Andy Warhol (1928–1987) was one of the absolute leading lights of Pop Art. He is most famous for his iconic works with motifs inspired by American mass and popular culture: trademarks such as Coca Cola and Campbell’s Soup as well as celebrity portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Kennedy, Elizabeth Taylor and Queen Margrethe of Denmark. He painted money, dollar signs, food items, women’s shoes, famous people and newspaper clippings. Warhol’s works clearly reveal his inspiration from advertising and comics.
“The Factory” and “Studio 54”
Originally trained as a commercial artist, Warhol began his career in New York in 1949, working for the fashion magazine Vogue. In the late 1950s, he made the transition from the world of advertising and fashion to the world of art. Here, he paved the way for Pop Art, a completely new style, changing the approach to art by focusing on mass production rather than unique works. In his studio, known as “The Factory”, he mass-produced art. Warhol became a celebrity in the glamorous milieu of New York, where he frequented the Studio 54 nightclub and hung out with the jet set of that time.
Campbell´s Soup and Marilyn Monroe
Warhol was obsessed with fame – both his own and that of others. His series of celebrity portraits were generally based on black and white Polaroid photos of his glamourous models taken by Warhol himself. The intense media focus on him may have been the reason why he was shot and nearly killed by the radical feminist Valerie Solanas in 1968. A characteristic of Warhol’s paintings throughout the 60s was the repetition of motifs on large canvases. His best-known works include “Exploding Plastic Inevitable” (multimedia events 1966–67), “The Chelsea Girls” (film, 1966), “Campbell’s Soup Cans II” (32 canvases, 1961–62) and “Marilyn Diptych” (1962).