicted celebrities like Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor, and were less paintings than reproductions of their photos in almost Day-Glo colors. His artwork was produced via silk-screening which allowed for mass-production, and allowed anyone in his studio, which he called The Factory, to be able to create it.

Andy Warhol paintings became popular very quickly, but they were also controversial because of the method he used to make them and their subject matter. Some of his artwork featured stylized pictures taken right from the headlines, like a picture of a mushroom cloud and civil rights protesters being attacked by police dogs. Anything in American pop culture was fair game for Warhol’s analysis.

With the rise in popularity of Andy Warhol paintings came public discussions about whether or not pop art was really art at all. And two days before Robert Kennedy’s assassination, one of Warhol’s “factory” workers shot him and an art critic at his studio. Warhol nearly died as a result, and few doubt that the shooting affected his life and work from then on.

In the 1970s, Andy Warhol paintings were often of pop culture celebrities like Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson, John Lennon and Liza Minelli. His work became more popular again in the 1980s even as it was more openly criticized as being shallow and without depth or a true understanding of its subject.

Andy Warhol paintings, though, as many critics realize now, were meant to be not just pieces of art but an accurate reflection of the “surface” pop culture, with what appeared to be merely surface treatments of its subjects. He was also criticized for being in the “business” of art. But he described making money as art, and good business as the best art of all.

Andy Warhol paintings cost thousands of dollars, but his books, prints of his paintings, his avant-garde short films and other memorabilia can be found online in auctions and specialty shops.

Originally posted 2008-12-09 05:00:35. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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