Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol is undoubtably one of the leading protagonists to the Pop Art movement that came out of 1960s New York. His works examine the relationship between artistic expression, advertising and celebrity culture and combines avant-garde concepts with highly-commercialised techniques. He embraced consumerism at a time when most were rebelling against it, and challenged the traditional concept of the artist itself.

After initially moving to New York to pursue a career as an illustrator, he began painting. Warhol’s first Pop Art paintings used cartoon and advertising imagery, and drew upon the self-conscious brushwork of the Abstract Expressionists. This soon shifted however, when he began appropriating subjects from newspapers, popular culture and consumer products, adopting an inexpressive style.

In 1962, he exhibited 32 canvases of the now-iconic Campbell Soup Can, at Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles. They were among his first works based on consumer goods and would be the first to embrace the idea of serial reproduction. The fascination with mass-production followed with the founding of the ‘Factory’, where he began using screen printing to depict massed ranks of goods, and employed many assistants to carry out the work. Primarily a commercial device, the silkscreen allowed for endless repeated variations of chosen subjects, displaying a flat uniformity that would become his signature style. 

Warhol’s works span a multitude of medias, from painting and silkscreen, to photography and film. During 1963 he began experimenting with film, and by 1968 had produced over 60 films and 500 short black and white portrait clips of visitors to his studio. The inexpressive style iconic of his paintings and silkscreens, filtered down into film, presenting extreme boredom as an aesthetic experience with some lasting as long as 25 hours. 

Since his death in 1987, Warhol’s stature has been on a constant upward trajectory. In 2022, ‘Shot Sage Blue Marilyn’ sold at Christies for $195 million, becoming the most expensive American artwork sold at auction. Two museums in Slovakia and Pittsburgh have also been establish dedicated to his work.