Artist Research Project- Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol

August 6, 1928-February 22, 1987

    Andy Warhol was one of the leading figures of  the technique known as pop-art. As well as having a successful career as a commercial illustrator, advanced filmmaker, record producer, author, and wealthy patron, Warhol became famous wolrdwide for his work as a painter. He also coined the expression  "15 minutes of fame." He was born in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, on August 6, 1928. During the 1960s, Warhol started painting iconic American products, like Campbell's Soup cans, Coca-Cola bottles, and also celebrities, such as Marylin Monroe, Elvis Presley, Muhammad Ali, and Elizabeth Taylor, and in the 1980s, he created a painting of Michael Jackson to attribute to his best-selling album Thriller.

    I picked Andy Warhol to write about because I always found the pop-art technique interesting, and in 6th grade, we studied him and made pop-art pictures of ourselves. I like how realistic the pictures look, but I also like how the different colors throw some of the realism away. Something interesting I find about Warhol's work is that it is different from other artist's, because he paints things that you wouldn't really see in art museum, such as the Coca-Cola bottles and Campell's Soup cans. Most artists paint either everyday objects, parts of nature, or completely abstract works.

   This image by Andy Warhol appeals to me because while flowers naturally give off a calm vibe, the way they're painted here with all the different colors, gives each section of the painting a different mood, in my opinion. I personally don't really like abstract art, like chairs being stacked on top of each other with something on top, and things like that; I lean towards more realistic art, or art that has certain colors or textures that make it seem like it gives off different moods. Andy Warhol's pop-art technique does exactly that; while one version of a painting can be bright and happy, another version of the same painting can be dark and mysterious.
    Warhol died at 6:32 am on February 22, 1987, in New York City. The cause of his death was cardiac arrhythmia, or electric activity in the heart that causes it to beat either too fast or too slow. His estate was auctioned at $20 million,but he had so many possessions that it took 9 days to auction off everything. Warhol dedicated his entire estate to a foundation for the advancements of visual arts, and that's how the Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts began.