by Jordan Davis

Created on: March 02, 2010

Andy Warhol

Andrew Warhola was a famous American painter / film maker / music producer / comercial illustrator / author / friend / boss / lover / artist / Icon. His work has sold for 100 million dollars a rare feat in the art world. He was an Icon and a fixture in society in many realms from the homeless bohemian artist to the upper esculent .  He coined the term and believed that in the future everyone will achieve there “15 Minutes of Fame” There is museum in his honor that stands today in his home town of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Andy’s parents were Ondrej and Ulja he was the last of 4 children and what might have been his oldest brother died at birth in there home land of Miko (now Mikova)  in north eastern Slovakia. Andy father immigrated here in 1914 and his mother came in 1921 after her parents died. The Warhola’s lived in Pittsburgh where his father worked in a coal mine. Andy his brothers jan and  pavol and his mother were all Byzantine catholics and attended church. Andy’s nephew james warhola became a successful children’s book illustrator being the only other famous warhola.

Much of Andy’s appearance and character stems from the fact that he had chorea a severe complication of scarlet fever that made his skin blotchy and kept him out of school and alone with his mother for years and he became a hypochondriac and had a fear of doctors and hospitals. Andy was quite an outcast in school as you can imagine and this is where he started listening to the radio and drawing and collecting scraps of famous peoples pictures and articles in his room.

Showing talent in the art department, he decided to attend commercial art school at the Carnegie School of Fine Arts and moved in 1949 to New York where he became a magazine illustrator and advertiser his advertisement illustrations of shoes are some of his earliest gallery exhibited work. With the invention of vinyl records in the 50’s, he was hired on with rca to illustrate album covers.

Andy’s first solo art exhibit was in July of 62 in Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles, and then in November in Stable Gallery in New York. Here he displayed his paintings, Marylin Diptych, 100 Soup Cans , 100 Coke Bottles and 100 Dollar bills. Here is also where he met Jon Giorno of Andy’s first film entitled Sleep. It was here in the 60’s where Andy began screen printing movie stars and popular brand name products. He also opened the factory where he would

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