Andy Warhol, the enigmatic father of Pop Art, is even more interesting than his work. From his working-class origins in Pittsburgh to his eccentric artist parties in New York City, we wanted to create a collectible video that reflects his life and times, introducing you to the man behind the iconic works of art that now live in LED neon!
Explore Andy's artistic world with the article below, then watch our collection video and see how many references you can spot!
Scene One : Scene One : Scene One
Enter -- enter -- enter Andy's wonderful world of repetition. First, in his Campbell's Soup Can series, 32 paintings were designed to look like they were made by a machine rather than a man. This would become a central theme in Andy's work.
The repetition is related to his interest in the mass production culture of 1960s America. He reflected this as much in his "portraits" of everyday products as in the repetition of these portraits, sometimes with subtle changes or experiments with color. Repetition was also used to remove the sense of individuality from his celebrity portraits, revealing the "mass-produced" quality of celebrity.
The repetition also shows up in his personal life. According to Andy, he ate the same lunch every day for 20 years!
Scene Two: Through Andy's lens
The basis of Andy's work and life was the polaroid camera. He based all of his work on photographs taken by himself or found in newspapers and magazines. Even at his first solo opening in New York in 1962, Andy was walking around the party, taking pictures with his Minox camera.
Andy's celebrity portraits, from Elizabeth Taylor to Liza Minelli, began with dozens of Polaroids. He used them to create the silkscreens he painted, resulting in advertising-style portraits. But it wasn't just his way of creating art. It was his way of connecting with the world.
Andy's avant-garde film work is another example of his observation of society. One of the first films he made in the Factory studio in New York is entitled Kiss (1963) and features different couples kissing in exact 3 ½ minute increments.
Scene Three: The Origins of Pop Art
Andy Warhol arrived in New York after studying at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and quickly became a highly sought after commercial artist. He caught the attention of major brands with his unusual illustration style, especially his images of shoes, which were uncommon in the 1950s. Among the brands that used his early work were Glamour Magazine, Vogue, Tiffany & Co and RCA Records.
Andy's background in advertising provided the basis for what would become Pop Art. His work features "portraits" of items found in a supermarket and collages of brand images, using techniques previously limited to the world of advertising. He was fascinated by the consumer culture of 1960s America and how it united people from different backgrounds, using this familiar imagery to create a common language.
The democratic power of popular culture was an essential aspect of Andy's challenge to the art world. For Andy, commercial products were as much art as the paintings hanging in the Met. It was his way of changing the way people saw and experienced the world they lived in.
Scene Four: Nature & Fashion
"The land is truly the best art." While Andy is known as a New York artist, his emphasis on nature reveals the importance of the environment in his life and work. He bought a house in 1971 on the farthest tip of Long Island, in Montauk. A few years later, he bought a 40-acre site in Aspen. Although he wanted to build something there, he decided not to, declaring the land "too beautiful."
Andy's floral works also reveal his roots in the 1960s fashion scene. While the phrase "Flower Power" is used to describe an act of peaceful resistance, it can also be used to describe the explosion of floral prints and psychedelic patterns in the 1960s and 70s. Andy was very involved in the fashion world, attending parties and shows, and even participating in a few!
Scene Five: Reinventing the Process
Originally and exclusively used in commercial art, Andy used the screen printing process to create pieces that celebrated and critiqued the mass production culture of the time.
Andy worked with his assistant to transfer the photos, often taken by his camera, onto a silk mesh screen. The canvas was placed underneath and when he passed a squeegee loaded with ink over the mesh, the ink would pass through, printing the image onto the canvas.
This allowed Andy to accomplish several things. First, he could easily create exact copies of a single work of art, as if the pieces were made by a machine and not a man. Second, he was able to experiment with color, creating varied perspectives on a single image. This process caused the art world to question the validity of Warhol's work as "fine art," but it has since been accepted as another method of creating art.
Scene Six: La Bohème!
Andy is as well known for his eccentric social life as for his Pop-Art style. He frequented the Studio 54 nightclub in New York City, a favorite haunt of celebrities, artists and socialites. Studio 54, New York's most legendary club, captured the spirit of freedom of the 1970s. Many of the people Andy met at Studio 54 went on to pose for his iconic portraits.
Andy hosted artist parties, often held in the early years at the Factory. Celebrities such as the Rolling Stones, Truman Capote, Salvador Dali, etc. attended these events.
Outside of the art world, Andy has dabbled in everything from film to modeling and even music. His iconic work, Bananawas created to help a burgeoning band, The Velvet Underground.
"Every song has a memory," Andy explains, "every song has the ability to make or break your heart, to close the heart and open the eyes.
He lived in the very heart of the New York art world, influencing and being influenced by its characters, its movements, its dreams.
THE ANDY WARHOL X YELLOWPOP LIMITED EDITION COLLECTION IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE HERE.