Andy Warhol works. Andy Warhol: paintings

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

So, let's try to plunge into the wonderful world of the Artist and even, if not unravel his personality, then at least feel the disturbing membranes of his soul.

It is trite to talk about where he was born, studied, lived. But at least brief information is needed. Three countries consider the extraordinary artist theirs - America, Slovakia, Ukraine. But, probably, one thing can be unmistakably said - the creative legacy of Andy Warhol does not belong to a specific country, but to the world.

Andy (Andrei Vargola) was born in Pistburg to a Rusyn family from the Carpathians. His mother Yulia Vargole 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. From the age of 4 to 8, Andy suffered a number of serious illnesses, among which the most severe was the “St. Vitus Dance” disease. Because of this, more 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 a variety of pictures for Andy, which instilled in her son a taste for drawing. A little later, from her own earnings, Yulia bought her son a small film projector, with which he could watch stories in pictures right on the wall of his room.

So, as a child, Andy's creativity began to slowly develop. From the age of nine, the boy began attending 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, outrageous, seizing the moment, contains layers, 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 because of misunderstanding, it is considered high, incredible, masterpiece. This is typical for Malevich's Black Square. But this principle does not apply to Warhol's work.

Andy lived in 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 even the reality around the artist perceived through the subconscious glasses of fashionable glasses. He was a homosexual and did not hide it. Therefore, it was even easier to understand fashion trends. It was in his chromosomes, in his soul.

Cinematography also constituted an important facet of its essence. The 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: "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 possibly horrified. The electric chair, racial intolerance, semi-finished products - everything was characteristic of the then American society. And ordinary people did not pay much attention to this anymore, they were worried about their own lives, their own problems. Andy appealed to everyone's heart and it was not difficult to recognize his "message". He created mass and elite art at the same time.

Honest and "painted" pop stars

But still, Andy's most famous paintings are portraits of pop stars, made in his usual "photo coloring" technique. The most famous of this series are images of Marilyn 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 Marilyn Monroe. Brightly painted, with a pink face, she looks miserable. The truth is hidden in the eyes. They look from under the eyelashes somehow embarrassed, bewildered. 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 the star is hidden, which no one wanted to see. The same with the image of Elvis. It is made in darker colors, in gray. Often the image is half erased. The singer pointed a gun at the viewer, his face is 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 also created cinema. And this movie also amazed the world! For example, portraits of people. Andy shot a motionless person for three minutes, and then edited it in such a way that there were 15 frames per second. The image was slow, somehow surreal. Thus, a person can be understood, these were “living” portraits. Or a monotonous frame for 8 hours. Everything was here: color, the movement of clouds, space, even the plane flew by. But the camera didn't move. We just watched a piece of the world, how exactly in this place the morning begins, the day passes, twilight falls. It was the 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 building at different times of the day. And every 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 ideas, he was not afraid to show himself to the world. The artist is not just the embodiment of postmodernity, he has done a lot to develop this trend. And let someone say that his work is abnormal, immoral, uninteresting. But those who are not afraid to break stereotypes, lay a new foundation for art, usually remain in the memory of generations. Standard, stereotyped, correct is not art, it's just a surrogate that socialist realism imposed on us. there are no limits to human potential, because we all draw inspiration from the boundless depths of the cosmos, with which we are actually connected. The "collective unconscious" is in each of us, but not everyone can fully hear this voice.

(Eng. Andy Warhol, August 6, 1928 - February 22, 1987, USA) - founder of Interview magazine, creator and producer of the rock band The Velvet Underground & Nico, artist, photographer, director, journalist, collector. A cult figure in the history of the pop art movement and contemporary art.

Biography and career

Childhood and early years

Andy Warhol (birth name - Andrey Warhola) was born on August 6, 1928 in Pittsburgh, USA. He grew up in a religious family of Slovak émigrés Julia Zawatski and Andrei Warhola Sr., along with two brothers, John and Paul. When Andy was 9 years old, his parents gave him a camera. Subsequently, he recalled that "the shooting process delighted him."

At the age of six, Andy Warhol attended free preparatory art classes at the Carnegie Institute of Technology.

When Andy was in third grade, he contracted scarlet fever, which led to chorea, a disorder of the nervous system that causes involuntary movements of the limbs. He developed a fear of doctors and hospitals. The boy did not attend school for months and subsequently became an outcast in the class. During periods when Andy was bedridden, he painted, collected photographs of movie stars, made collages from newspaper clippings.

In 1942, Andy Warhol's father died of peritonitis.

In 1945, Andy graduated from the Shenley School and entered the Carnegie Institute of Technology. Andrei Varhola Sr. saved money for education during his lifetime.

Warhol graduated from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1949 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. In the same year he moved to New York.

Carier start

In 1949, Andy Warhol designed the windows of Joseph Horn's department store. At the end of the same year, he began working as an illustrator in magazines,. He has designed advertising campaigns for various postcard designs and cover designs for Columbia Records.

In the early 1950s Andy Warhol earned about $100,000 a year. In 1952, he moved his mother from Pittsburgh to New York. That same year, Warhol received his first Graphic Arts Award from the Art Editors Club. In 1952 there was a small exhibition of Andy Warhol. It included fifteen drawings for the works of Truman Capote, which became bestsellers.

In 1959, Andy Warhol presented his work at the Solomon Guggenheim Museum.

In 1959 - 1963 Andy Warhol rented the top floor of a building located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Here he worked, organized exhibitions and parties.

In 1961, Andy Warhol began to paint and create pop art illustrations.

The heyday of creativity

In the 1960s Andy Warhol directed over 300 experimental films. They were characterized by the absence of a plot and were successful only in narrow circles. Many films were erotic, some reproduced a certain action from a person's life. The most famous paintings were considered "Kinoproby", "Vinyl", "Chelsea Girls".

“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 that opportunity."

In 1961, Andy Warhol began producing Green Coca-Cola Bottles and Campbell Soup Cans. He used the technique of silk-screen printing, with the help of which it was possible to endlessly recreate the same images. Andy Warhol explained a large number of images of Coca-Cola bottles as follows: "everyone consumes this product - the president of the country, Elizabeth Taylor and the beggar who knows that his Coca-Cola is no worse than the president's." Monotonous repetition became a characteristic feature of his work - photographs and drawings depicting Coca-Cola bottles were replaced by portraits of Elizabeth Taylor, Elvis Presley, Audrey Hepburn and others. Andy Warhol's works became world famous as an art object of the era of mass consumption.

“Painting a tin can is not in itself a real art. But what remains authentic about Warhol is that he raised the level of production of soup in a tin can to the level of creating paintings, giving them a mass character. In his works, he reproduced the image of consumer culture.

Robert Hughes, art historian, artist

In 1962, after the death of Marilyn Monroe, Andy Warhol created the famous Marilyn Diptych. Using screen printing, he applied to canvas 50 identical images of the actress from a 1953 photograph taken on the set of the film Niagara. The left side of the diptych was a canvas with 25 colorful images of Marilyn Monroe, the right side imitated blurred negatives. There was an opinion that Andy Warhol associated the contrasting parts of the canvas with the life and death of the actress.

In 1963, Andy Warhol bought a building in Manhattan, equipped it as a studio and named it "Factory". Here he created about 2000 paintings. Many extraordinary people gathered at the Factory, such as Edie Sedgwick, Holly Woodlaw, Viva, Gerard Malanga, who helped him in creating new projects.

In 1963, Andy Warhol presented the Five Deaths series of works, united by the theme of death and catastrophes.

In 1965, Andy Warhol showed his work at exhibitions in New York, Paris, Milan, Turin, Essen, Stockholm, Buenos Aires and Toronto.

In 1966, Andy Warhol created the rock band The Velvet Underground & Nico.

Assassination attempt on Andy Warhol

On June 3, 1968, there was an assassination attempt on Andy Warhol. Valerie Solans, a feminist who worked at the Factory, shot him 3 times in the stomach. After that, she approached the traffic controller on the street, held out a gun and said: “The police are looking for me. I shot Andy Warhol. He had too much control over my life." Warhol did not testify against her. For "premeditated assault with intent to cause damage", the court sentenced Valerie Solanas to 3 years in prison and compulsory treatment in a psychiatric hospital. Andy Warhol had damaged all the internal organs, until the end of his life he was forced to wear a bandage. Subsequently, he took a picture in which the artist showed the scars from the operation.

Interview Magazine

In 1969, Andy Warhol founded the magazine . Initially, the publication was called inter / View, which in translation meant "between opinions." The magazine was completely dedicated to the theme of cinema. The publication published interviews with movie stars and directors, as well as reviews and reviews.

In the mid 1970s. the magazine's area of ​​interest also included materials on fashion, art, music, television and other aspects of pop culture. Texts about, models and other celebrities of the fashion industry began to appear regularly in Interview. The peculiarity of the publication was that it was not journalists who interviewed the stars, but other stars. Anjelica Huston spoke with Mae West, Bianca Jagger - with, Michael Jackson interviewed the leader of the Neptunes group, Andy Warhol - with Truman Capote. The idea of ​​"creating an atmosphere of relaxed heart-to-heart conversation" belonged to the founder of the publication, it became the hallmark of the magazine. Interview published pictures created by Francesco Scavullo, etc.

Other Andy Warhol projects

In 1969, Andy Warhol created the film Flesh, and in 1970 he released the film Garbage. In both works there was an element of parody of commercial cinema. Between 1966 and 1968, Andy Warhol made several films featuring the Velvet Underground. He also produced several albums of this group and designed the cover of the first disc.

In the 1970s Andy Warhol began to paint portraits to order. He created images of John Lennon, Michael Jackson, Mohammed Ali, Jane Fonda, Marlon Brando, Grace Jones, Mao Zedong, Liza Minnelli, and others. Andy Warhol shot the customer on a Polaroid, selected the best photo, enlarged it, and transferred the image to canvas using the silkscreen method . After that, he painted the canvas with oil paints.

In 1973, Andy Warhol began to collect the trappings of his daily life - letters, newspapers, souvenirs, clothes, postcards, etc. - and put them in boxes. He called these collections "Time Capsules".

By 1987 there were 610 boxes. The Time Capsule is currently in the Andy Warhol Museum.

In 1975, Andy Warhol published The Philosophy of Andy Warhol. From A to B and vice versa.

In 1979, Andy Warhol painted a BMW car (model M1).

“I tried to draw what speed looks like. When the car moves, all the lines and colors are smeared."

In the mid 1980s. MTV aired the Andy Warhol shows - Andy Warhol Television and Fifteen Minutes with Andy Warhol.

On February 22, 1987, Andy Warhol died in his sleep at Cornwell Medical Center in Manhattan. where he underwent surgery to remove his gallbladder. His brothers Paul and John moved the body to Pittsburgh and buried it on the grounds of the Catholic Church of the Holy Spirit. At the memorial service at the Cathedral of St. Patrick in New York was attended by about two thousand people.

Andy Warhol's fortune was estimated at 600 million dollars.

In 1989, after Andy Warhol's death, The Diaries were published, the artist's personal notes that he had kept since the 1960s.

Personal life of Andy Warhol

Despite the fact that Andy Warhol was a public figure, a key figure in the second half of the 20th century, the details of his personal life are unknown. He considered the closest person to his mother, with whom he lived in the same apartment in Manhattan for 20 years. He never openly declared his homosexuality, but contributed to the development of the gay theme of American cinema. According to Andy Warhol's diary entries, he had no close relationship with either a woman or a man. It is known about his attraction to Truman Capote, to whom he wrote love letters.

“Love in fantasy is much better than love in reality. The most exciting thing is if you fall in love with someone and never have sex with him. The craziest attraction is between two opposites that never meet.”

In life, Andy Warhol used makeup, dyed his hair straw-colored, wore wigs with black strands. Being the owner of an androgynous appearance, he was sometimes photographed in women's dresses. Andy Warhol had platonic romances with Edie Sedgwick and model Nico.

Films about Andy Warhol

• 1995. "I shot Andy Warhol." The film is based on a real event - the assassination attempt by Valerie Solans on Andy Warhol.
• 2001. "Andy Warhol: The Finished Painting". A documentary about the work of Andy Warhol.
• 2001. "Absolute Warhola". A documentary about the life of Andy Warhol and his family.
• 2006. "I Seduced Andy Warhol" ("Factory Girl"). The picture shows the relationship between Andy Warhol and his muse Edie Sedgwick.

Andy Warhol Museum

In 1994, a seven-story museum dedicated to the life and work of Andy Warhol opened in Pittsburgh. The galleries feature about 900 paintings, 77 sculptures, 4000 photographs, 4350 films. The originals of his diary entries, wigs, etc. are also stored here. The museum annually organizes visiting exhibitions in different countries of the world.

The commercial value of Andy Warhol

In 1995, a series of images of "Campbell's Soup Can" was sold to the New York Museum of Modern Art for $14,500.

In 2004, The Marilyn Diptych was ranked third on The Guardian's 500 Outstanding Contemporary Art list. The painting is currently on display at the Tate Gallery in Liverpool.

In 2006, 1,010 works by Andy Warhol were sold at auction for a total of $199 million.

In 2008, the Eight Elvis canvas was sold for $100 million.

In 2010, the total amount of sales of Andy Warhol's work exceeded $300 million.

In 2011, Campbell's Can of Soup, one of Warhol's first paintings, was sold at auction at Christie's for $10 million.

In 2012, Andy Warhol sold $380 million at auction.

For 2013 Andy Warhol's works are the best-selling. The second place is occupied by paintings by Pablo Picasso.

Interpretation of pop art images of Andy Warhol in the 21st century

In 2011, The Campbell Soup Company released a limited edition of Campbell's Canned Soups. Its release was timed to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the appearance of the eponymous series of paintings by Andy Warhol. In honor of this date, four packaging options were created. All the cans were painted in red, blue, blue, green, yellow colors - these are the tones that Andy Warhol used in his works. The products were presented in the US network of Target stores at a price of 75 cents per can.

The packaging was decorated with images of Warhol's muses and quotes. The cost of beauty products ranged from $35 to $75.

In 2012, the December issue of Dujour published a photo shoot dedicated to Warhol and his muses. tried on the images of Edie Sedgwick, Nico, Candy Darling and Andy himself.

Andy Warhol interview for Glenn O'Brien (June 1977, published in Interview magazine)

G.O.: What was your first work of art?
E.W.: I cut paper dolls.

G.O.: How old were you?
E.W.: Seven.

G.O.:Did you get good grades in art school?
E.W.: Yes, and the teachers loved me.

G.O.:Did they say that you have a natural talent?
E.W.: Something like that. Unnatural talent.

G.O.: Did you do art at school?
E.W.: I was often sick, so to catch up with the program I went to summer school. I had one art class.

G.O.: How did you have fun when you were a teenager?
E.W.: I didn't try to have fun. I only went to a Frank Sinatra concert once.

G.O.: How did you decide to become an artist and move to New York?
E.W.: I got into Carnegie Tech. Philip Pearlstein was going to New York for the holidays and I went with him. I took my bag and we got on the bus. We showed the portfolio around New York and hoped to get a job. Tina Fredericks, who worked for Glamor magazine, said she would hire me as soon as I graduated from high school. This was my first job.

Official site: www.warholstars.org

Official site in Russian: www.andy-warhol.ru

Museum website: www.warhol.org

Foundation website: www.warholfoundation.org

Andy Warhol is a legendary man, an artist who turned the world of contemporary art upside down. His works are sold for millions of dollars, and his artistic heritage is highly valued by critics and ordinary art connoisseurs around the world.

At present, the name of this outstanding master has become a true symbol of the whole direction, which is usually referred to as 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.

Early years, childhood and Andy Warhol's family

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, Slovakia was the birthplace of his family, but in some sources one can also find references to the Ukrainian roots of the artist.

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 movements of the limbs. During this period, he began to "kill time", drawing all kinds of portraits, landscapes, and also making collages from old newspaper clippings.

It is noteworthy that already in those days, Warhol began to draw the most ordinary objects of the world around him - 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 identity 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 to study 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 was side by side with an obvious inability to find contact with peers and teachers.

Biography of Andy Warhol

After graduating with a degree in graphic design, our young Andy moved to New York where he got a job as a window dresser. During this period, he drew advertising posters, holiday cards, and was also engaged in general decoration of stands. Some time later, he began to fruitfully collaborate with the famous glossy publications Harper's Bazaar and Vogue. Here he worked as an illustrator.

Andy Warhol's career as an artist

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

In 1952, Andy held his first full-scale exhibition, which immediately brought him great success. In 1956, Warhol was successfully accepted into the Art Editors' Club, and some time later began to create his first screen-printed paintings.

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 began to get involved in photography for the first time, but the fine arts still remained above all for him.

In 1960, Andy Warhol created designs for cans of Coca-Cola, which brought 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".

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's soup. This was followed by a series of works "Green Coca-Cola Bottles".

Works from the early 1960s 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 talked 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 set up something like his own workshop here. This place was called "Factory" and very soon became a springboard for the creation and presentation of works by a famous author. Having hired a team of young artists, the recognized master instructed 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, powder packs. 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. Currently, the artist's short cinematic sketches are more often considered to be in 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. Having recovered from his injuries, he refused to testify against his former model, and therefore Valerie received only three years in prison.

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

Service to art in the life of the artist 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.

Personal life of Andy Warhol

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

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

"I Seduced Andy Warhol" (film trailer)

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

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

Today marks the 86th anniversary of the birth of Andy Warhol - the famous American artist, designer, sculptor, producer, director, writer, magazine publisher, the founder of the homouniversal ideology and the author of works that have already become synonymous with the concept of commercial pop art. Andy Warhol made art available to the masses so that people could learn to see the beauty of everyday things and understand that everything that surrounds them is beautiful in its essence. On the occasion of the birthday of the genius provocateur, we recalled 10 of his most famous works.

1. Diptych Marilyn

Diptych Marilyn, 1962

The canvas was written immediately after the death of Marilyn Monroe. Andy Warhol combined two paintings: fifty crudely colored replicated portraits of the actress and the exact same one, but in black and white. On the second canvas, most of the portraits are poorly visible or blurry. Thus, the artist managed to show the face of death that haunted Marilyn, and emphasize the contrast with her life. Now the picture is in London, in the Tate Gallery.

2. A can of Campbell's soup

A can of Campbell's soup, 1962

This painting, according to the artist, was his best work. It all started with one picture, then a whole series was born. It expresses Warhol's desire to reveal the superficial essence of things and let everyone understand that an iron or a vacuum cleaner is as beautiful as green hills or a clearing with flowers. Warhol explained his passion for painting the ordinary very simply: "I work with what I like." And he really liked Campbell's soups, he ate them straight from the can. This painting, after Warhol's death, was sold for $24 million. The author himself at one time, without suspecting anything, sold similar ones for 100 bucks.

3. Pistol

Pistol, 1981-1982

On June 3, 1968, Andy Warhol survived an attempt on his life - he received three bullet wounds in the stomach. A close encounter with death inspired the pop art innovator to create several paintings, including the famous "Pistol" - a copy of the revolver from which he was nearly shot. A stenciled image of a revolver in black and white is depicted on a red background. Today this work is estimated at 6-7 million dollars.

4. Banana

Banana, 1967

Warhol was a producer for the Velvet Underground. His main contribution was the creation of the cover of the debut album The Velvet Underground and Nico. It was on it that the famous bright yellow banana, the artist's signature and the inscription "Peel slowly and see" were first depicted. And the first pressings of the album were supplied with a yellow banana glued to the envelopes, tearing off which, one could find another fruit - this time pink and peeled.

5. 200 one dollar bills

200 one dollar bills, 1962

Warhol said: “I asked several of my acquaintances to suggest themes for my work. Finally, one friend asked the right question: “Listen, and you yourself, what do you love most?” That's how I started drawing money!". Andy Warhol, as a propagandist of everything that has a mass character, could not ignore such a familiar thing for an American as a one-dollar bill. It was in this picture that he maximally revealed the theme of spiritual and material values. There is nothing in the picture but money. However, this work is among the most expensive: it was sold for 43.8 million dollars. Thus, Warhol proved his main idea "art is a profit if it sells well."

6. Eight Elvises

Eight Elvises, 1963

The palm among the most expensive works of Warhol belongs to the canvas "Eight Elvises", which the artist was inspired by the untimely departed king of rock and roll. These few Presleys are worth $108.1 million. The artist wanted not only to remember Elvis, but also to reflect his favorite theme in art - the theme of the frailty of fame, the monotonous repetition of the same images and the fear of death. Warhol completed the painting in his favorite color - silver.

7. Green bottles of Coca-Cola

Green bottles of Coca-Cola, 1962

What could be easier - just to depict a well-known bottle? But this was the whole secret of Andy Warhol's art - it should be clear to everyone, and everyone drinks Coca-Cola: from the president to the simple worker. The artist made a bet not on elitism, but on mass character, and did not lose. “What is amazing about this country is that it has created a new tradition of consumption - the rich buy exactly the same products as the poor. The president drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you drink Coke too,” he said.

8. Red Lenin

Red Lenin, 1987

From celebrities, whom Andy Warhol painted very often, the artist moved on to politicians. One of his later works was the painting "Red Lenin", which until recently belonged to Boris Berezovsky. Even before his death, the oligarch sold the work of art and "Red Lenin" went under the hammer for almost 202 thousand dollars to a private collector. Initially, a silk-screen reproduction of Warhol was estimated at 45-75 thousand dollars.

9. Queen Elizabeth II

Queen Elizabeth II, 1985

The 100 x 80 centimeter images of Elizabeth II were painted from a photograph of the Queen taken in 1975 by photographer Peter Grujon and were included by Warhol in the Reigning Queens collection. It also includes his portraits of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, of Denmark - Margrethe II and Swaziland - Ntombi Twala. The British Queen is depicted in the artist's works in the Vladimir tiara, which once belonged to representatives of the Russian imperial house of the Romanovs. Queen Elizabeth II recently bought four Andy Warhol portraits of herself for the Royal Collection.

10. Che Guevara

Che Guevara, 1968

Few people know that the famous version of Che Guevara's "Heroic Guerrilla" poster is not Andy Warhol's. The fact is that his companion Gerard Malanga created this work in the style of Warhol, passing off the work as a drawing of the latter for the sake of profit. But Gerard's scam was revealed and a prison was waiting for him. Then Warhol saved the situation - he agreed to recognize the fake as his work, provided that he would get all the proceeds from the sale.

WARHOL ANDY

Real name - Andrzej Warhola

(b. 1928 - d. 1987)

The famous American artist, 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 most striking and controversial figures of American pop culture of the second half of the 20th century, an extraordinary personality and the creator of the pop art movement - Andy Warhol - called his activities "production" and "fiction", and himself - "machine" and dreamed that everyone people thought alike, 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 changes itself, 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 give 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 school was the worst test for him, 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, who feared for her weak youngest son, was afraid to let him go far away from her. Andrzej had a hobby quite early - he made collages from color pictures of old magazines and comics - he cut, glued, painted.

After graduating from high school, Andrzej studied design at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, and later, by some miracle, he managed to enter the California Technical University in the design department. It was a prestigious educational institution, and our hero looked rather pathetic 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. It soon became clear to the teachers that Warhola was very talented, and they began to help him: fellow students did assignments in English (Andrzej himself could not connect even two words on paper at that time), the professors fought so that he would not be expelled from 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 American cultural life and fashionable art galleries. He changed his name to a more euphonious one for the USA - Andy Warhol, rented a cheap studio and began to hit the thresholds 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 captured the trends of the times.

In New York, another Warhol talent was revealed. Previously always closed and unsociable, he began to attract people to him like a magnet. As if to compensate 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 daytime, since Andy suffered from insomnia since childhood. Warhol later admitted to his pathological craving for parties: "If New York had a grand opening of the toilet, I would go there first." This love of appearing in public places turned out to be in his favor: it was hard to imagine a better advertisement for the artist. By this time, his image had already been finally formed - the same dark glasses, a gray wig (Warhol went bald very early) and an expensive suit stained with paints. During the daytime, he rarely left his studio - his thin, fair skin burned instantly, and if he went out into the sun, it was only with an umbrella and dark glasses.

Pretty quickly, Andy Warhol became the highest paid advertiser in New York. However, this state of affairs did not entirely suit him, because Warhol believed that by working in advertising, where only colleagues in the shop knew you, you would not achieve world fame. At this time, a new trend was emerging in America - pop art, it blurred the lines between "high" and "mass" art, anything could become a picturesque 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 - to become famous. In 1956, Warhol goes on a trip: he visits India, Egypt, France, Italy, Great Britain and many other countries, where he studies local culture and art. An example of outrageousness is his voiced impression of this trip: “The most beautiful thing 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 true. 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 and standardization.

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

After lengthy attempts and experiments with the technique of writing, a successful one, as it turned out later, was unexpectedly thrown to him by one friend, saying: “What do you love most? Money. Here, draw a dollar. The point is to take something simple and known to everyone - the same dollar or a can of soup. The monumental canvases with a can of Campbell's tomato soup, created by the artist in 1962, became Andy Warhol's hallmark for many years and made him truly famous. Newspapers and critics were choking with delight, prices for his works skyrocketed, and the artist himself was surprised how naive this world was, how everything turned out to be really simple. The art historian Robert Hughes described the success of the Campbell soup paintings very accurately: “Painting on a tin in itself does not mean doing real art. But the real thing about Warhol is that he elevated the production of soup 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 - the president of the country, and Liz Taylor, and the beggar who knows that his Coca-Cola is no worse than the president's." Once, at an exhibition featuring Campbell's Soup paintings among other works, a New York critic quipped to Andy, "If you can draw an ad for soup, why not draw an ad for beer?" Warhol quite seriously agreed with him, and the very next day the “portrait” of a beer can was also on display. By the way, the dollar that his friend was talking about, who suggested the idea with the soup, was also depicted by Warhol ...

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

For five years, from 1963 to 1968, Warhol was actively engaged in, in his own words, "film production." During this period, he created several hundred films, ranging from a mass of three-minute auditions and portraits to 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 portraiture. The duration of these films ranged from three minutes to twenty-five hours. Only a few of the hundreds of Warhol films were understood and accepted by the audience. Often, only one actor was 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 main reason people go to the movies is to see their favorite actor. So I gave them this opportunity,” said Warhol. In the 1964 film Empire, the camera captures an image of New York's famous Empire State Building for eight hours. It can be said 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 also 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 writing…” In Los Angeles in the spring of that year, at the opening of a large retrospective of his work, Warhol was waiting for a crowd that chanted: “We love Andy Warhol!” The success of the exhibition was enormous. And at the same time, the artist's exhibitions themselves could not be called purely artistic, the interior, the light, and all kinds of installations played a role here. He could show at the exhibition piles of cardboard boxes chaotically thrown into the corners of the rooms - and nothing more, and the exhibition was still a tremendous success.

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

At the hospital, doctors declared 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 doctors unsuccessfully sewed his abdominal muscles. A photograph of Richard Avedon, which depicts Andy Warhol's naked torso with a belly mutilated with terrible scars, went around magazines around the world.

After the assassination attempt, Andy, who had almost got rid of his complexes, again began to be afraid of people. He began to constantly wear a bulletproof vest, tightened the 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 response as his own. Warhol did not like to talk about himself at all, often answering such questions: “If you want to know everything about Andy, watch my films, my paintings. This is all me. There is nothing more." Warhol began to avoid appearing in public, often he sent a person who looked like him to lecture on his own behalf.

Andy Warhol did not hide his unconventional orientation, but 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. Never doing it is a very exciting thing to do.”

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

Since 1970, the most successful period in the work of Andy Warhol began - he began to use the silk-screen printing method to create portraits of celebrities. His images of Marilyn Monroe, Liza Minnelli, Jimmy Carter, Elvis Presley, Elizabeth Taylor and Mao Zedong have gone around the world. One critic called Warhol's portrait of Marilyn Monroe the Mona Lisa of the 20th century. Now it was already possible to speak not only about the American, but also about the world fame of the artist. Warhol's favorite method - silkscreen printing - is a circulation technique, it made the creation of paintings not a long painstaking process, as was always believed, but truly a mass "production". Warhol used only bright, pure colors, without any halftones, shadows and nuances, he deprived his works of realism and life, they do not breathe, they 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 the original and the copy, since silk screening involved the creation of an almost unlimited number of prints. The artist believed that it was precisely such art - banal and replicated - that the modern world needed, and, judging by his crazy popularity, he was largely right. In addition, the further, the more the public was interested in the personality of Warhol, and not his works, the name Andy became more of 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 developed and implemented the project of his own cable television channel and became its director. In the same year, another book by the artist, Popism: Warhol in the 60s, was published. During this period, he finishes working with the images of the stars and takes on the picturesque masterpieces of the past - his series “Mona Lisa” and “The Last Supper” are published.

From the second half of the 80s of the XX century, Andy Warhol's health deteriorated noticeably, this circumstance was aggravated by the fact that the artist was terribly afraid of doctors and refused to be treated. 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 of a heart attack. It happened on February 22, 1987. Warhol was buried in his native Pittsburgh. An April 1 memorial service at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York was attended by about 2,000 people.

When, after the death of the artist, his friends and lawyers opened up Warhol's apartment, where he did not allow anyone during his lifetime, they found there a huge amount of a wide variety of things that were in a terrible mess. Among them were a lot of unpacked packages with purchases, numerous bottles of perfumes and Indian incense, jewelry, masterpieces of world art in originals mixed with frank 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 banks. Warhol's motley collection was sold at the famous Sotheby auction for more than $25 million. This money, according to Andy's will, was transferred to the fund he created to help art organizations.

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

It is still unclear 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 combine art and business so successfully. An obituary published in The New York Times gave perhaps the most accurate and succinct definition of the Andy Warhol phenomenon: "Warhol's best work is Warhol himself." Indeed, it is impossible to appreciate his works without knowing anything about their creator, the image of this strange and shy person 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 heyday of his popularity, also fell on the canvas of the famous artist: “If you want to know what was the most popular in this or that period, look that Warhol was painting at the time." And it is true. Andy felt the trends of the times very subtly and instantly reflected the preferences of the masses in his works - whether it was Campbell's tomato soup or Marilyn Monroe, Coca-Cola or Elizabeth Taylor.

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