Andy Warhol works. Andy Warhole

Andy (Andrew) Warhol was born in Pittsburgh, USA on August 6, 1928. The Warhol family (real name - Warhola) moved to the States from Slovakia, so Andy is a Rusyn by nationality. First, the father of the family, Andrei, moved to America in search of work, and in 1921 his wife Julia joined him.

Outrageous artist Andy Warhol

Andrew's older sister, Justina, was born and died in infancy, in her parents' homeland. In addition to Justina, the boy had two more older brothers and one younger brother. My father worked in a mine, my mother was a housewife and moonlighted, washing floors, windows and making artificial flowers from scrap materials.

After moving to Oakland (a suburb of Pittsburgh) Andy went to the most ordinary school. The boy grew up as a cheerful, tall boy (in adulthood, Warhol's height was 180 cm), until the disease knocked him down. In the third grade, Andrew fell ill with Sydenham's chorea, which was the result of scarlet fever. With this disease, a person is seized by muscle cramps, which he is unable to control.

From an ordinary naughty boy, Andy instantly turned into a little sufferer, bedridden. He could not go to school, moreover, his former comrades teased him. The boy began to panic fear of hospitals, doctors, injections and everything related to illness.

To entertain and cheer up her son, Julia begins to draw different pictures for him, buys magazines, newspapers. It was then that little Andrew became addicted to drawing: he drew light bulbs, pens, keys, trying to find something new in everyday things and creating his first works of art. The boy fell in love with making collages from newspaper clippings, and then watching stories in moving pictures using a projector.

Andy Warhol in his student years

At the age of 9, Andrew began attending free art courses and even planned to enroll in a local university to teach drawing later. The death of Andrei Warhol's father, who died in an accident in the mine, was a real tragedy for the whole family.

After graduating from high school, Warhol entered the Carnegie Institute of Technology, planning to work in the future as an illustrator in the field of advertising. In 1949, the future king of pop art received a bachelor's degree in graphic design and set out to conquer New York, changing his last name from Warhol to Warhol, and his name from Andrew to Andy.

Carier start

Andy was talented: already in his youth, at the dawn of his career, he managed to gain the attention of large corporations. And he began, like many advertising artists, with the design of shop windows. Also, at the dawn of his career, the young man drew postcards and posters, decorated stands. At this time, Warhol's collaboration with the fashion magazines Harper's Bazaar and Vogue took place.

Real success came to the artist after creating an original advertisement for shoes of the “I. Miller ". Andy drew the shoes with ink and blotted them. Glory brought the young man a decent income, famous brands began to sign contracts with him. However, the master himself considered his success only a stepping stone on the path to "high art", about which he had a very peculiar idea.

In 1952, the first exhibition of Warhol's works was held in New York, and four years later he was admitted to the Art Editors' Club. This period includes the artist's passion for the screen printing method, which he used to create and subsequently reproduce his works. Using matrices based on his own photographs and newspaper photographs, Andy created his most famous paintings, monochrome and color collages with the image, which later became the symbols of Pop Art.

Creation

In 1960, Andy began developing the design of Coca-Cola cans, then - to graphic works, drawing banknotes. Then the stage of "cans" began, which were depicted in a pictorial way and methods of stencil silk-screen printing. Urhall's artistic lens caught Campbell's soups and other utilitarian items.

In 1962, an exhibition of Warhol's best works was held, after which critics attributed Andy to the leading masters of pop art. His work aroused conflicting opinions: some argued that Warhol was a satirist who emphasized the consumer nature of American life, others believed that all his "masterpieces" were exclusively a commercial project, well-organized self-PR aimed at generating income.

Andy Warhol's paintings of the "cans" stage

The artist himself, being a genius master of shocking and self-irony, promoted art not as something extraordinary and deserving of worship, but as creativity aimed at the broad masses. Warhol is considered the most commercially popular artist of the last century. He was commissioned for portraits of Mick Jagger, the Iranian Shah's family and other celebrities, and his most expensive painting, Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster), was sold in 2013 for $ 1,054,000.

In 1963, Andy Warhol bought an abandoned building in Manhattan, where he opened a studio, calling it "The Factory". It was here that Andy's team of assistants multiplied his masterpieces using the silkscreen method, here he shot his films, which, however, few people watched. In the building of the "Factory", parties were constantly held, people of art and journalists, models and other representatives of bohemia gathered.

Andy Warhol's Factory Studio

In 1964, another exhibition of works by its owner was held in the "Factory", where installations from used containers and other utilitarian items were presented. Warhol received not only the title of King of Pop Art, but also the leading representative of modern conceptual art.

Assassination attempt

In June 1968, Andy Warhol was assassinated by the famous feminist and model, Valerie Solanas, who starred in one of his films. Having received three bullets in the stomach, Andy miraculously survived. He suffered clinical death and serious surgery, and the consequences of this incident haunted him for the rest of his life.

Warhol did not file a lawsuit against the girl, but Valeria had already received three and a half years in prison. As for Andy, he faced long-term treatment and wearing a corset, and his fear of doctors, illness and death only intensified. Also, in memory of Andy's assassination attempt and operation, there were terrible scars that the artist did not hesitate to show in front of the cameras.

Andy Warhol shows off his scars

In spite of everything, the artist will continue to create. In 1979, he took up painting a car, and in 1983, at the request of wildlife advocates, created a series of silk-screen prints called Endangered Species. This includes images of the Amur tiger, tree frog, black rhino, Grevy's zebra, giant panda and other endangered animals. These works will be exhibited at the Darwin Museum in Moscow in March 2017.

Personal life

Andy Warhol never advertised his personal life, but he also did not hide his connections, both friendly and loving. For a long time, Warhol was credited with an affair with his muse and girlfriend, model Edie Sedgwick. They were inseparable, dressed the same, dyed their hair, nails, wore similar hairstyles, Edie starred in Andy's films and posed for pictures.

When the couple broke up, rumors circulated about drug addiction of both representatives of pop culture, but there is no official confirmation that Warhol was a drug addict. It is unlikely that Andy and his muse were connected by something other than creativity, because the great artist of our time had many male lovers.

Death

What did Andy Warhol die of? This question worries many fans of his work. The artist died at the age of 58 in Manhattan Hospital after having surgery to remove his gallbladder. The official cause of death is cardiac arrest. It happened on February 22, 1987.

Andy Warhol's legacy

Warhol's philosophy was his close look at life, self-irony and the ability to see the world from a different angle. The artist transferred all this to canvases, sincerely believing that commercial painting has a right to exist, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Andy Warhol and his Endangered Species collection

The style of Andy's paintings can be described as naturalistic pop art, although he often used generalizing pictorial means. So, portraits of celebrities have idealized features and resemble a scant sketch, a squeeze from the personality of a particular character. Bright colors convey the mood of the artist, and the neon tones used by him at the end of his life are downright screaming about unspoken thoughts and feelings.

The description of the master's paintings is a thankless task. It is better to see his canvases once and feel the information message that Andy wanted to convey to the public, rather than study encyclopedias dedicated to his work.

• "America";
• The Andy Warhol Diaries;
• "Philosophy of Andy Warhol (from A to B and vice versa)".

Andy's ideas and talent continue to inspire artists, advertisers, creative people and business people. Thus, a sketch of glasses found in Warhol's archival papers prompted the Retrosuperfuture brand to create a collection of sun-protection accessories. Many fashion brands use various works of the master to create prints for collections of clothes, wallpapers, bags and other designer items.

1. Several films have been made about Andy's work, in others he appears in a cameo role. Films about him - "I shot Andy Warhol", "I seduced Andy Warhol."
2. In the tape "Basquiat", dedicated to the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, the role of Warhol was played by the legendary.
3. The most famous film in our country that mentions Warhol is "What Men Talk About."
4. The famous magazine Interview, in which celebrities interviewed other stars, Andy Warhol created to attend movie premieres.

One of the founders of pop art Andy Warhol has managed to successfully transform his name into a brand. A multifaceted and versatile personality, he has reliably inscribed himself in the history of the development of culture in the second half of the 20th century. What brought him such a resounding success?

Childhood

On August 6, 1928, a fourth child was born in the family of immigrants from Czechoslovakia Warhol, he was named Andrei. Warhol Andy is the creative pseudonym of Andrey Warhola. At the time of his birth, the family had lived in the city of Pittsburgh for several years, so he rightfully took an American name for himself. The family had nothing to do with the creative environment. My father worked all his life in a coal mine, and his mother ran a household.

In the 3rd grade, little Andrei fell ill with Sydenham's chorea. This disease causes involuntary violent movements. As a result, the boy had to spend a whole year at home. It was during this period that he became interested in drawing in order to somehow distract himself from the painful condition. The plot did not have to hiccup for a long time, he just drew what was in front of his eyes: light bulbs, empty packs of cigarettes. It was then that he first began to compose collages from newspaper clippings.

The beginning of the way

Young and ambitious Andy Warhol decided to start his career by entering the Carnegie Mellon Institute of Technology. He easily passed all the exams and began to study commercial illustration and graphic drawing. He turned out to be the best student on the course, but at the same time he could not find contact with teachers and classmates.

The young and talented American artist easily found a job in New York. His first position was shop window designer. During these years, he drew posters, greeting cards, and was engaged in the decor of stands. There was not much success at first.

One friend advised him: if you want to be rich, draw money. Andy took this advice literally and drew one dollar bills. At the same time, work was completed with discount coupons and now legendary images of the Campbell soup. This was the first success. He was quickly noticed and offered cooperation with leading glossy magazines. Andy worked as an illustrator for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar.

Stairs up

One of the most successful people of his time, Andy Warhol, whose biography and work inspires today, began his career with advertising. The first successful project was an advertisement for I. Miller ". It was a real success, contracts fell like rain, and royalties were constantly growing.

Already in 1952, his first exhibition took place. She brought her author even more success. Andy was admitted to the Art Editors Club. During the same period, he created his own corporate identity based on screen printing. By this time, his earnings already exceeded $ 100,000 a year, and he was recognized as one of the most successful people of our time. One of the most expensive orders is the design of the Coca-Cola can.

Templates, templates, templates ...

1962 was a landmark year. At this time, the artist's enthusiasm for stencils increases. He took newspaper clippings or photographs as a basis, the original version was multiplied into many copies. Each of the blanks was colored differently. The American artist had a share of realism. The selection of colors was based on their compatibility.

At one time, the artist was greatly fascinated by tragic photographs. He took plots of murders, disasters, fires. Numerous repetitions intensified the experience, and the unnatural colors only helped to sharpen the focus on the plot.

Andy Warhol continues to work in this technique further. Photo of Marilyn Monroe has inspired the artist for a long time. Marilyn in neon colors has become a kind of pop art icon.

Factory

Warhol Andy brought the philosophy of technology to art. He has said more than once that he would like to become a machine. Thinking the same and looking the same, like machines - this is what humanity should come to. On the basis of this idea, a creative workshop was created, which he called "Factory". To create the necessary surroundings, the entire room was covered with aluminum.

Warhol's "factory" began to gather like-minded people around itself. The working team was replenished with several assistants. Although the general direction was the same, the assistants had some freedom. They independently selected images for new stencils and learned the combination of colors from the meter.

Director

All the same "Factory" became the place where cinema was born. Andy became almost the only known underground filmmaker. His first works introduced the viewer into a hypnotic state. These are the paintings "Dream" and "Empire". In the first, throughout the entire tape, just a sleeping person, the second offers a contemplation of the Empire State Building at night. The picture lasts several hours, while without any musical accompaniment.

In the future, a movie appears with a plot that is mostly erotic in nature. One of the first feature films - "Garbage". The very process of work and the plot of the picture is a parody and a mockery of commercial cinema.

In 1966, Warhol began working with the Velvet Underground group. He makes films and produces several albums. Andy personally designs their first album. The cover features a graphic image of a banana on a blank background. Now it is one of the most recognizable works of the artist.

Magazine

This person is not only an artist, director and producer of a musical group, he is also a magazine publisher. Andy Warhol created Interview magazine. The main goal of the publication is to bring contemporary culture to the masses.

The pages of the magazine published interviews with outstanding creative personalities of their time: musicians, artists, actors, directors. He was one of the first to open the veil of secrecy over the life of famous personalities. Here fame, sex-shocking and delicacy perfectly coexist. But the circle of persons is not limited to pop art and underground, the publication does not adhere to a certain style and works in all directions.

The magazine is still alive and has been published in several countries. He came to Russia in 2011. The new generation diligently observes the traditions laid down by the founder.

Assassination attempt

On July 3, 1968, Warhol, as always, worked in his workshop. One of his actresses came in and fired three shots in the artist's stomach. Then she calmly went out into the street, and confessed to the very first patrol officer. However, she did not feel remorse, and made the attempt on her life quite deliberately. Andy suffered a clinical death, but as a result of a long and difficult operation, doctors managed to save his life. He flatly refused to give indications, having complacently forgiven his model. Solanas escaped with three years in prison and compulsory treatment.

Some believe that Valerie was an ardent feminist. But she herself claims that she tried in this way to attract his attention to herself. Talking to him was like talking to furniture, she argued. The unhappy lover version seems more plausible, all things considered.

Having been on the doorstep of the worlds, the artist becomes more devout, and begins to regularly attend church. In the works of this time, the theme of violent death is often seen.

Personal life

Andy Warhol, whose biography was carefully hidden, still failed to completely free himself from public discussion of his personal life.

He was constantly credited with having a relationship with Edie Sedgwick. He met this sweet girl with a charming smile in 1995. A thin, fragile 17-year-old girl delighted an already eminent artist. He called her his muse more than once.

It is still not clear whether their romantic feelings were connected or not, but one thing is a fact. They appeared everywhere together, as if the twins were dressing alike. To please Andy, the girl even cut her luxurious hair and dyed her platinum blonde. But the idyll did not turn out to be eternal, for some unknown reason, they quarreled right in the restaurant, they were never seen together again.

Many researchers of Andy Warhol's personal life argue that he was gay, and there simply could not be a relationship with Edie. You can learn a lot about life and work from the diaries kept by Andy Warhol: biography, photos, parties and the creative process. The records were kept for 10 years, and after the artist's death they were published.

Artist, director, producer, publisher - Andy Warhol has distinguished himself in almost all directions and left a bright neon brushstroke in the history of contemporary art. His works continue to inspire the younger generation and he raised many followers on his own at the "Factory" of art. An unusual personality with an unusual destiny, a vivid example of a person who independently achieved everything he dreamed of.

Andy Warhol is a legendary man, an artist who turned the world of contemporary art upside down. His work sells for millions of dollars, and his artistic legacy is highly regarded by critics and art connoisseurs around the world.

Currently, the name of this outstanding master has become a true symbol of the whole trend, which is usually denoted by the term "pop art". But what allowed this outstanding American to achieve such impressive recognition? You can understand this only by looking into the past of the great artist.

The early years, childhood and family of Andy Warhol

Our today's hero was born in the city of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) and became the fourth child in a large family of immigrants from Eastern Europe. According to the most reliable data, the birthplace of his family was Slovakia, however, in some sources you can also find references to the artist's Ukrainian roots.

The parents of the future artist moved to the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century. Andy's father worked in a coal mine, and his mother was a housewife.

Love for drawing and fine arts came to our Andy in early childhood. In the third grade, the future famous artist fell ill with Sydenham's chorea and remained bedridden for about a year. This syndrome affects the muscles and leads to uncontrolled movement of the limbs. During this period, he began to "kill time", painting all kinds of portraits, landscapes, and also composing collages from old newspaper clippings.

It is very noteworthy that already in those days, Warhol began to draw the most ordinary objects of the surrounding world - lighted lamps, cigarette packs, key chains and much more. Subsequently, the artist admits that it was during this period that the formation of his corporate style began, which remained with him until the end of his days and brought him great success and fame.

After graduating from high school, Andy entered the Carnegie Mellon Institute of Technology, where he began studying graphics and the basics of commercial illustration. According to some authoritative sources, during his college years, Andy was one of the most talented students in his group. However, academic success coexisted with an obvious inability to find contact with peers and teachers.

Biography of Andy Warhol

After receiving his diploma (specialty - graphic design), our young Andy moved to New York, where he got a job as a window designer. During this period, he painted advertising posters, holiday cards, and was also involved in general decoration of stands. Some time later, he began to fruitfully collaborate with the famous glossy magazines Harper's Bazaar and Vogue, where he worked as an illustrator.

Career as an artist Andy Warhol

The first success came to the young artist already in 1950, when he profitably used artistic blots when creating an advertisement for shoes “I. Miller ". After that, he began to often receive lucrative contracts. His fees grew steadily.

In 1952, Andy held his first full-scale exhibition, which instantly brought him a huge success. In 1956, Warhol was successfully admitted to the Art Editors' Club, and some time later he began to create his first paintings based on the screen printing method.

By this time, the talented artist was earning about one hundred thousand dollars a year, remaining, according to this indicator, one of the most successful authors of his time.

In the second half of the fifties, he first began to take a great interest in photography, but the visual arts still remained above all for him.

In 1960, Andy Warhol designed the Coca-Cola cans, which earned him several more large checks. During this period, our today's hero began to create a series of paintings about the products of mass culture, which very soon became his "calling card".

An episode about Andy Warhol from the movie "What Men Talk About"

Between 1960 and 1962, the artist presented to the public a series of works depicting cans of Campbell soup. This was followed by a series of works "Green Bottles of Coca-Cola".

The works of the early sixties were exhibited at the Stabl art gallery and instantly became very popular. During this period, someone called the artist's paintings a reflection of the culture of mass consumption, and someone simply spoke about the artist's extraordinary ability to find aesthetics in ordinary things.

In 1963, Andy Warhol bought an old abandoned building in New York and organized something like his own workshop here. This place received the name "Factory" and very soon became a springboard for the creation and presentation of the works of the famous author. Having hired a team of young artists, the renowned master commissioned them to recreate their own works, thus making art a product of mass consumption.

In the mid-sixties, Warhol began to get involved in alternative art forms. He creates his works from cardboard, old cans, packs of powder. In addition, during this period, the talented author began to shoot his first films.

However, it was far from always possible to attribute these works to the field of cinematography. At present, the artist's short cinematic sketches are often referred to the sphere of the same alternative art, since many of the master's films did not even have a clear plot.

The assassination attempt and the last years of Andy Warhol's life

On June 3, 1968, feminist and former Warhol model Valerie Solanas entered the artist's Factory and shot him several times in the stomach. The artist suffered clinical death and a long operation, which nevertheless helped save his life. After recovering from his injuries, he refused to testify against his former model, and therefore Valerie received only three years in prison.

After the attempt on Andy's life, Warhol changed a lot. He often painted works related to death in one way or another. He was greatly influenced by the death of Marilyn Monroe, which resulted in the writing of his famous painting dedicated to the actress. Subsequently, the works of this period will be highlighted by art connoisseurs as a separate stage in the author's work.

Serving art in the artist's life continued until the end of his days. In 1987, the great and incomprehensible Andy Warhol died in his sleep from cardiac arrest. At that time he was fifty-eight years old.

Andy Warhol's personal life

For a long time, rumor attributed to the great artist an affair with his girlfriend and muse Edie Sedgwick. They were halves of one whole - they dressed the same way, dyed their hair the same color, appeared everywhere together.

Andy and his muse met in 1965, when Edie first came to the artist's "Factory". She starred in several of his films, and although they were often not available to a wide range of viewers, they began to write about the model more often in the press.

"I Seduced Andy Warhol" (Movie Trailer)

However, this relationship at one point broke off for an unexplained reason, presumably due to Eddie's excessive drug use.

Andy Warhol has always kept his personal life a secret. Although most researchers agree that the great artist was gay, this is not known for certain.

If you have ever seen Andy Warhol's paintings, you will never forget them. Somewhere in the deep shelves of your subconscious memory, there will be memories of these unusual, very vivid pictures. But not everyone who has seen his canvases knows who Andy Warhol is.

So, let's try to plunge into the wonderful world of the Artist and even, if you don't figure out his personality, then at least feel the disturbing membranes of his soul.

It is banal to talk about where he was born, studied, lived. But at least brief information is needed. Three countries consider an extraordinary artist as their own - America, Slovakia, Ukraine. But, probably, one thing can be said for sure - the creative legacy of Andy Warhol belongs not to a particular country, but to the world.

Andy (Andrei Vargola) was born in Pistburg to a Rusyns family from the Carpathians. His mother Julia Vargola was then 36 years old. The father of the future artist worked in a construction company. Andy was the youngest child, the family still had two older sons. Between the ages of 4 and 8, Andy suffered a number of serious illnesses, among which the most severe was the St. Vitus Dance. Because of this, often in the summer, suffering from seizures, Andy was forced to spend his days in bed, playing with carved dolls and listening to the radio. Mother drew various pictures for Andy, which instilled in her son a taste for drawing. A little later, from her own earnings, Julia bought her son a small movie projector, with which he could watch stories in pictures right on the wall of his room.

That's how, as a child, Andy's creativity slowly began to develop. From the age of nine, the boy began to attend free art courses. After graduation, the young man entered the Carnegie Institute of Technology in the department of drawing and design. There, the student had an active life position - he attended parties, symphony orchestras, was interested in ballet.

The artist's work is postmodern, unrestrained, free.

The Naked King, Fashion and Film

What is the secret of Warhol's creativity? Why are these supposedly simple paintings still known all over the world? His work: bold, shocking, seizes the moment, contains layering, underground, three-dimensional, created in the style of film. There is such a theory: draw something crazy, incomprehensible and you will become famous. This is the principle of the "naked king", when no one understands the subtext, the "message" that is embedded in the work. And due to misunderstanding, it is considered high, incredible, masterpiece. This is typical of Malevich's Black Square. But this principle does not apply to Warhol's work.

Andy lived for fashion, pop culture and cinema. Even in his youth, the artist created sketches of futuristic, very bright shoes with heels. These were design ideas. The main highlight was the curved lines, by which connoisseurs actually recognized the "Warhol style" in design. Fashion was his passion. Perhaps the artist perceived the reality around him through the subconscious glasses of fashionable glasses. He was homosexual and did not hide it. Therefore, it was even easier to understand fashion trends. It was embedded in his chromosomes, in his soul.

Cinematography was also an important facet of its essence. Film has become a means of comprehending the world, understanding reality. Andy kept his finger on the pulse of life. This is evidenced by his paintings: "The Electric Chair", "Racist Riots", "Soup Kens" and many other paintings that reflected the current reality. He presented events in photographs with an unusual combination of colors, with blurred lines. Not the way everyone saw it. The artist, as it were, captures our attention, makes us think about the phenomena of everyday life, try to understand them in a different way. And it is possible to be horrified. The electric chair, racial intolerance, convenience foods - everything was characteristic of the then American society. And ordinary people did not pay much attention to this, they were worried about their own life, their own problems. Andy appealed to everyone's heart and it was easy to recognize his message. He created mass and elite art at the same time.

Honest and painted pop stars

Still, the most famous paintings by Andy are portraits of pop stars, made in his usual technique of "coloring photos". The most famous of this series are images of Merlin Monroe and Elvis Presley. The artist, as it were, looks into the soul of the people he depicts. And if you look closely, you can feel the whole tragedy of the personality of Merlin Monroe. Brightly painted, with a pink face, she looks miserable. The truth is hidden in the eyes. They look out from under their eyelashes, somehow embarrassed, confused. Perhaps Merlin never found the meaning of life. And this powder, excessive paint on the face is just a mask behind which the true essence of a star is hidden, which no one wanted to see. It's the same with the Elvis image. It is made in darker tones, in grays. Often the image is half erased. The singer pointed a pistol at the viewer, his face distorted. Perhaps Elvis wants to defend himself?

15 frames of a "live" portrait

It is not surprising that with such a perception of the world, the artist created films as well. And this movie also amazed the world! For example, portraits of people. Andy shot a motionless person for three minutes, and then edited in such a way that there were 15 frames per second. The image turned out to be slow-motion, somehow surreal. Thus, the person can be understood, these were "living" portraits. Or a monotonous frame for 8 hours. Everything was here: color, movement of clouds, space, even an airplane flew by. But the camera didn't move. We just watched a piece of the world, how the morning begins in this place, the day goes by, and twilight falls. It was a spell of reality. Not everyone managed to understand this movie, this is a real art house. But now, Andy is being compared to the Impressionists. When Monet also "played with color" when he painted the facade of the Rouen Cathedral. He painted the structure at different times of the day. And each time the picture came out different.

Andy Warhol is not just an artist, he is an art himself. He was not afraid of experiments, crazy plans, he was not afraid to show himself to the world. The artist is not just the embodiment of postmodernism, he did a lot to develop this direction. And let someone say that his work is abnormal, immoral, uninteresting. But those who are not afraid to break stereotypes, to lay a new foundation for art, usually remains in the memory of generations. Standard, stereotyped, correct is not art, it is just a surrogate that socialist realism imposed on us. human potential has no boundaries, because we all draw inspiration from the vast depths of space, with which we are actually connected. The "collective unconscious" is in each of us, but not everyone can fully hear this voice.

WARHOL ANDY

Real name - Andrzej Warhola

(born in 1928 - died in 1987)

Famous American painter, sculptor, designer, director, producer, writer. One of the creators of pop art, the face of American culture in the second half of the 20th century.

One of the brightest and most controversial figures in American pop culture of the second half of the 20th century, an extraordinary personality and creator of the pop art direction, Andy Warhol, called his activity “production” and “fiction”, and himself a “machine” and dreamed that everything people thought the same, and at the same time wanted everyone on the planet to become famous "for at least 15 minutes." He elevated popular culture to the rank of art and became a part of it himself, because the public perceived him not as a person, but rather as part of his own works. Warhol had a tremendous impact on world culture in the second half of the 20th century. His life and work became a confirmation of his famous phrase: "Art does not change anything, it itself changes, inevitably moving towards the end." He made a business out of art and became fabulously rich.

Unfortunately, there is no exact information regarding the date of birth of Andrzej Warhola. Sources name not only different dates: August 6 and September 28, but also different years - 1927, 1928 and 1930. Andrzej was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in a family of poor immigrants from Czechoslovakia. His father died when Andrzej was 13 years old. The boy grew up withdrawn and shy, the most terrible test for him was the school, where everyone laughed at the skinny blond Andrzej. All the time, free from the hated stay at school, the boy spent at home, and the mother, fearing for her weak youngest son, was afraid to let him go far away from her. Andrzej developed a passion quite early on - he made collages from color pictures of old magazines and comics - he cut, glued, and finished painting.

After graduation, Andrzej studied design at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, and later, by some miracle, he managed to enter the Faculty of Design at California Technical University. It was a prestigious educational institution, and our hero looked rather pitiful there against the background of children from wealthy families. He almost did not communicate with anyone and cultivated his complexes, although at the university they did not laugh at him, as at school, here they rather felt sorry for him. Soon it became clear to the teachers that Warhola is very talented, and they began to help him: fellow students did assignments in the English language (Andrzej himself at that time could not put two words on paper), the professors fought not to be kicked out of the university when instead of classical models, he painted beggars or children picking their noses.

After graduating from university, Andrzej Warhola went to New York - the center of America's cultural life and fashionable art galleries. He changed his name to a more euphonious for the United States - Andy Warhol, rented a cheap studio and began to pound the doorsteps of advertising agencies and editorial offices of popular publications. Already his first works in advertising began to enjoy great success, they were bright and memorable - Warhol perfectly caught the spirit of the times.

Another Warhol talent was revealed in New York. Previously, always closed and unsociable, he began to attract people to him like a magnet. As if compensating for the lack of communication and entertainment in his youth, he became an active party-goer, did not miss a single presentation, exhibition or party, constantly disappeared in nightclubs, which did not prevent him from working during the day, since Andy suffered from insomnia since childhood. Warhol later admitted to his pathological craving for parties: "If there was a grand opening of the toilet in New York, I would be there first." This love of appearing in public places played into his hands: it was difficult to imagine the best advertisement for the artist. By this time, his image had already been finally formed - unchanging dark glasses, a gray wig (Warhol went bald very early) and an expensive suit, splattered with paints. During the daytime, he rarely left his studio - his thin fair skin was instantly burned, and if he went out into the sun, it was only with an umbrella and dark glasses.

Andy Warhol quickly became the highest paid advertiser in New York. However, this state of affairs did not quite suit him, because Warhol believed that working in advertising, where only colleagues in the shop knew you, would not achieve world fame. At this time in America, a new direction was emerging - pop art, it blurred the lines between "high" and "mass" art, anything could become a painting object - advertising, newspaper clippings, cartoon characters. All this reminded Warhol of his childhood experiments with collages, with which the boy once entertained his family and the whole street. And already an adult Andy again began to experiment in search of a new method that would help him achieve his goal of becoming famous. In 1956, Warhol went on a journey: he visited India, Egypt, France, Italy, Great Britain and many other countries, where he studied local culture and art. The impression he voiced from this trip is considered an example of shocking: “The most beautiful in Rome is McDonald's. The most beautiful thing in Paris is McDonald's. The most beautiful thing in London is McDonald's. ” From the point of view of mass art, this is indeed the case. Palaces, temples and monuments of the Old World are elite art, presented in single copies, and McDonald's is a single concept, the pinnacle of mass character and standardization.

During his world travel, Warhol finally asserts in the idea that contemporary art should be mass and commercial, and upon returning to America, he again takes up canvas.

After lengthy attempts and experiments with the writing technique, a successful, as it turned out later, idea was unexpectedly thrown to him by an acquaintance, who said: “What do you love the most? Money. So draw the dollar. The point is to take something simple and familiar to everyone - the same dollar or a can of soup. " Monumental canvases with a can of Campbell tomato soup, created by the artist in 1962, became Andy Warhol's trademark for many years and made him truly famous. Newspapers and critics were choking with delight, the prices of his works skyrocketed, and the artist himself wondered how naive this world was, how simple everything turned out to be. The art critic Robert Hughes described the success of paintings with Campbell soup very accurately: “Painting a tin can in itself does not mean doing real art. But what remains true at Warhol is that he raised the level of soup production in a tin can to the level of creating paintings, giving them the character of mass production - consumer art imitates the process, as well as the appearance of consumer culture. Another consumer product, immortalized in Warhol's paintings, was "Coca-Cola". The artist explained his choice by the fact that "everyone drinks it - both the president of the country, and Liz Taylor, and the beggar who knows that his Coca-Cola is no worse than that of the president." One day at an exhibition that featured paintings of Campbell's soup, among other works, a New York critic sarcastically told Andy: "If you can draw an advertisement for soup, why not draw an advertisement for beer?" Warhol quite seriously agreed with him, and the very next day the exhibition featured a "portrait" of a beer can. By the way, the dollar, which his friend spoke about, who suggested the idea with the soup, Warhol also depicted ...

Around Warhol was now constantly spinning a huge number of people, and soon the artist opened a large studio, christening it "Factory", which later became a symbol of new art. Young artists, actors and just people who dreamed of becoming famous were crowded in the rooms of the "Factory". They were attracted by Warhol's unusual aura, they worshiped him, sang praises and were ready to fulfill his every whim, and this meant only one thing - Andy Warhol became a living idol of pop culture. Andy got his inspiration from his interactions with people who visited the Factory or lived there. Because of this, he made a huge number of enemies for himself, often using other people's ideas or including in his films recordings with frank stories of people to whom he promised not to show this to anyone. It was the "Factory" and its visitors that helped in many ways to make art mass, as Warhol wanted, works appeared in thousands, in a sense of the word it was a real factory. The artist proudly declared: "At our" Factory "every day a film, a painting, a sculpture, a lot of drawings, a lot of photographs are created."

For five years, from 1963 to 1968, Warhol was actively involved in, in his own words, "filmmaking." During this period, he created several hundred films, starting with a mass of three-minute samples and portraits and ending with 150 full-length films. Andy Warhol's works did not fit into the existing cinematic framework, they were an explosive mixture of avant-garde, Hollywood and underground cinema, including elements of pornography, theater, minimalism and portrait. The length of these films ranged from three minutes to twenty-five hours. Only a few of Warhol's hundreds of films were understood and accepted by the audience. Often there was only one actor on the screen for several hours. “I started making my films with one actor. For several hours he smoked, sat, ate, slept. I did this because I realized that the audience goes to the cinema mainly to see their favorite actor. So I gave them this opportunity, ”said Warhol. In the 1964 film "Empire", the camera captures the image of the famous New York skyscraper Empire State Building for eight hours. We can say that Andy Warhol's films are the opposite of commercial feature films, in a sense they are "anti-films" that have no analogues in the history of world cinema.

By 1968, Warhol had become a recognized master of pop art, and his exhibitions were held all over the world. In America, he was the most popular artist, his paintings were sold at unimaginable prices. Andy became famous for his scandalous interviews, in one of which, to everyone's surprise, he said: “I have never been touched by my own work. I make cheap scribbling ... "In Los Angeles in the spring of that year, at the opening of a large retrospective of his work, Warhol was awaited by a crowd who chanted:" We love Andy Warhol! " The success of the exhibition was tremendous. And at the same time, the artist's exhibitions themselves could not be called purely artistic, here the interior, and light, and all kinds of installations played a role. He could show at the exhibition piles of cardboard boxes randomly scattered in the corners of the rooms - and nothing more, but the exhibition was still a huge success.

All in the same 1968, Warhol was brought the script for the film by a radical feminist, the only member of her own "Society for the Destruction of Men" Valerie Solanas. The artist considered the script too "dirty" and refused to shoot a film based on it. When the girl appeared several times at the "Factory" demanding to return the manuscript, Andy each time brushed her aside and asked to come back later. One day, the unbalanced Valerie's patience ran out. A couple of days after Warhol returned from Los Angeles, she reappeared at the Factory, went up to Warhol, took a revolver out of a paper bag and fired three shots at the artist, wounding another man from Andy's entourage. Then Solanas calmly called the elevator and drove off. On the street, she turned to the first policeman she met with the words: "I shot Andy Warhol." Later, these words will be called a film about her and this dark story.

At the hospital, doctors pronounced the artist's clinical death. Few thought that the physically weak Warhol could survive three bullet wounds, but he survived. It took a whole year to recover, and for the rest of his life the artist was forced to wear a corset due to the fact that the doctors unsuccessfully sewed his abdominal muscles. A photo of Richard Avedon, which captures Andy Warhol's naked torso with a disfigured stomach with terrible scars, went around the magazines all over the world.

After the assassination attempt, Andy, who had almost got rid of his complexes, again began to fear people. He began to constantly wear a bulletproof vest, tightened face control at the entrance to the "Factory" and did not go outside after eight in the evening. “After the shot I’m like in a dream. I don’t understand anything. I don’t understand if I’m alive or dead, ”Warhol often repeated. Now the artist was very reluctant to give interviews, he could only answer "yes" or "no" to all questions; sometimes asked reporters what they would like to hear from him, and gave permission to publish their answer as his own. Warhol did not like to talk about himself at all, he often answered such questions: “If you want to know everything about Andy, watch my films, my paintings. This is all I am. There is nothing else. " Warhol began to avoid appearing in public, he often sent a person similar to him outwardly to lecture on his own behalf.

Andy Warhol did not hide his unconventional orientation, but he did not shout about it at all intersections. He did not have high-profile and scandalous novels, like other stars, he preferred to be an observer, not a participant: “Love fantasies are much better than carnal love. It’s a very exciting experience to never do this. ”

Andy Warhol's literary activity was also peculiar. In 1968, his first book was published, entitled "A", which consisted of recordings of telephone conversations at the "Factory". The next book appeared a few years later, it was called The Philosophy of Andy Warhol. From A to B and vice versa. " Its main topic was the reasoning that art is the process of making money. Since 1969, under the direction of Warhol, the famous magazine Interview was published in the United States, in which the stars interviewed other stars.

Since 1970, the most successful period in the work of Andy Warhol began - he became a silk-screen printing method to create portraits of celebrities. His portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Liza Minnelli, Jimmy Carter, Elvis Presley, Elizabeth Taylor and Mao Zedong have been around the world. One critic called Warhol's portrait of Marilyn Monroe the 20th-century Gioconda. Now it was possible to speak not only about the American, but also about the world fame of the artist. Warhol's favorite method is silk-screen printing - a printing technique, it made the creation of paintings not a long painstaking process, as was always considered to be, but truly mass "production". Warhol used only bright, pure colors, without any midtones, shadows and nuances, he deprived his work of realism and life, they do not breathe, these are just prints, images, even more lifeless than on advertising posters, and their creator explains with satisfaction: "I love everything artificial." He eliminated the difference between an original and a copy, since silk-screening meant the creation of an almost unlimited number of prints. The artist believed that it was precisely this kind of art - banal and replicated - that the modern world needed, and, judging by its crazy popularity, he was right in many ways. In addition, the further, the more the public was interested in the personality of Warhol, and not in his works, Andy's name became more a trademark than the name of an artist.

In the 80s of the XX century, Warhol again worked a lot in advertising. In 1980 he designed and implemented his own cable television channel and became its director. In the same year, the artist's next book "Popism: Warhol in the 60s" was published. During this period, he finishes working with images of the stars and takes up picturesque masterpieces of the past - his series "Mona Lisa" and "The Last Supper" are published.

Since the second half of the 80s of the XX century, Andy Warhol's health has noticeably deteriorated, this circumstance was aggravated by the fact that the artist was terrified of doctors and refused to receive treatment. In the winter of 1987, his gallbladder inflammation worsened, and Warhol was forced to go to the hospital for a simple operation. The surgery was successful, but the next day the nurse found the artist dead in bed. He died in his sleep from a heart attack. It happened on February 22, 1987. Warhol was buried in his native Pittsburgh. On April 1, a memorial service at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York was attended by about two thousand people.

When, after the artist's death, his friends and lawyers opened Warhol's apartment, where he did not allow anyone during his lifetime, they found there a huge number of a wide variety of things that were in a terrible mess. Among them were many unpacked parcels of purchases, numerous bottles of perfume and Indian incense, jewelry, masterpieces of world painting in originals mixed with outright rubbish from junk shops. Andy Warhol spent millions of dollars on purchases, but did not show his acquisitions to anyone. He also kept money in his apartment in cookie boxes, not trusting the banks. Warhol's variegated collection was sold at the famous Sotheby's for more than $ 25 million. This money, according to Andy's will, was transferred to the foundation he created to help art organizations.

A few years after the death of the famous artist, the Andy Warhol Museum was opened in his native Pittsburgh, which contains many of his works.

It is still not clear how this quiet and strange man, who always hid his true appearance under a wig and huge dark glasses, could become the face of his time and so successfully combine art and business. The obituary, published in The New York Times, gave perhaps the most accurate and comprehensive definition of the Andy Warhol phenomenon: "The best work of Warhol is Warhol himself." Indeed, it is impossible to appreciate his works without knowing anything about their creator, the image of this strange and shy man is inseparable from his works, and vice versa. Another, very accurate definition of Andy Warhol's work belongs to rock musician Mick Jagger, the leader of the Rolling Stones, who, in the prime of his popularity, also appeared on the canvas of the famous artist: “If you want to know what was the most popular at one time or another, look what Warhol was painting at that time. " And it is true. Andy was very sensitive to the trends of the times and instantly reflected the preferences of the masses in his works - whether it be Campbell's tomato soup or Marilyn Monroe, Coca-Cola or Elizabeth Taylor.

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