Andy Warhol’s rise to fame was not easy. Haunted by his profession as a commercial artist in New York he struggled to gain recognition as a real artist, yet he kept trying. He experimented with different styles of art hoping to get a solo exhibition at a gallery. One of Warhol’s experimental styles was influenced by comic books; he made paintings that included characters from comics, along with though balloons. Warhol was greatly disappointed after seeing paintings of an artist by the name of Roy Lichtenstein, whose work resembled comic books as well. Fearing that his comic style paintings were inferior to those of Lichtenstein’s, Warhol moved on to another motif – painting consumer goods, specifically Campbell’s Soup cans. His original 32 paintings of Campbell’s canned soup (titled Campbell’s Soup Cans) played a major role in defining Andy Warhol’s artistic career. Apart from helping him get his first solo exhibition the Campbell’s Soup Cans steered the direction of Warhol’s future work.
It was because of the Campbell’s Soup Cans that Andy Warhol got his first solo art exhibition, in the summer of 1962. Even though Warhol lived and worked in New York, the exhibition took place in Los Angeles, at Ferus Gallery. The exhibition was made possible by Irving Blum, who was running the Ferus Gallery at the time. During his visit to New York, Blum was intrigued by several paintings of Campbell’s canned soup that he saw at Warhol’s studio. After Warhol explained his intent to paint a series of cans for every flavor in the Campbell’s Soup catalogue Blum proposes a show for the entire collection and Warhol embraced the idea. The exhibit, consisting of 32 paintings, ran for most of the summer and managed to stir up lots of fuss in the art sc...
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... of this meaning. Warhol grasped the impact of expressing ideas through the use of repetition and adopted this technique in his future projects.
After the Campbell’s Soup Cans exhibit Warhol moved onto exploring other themes for his art, like pop stars and car crashes, but he did not stop painting Campbell’s canned soup. The soup can works appeared in different sizes, different colors, different contexts and even a combination of Elvis Presley and a soup can. Warhol also did a few paintings with 100 and more Campbell’s soup cans arranged into a grid. He probably made as many Campbell’s soup can paintings as he made pop star paintings. Was Warhol implying that the soup cans are pop stars as well? They were definitely pop stars for Warhol and even for Pop Art, because if it wasn’t for the Campbell’s Soup Cans Andy Warhol might have been nothing more than a footnote.
Andy Warhol was a graphic artist, painter, and film maker, amoung other things, also associated with Pop Art. He moved to New York, around 1950, where he did his first advertisements as a comercial artist and, later, began showing in expositions. One technique employed by Warhol involved repeditive silk screen prints on canvas. He used this method to produce many series of prints with various, easily reconizable images. Between 1962 and 1964 in his self titled studio “The Factory”(Phaidon 484), Warhol produced over two thousand pictures. One of these, Lavender Disaster, was made in 1963 and belonged to a series of pictures all including the same image of an electric chair.
Known for being the father of Pop Art, and a giant in pop culture, Warhol dominated the art scene from the late fifties up until his untimely death in 1987. However Warhol’s influence spread further then the art world, he also was a major player in the LGBT, avant-garde and experimental cinema movements. Born in 1928 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Slovakian immigrant parents, Warhol came from humble beginnings. Becoming widely known for debuting the concept of ‘pop art’ in 1962. Warhol’s reach grew further when he started experimenting with film, becoming a major player in the LGBT, avant-garde and experimental cinema movements. Warhol’s artist studio, known famously as ‘The Factory’ became a hub for experimentation, and a go-to point for celebrities, musicians and trans folk. During this time, Warhol came out as an openly gay man, challenging the status quo of the day, a time when being homosexual was illegal. While also producing highly experiential films such as ‘Blow Job’ (1964) and ‘Sleep’ (1964) which were highly political and provocative, at the time. As art critic Dave Hickey asserts, “Art has political consequences, which is to say, it reorganized society and creates constituencies of people around it” (Hickey, 2007), Andy Warhol’s art and lived experience created a political constituency which can be best recognised in the function of the “Silver Factory” on
Warhol, Andy, and Pat Hackett. POPism: the Warhol '60s. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990. Print.
Andy Warhol and Frida Kahlo had an immense amount of impact on the world of art. Warhol has always explored the rooted connection between celebrity culture and artistic expression, which left him with a lasting legacy that has marked him for one of the most famous artists to have existed. The population was fascinated by Warhol’s ability to blur the lines between fine art and innovative design, providing him a large following and work that will be remembered for decades. Kahlo too is a name that is not likely to be forgotten. Her work is recognizable on a global level and her works are loved by many people. The deep admiration her followers have given her, and the amount of modern artists that she has influenced, creates an immortalization
...cles for the American consumer only disconnected from there origins ‘Fig5’. Warhol’s idolisation of the super stars of that era is what set him apart from his contemporaries and immortalised him in popular culture the most famous or these being Marilyn Monroe ‘Fig6’. And this was no accident as his personal goal was to become a star in his own right and he consciously generated a cloak of mystery which made it almost impossible to distinguish the man from the legend “you can only become famous if everybody is talking about you”(Warhol).
Each of the artists mentioned here met Andy Warhol at different phases of his career. While the majority of them were seen at the infamous Factory, some came both before and after. Regardless of where they met and knew Warhol, they each had their own individual lessons and impacts. Jean-Michel Basquait was perhaps the last artist to come around and really know Andy Warhol. Julia Warhol was certainly the first. In between were very many amazing artists, almost too many artists to talk about. The most important, of course, have been mentioned in this paper. Andy Warhol is a man still impacting art long after his death. His visionary style changed forever the face of both commercial art and gallery art. Hopefully this paper communicated a bit of that genius.
Although Andy Warhol was never never one of my true favorites, I respect him both for his talent and what he did to change our culture and the way we view art today. Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup series was a string of important pieces that I believe caused these positive changes within our society.
Pop art is an experimental art which surfaced in Great Britain in the early 1950’s. One of the major art movements of the twentieth century, it came into its own in the United States in the late 1950’s. This art form incorporated photographs in ways that had not been utilized before. It utilized mass-culture imagery and iconography, in contrast to the traditional tendencies of fine art. Pop art is considered to be one of the last modern art movements and served as a precursor to postmodern art. The art form is characterized by themes and techniques derived from mass culture, including advertising and comic books. Perhaps one of the most famous Pop artists, is Andy Warhol.
Since the Museum's opening in 1931, the collection has grown to more than 12,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and photographs, representing nearly 2,000 individual artists and providing the most complete overview of twentieth-century American art of any museum in the world. The collection is also recognized for its in-depth commitment to a number of key artists. From the first half of the century, such seminal figures as Edward Hopper, Alexander Calder, Reginald Marsh, and Stuart Davis are richly represented. In the latter half of the century, the Museum has committed considerable resources toward acquiring a large body of works by Louise Nevelson, Agnes Martin, Claes Oldenburg, Alex Katz, Ad Reinhardt, and others. The Museum's recent decision to dedicate two entire floors to the display of the Permanent Collection reaffirms the collection's central role in the Whitney Museum experience. This reflects the Whitney’s desire to remain as an authority on Contemporary American Art by devoting the remaining floors to changing shows, such as the recent Cy Twombly exhibition (Figure 2) and Tim Hawkinson’s first major in depth museum retrospective.
Born Andrew Warhola August 6, 1928 in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, this peculiar boy was different from the very beginning. He was an outsider in grade school mainly for the things he did. “Most of his peers from Holmes Elementary School looked up to athletes like Joe DiMaggio and played basketball themselves, but Andy’s idol was Shirley Temple” (Lowmiller 1). Andy showed a wonderful talent for drawing at an early age. It was not a surprise that his favorite pastime was drawing flowers. After becoming ill at 6 years old, Andy was confined to his bed. His family took their time to entertain him for hours by showing him how to draw, trace and print images. The love for drawing grew greater as Andy got older. Extremely smart for his age, Andy graduated Schenely High School early, at 16 years old, and in 1945, finished 51st in his class of 278 graduates. Later, after his father passed away in 1942, Andy continued his education and got accepted at Carnegie Institute of Technology three years later. He was the first of his family to ever go beyond high school. During the summer, Andy helped his oldest brother, Paul, sell fruits a...
Hailed as the founding father of the Pop Art movement in the late 1950's and early 1960's, Andy Warhol, through his endeavors, brought forward society's obsession with mass culture and allowed it to become the subject of his art. He produced works that defied and challenged the popular notion of what art should be by disputing the "traditional conventions pertaining to the uniqueness, authenticity, and authorship" of art (Faerna 28). However, it is an injustice to say that Warhol's goals primarily included the desire to create such a ground-breaking and salient style of American art or to entertain the public by making his own artistic contributions. Rather, Andy Warhol's interests were more entwined in his own self-interest and greed. Although a fraction of Andy Warhol's inspiration resided in his ambition to create a "unique" and exotic style of American art, his main motivation was purely materialistic and involved acquiring large sums of money and publicity to fuel his obsession with wealth and fame.
Imagine you can own one of the famous painting in the world. Which one would it be? What will you do with it? If I got to own a famous painting, I would hang it in my bedroom and I’ll show it to my family. In this situation, If needed to narrow it down it will be The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali or Nighthawks by Edward Hopper. These paintings are extremely different, and their artistic movement is opposite from one another. By the end of this essay, you’re going to know the differences and similarities of these paintings.
Pop art got its name from Lawrence Alloway, who was a British art critic in 1950’s. The name “Pop Art” reflected on the “familiar imagery of the contemporary urban environment” (kleiner, 981). This art form was popular for its bold and simple looks plus its bright and vibrant colors. An example of this type of art is the oil painting done by Andy Warhol, “Marilyn Diptych” (Warhol, Marilyn Diptych) in 1962. The Pop art movement became known in the mid-1950 and continued as main type of art form until the late 1960’s. The Pop art movement, was a movement where medium played a huge part in the society, with it reflecting on advertisements, comic strips and even celebrities, like Marilyn. This movement also has a large background and artist that are deeply connected.
Andy Warhol, another appropriating artist used the image of the Mona Lisa in his work. Andy Warhol, a pop artist of the sixties brought American life and culture back to art. This was after the abstract expressionists destroyed the notion and produced very personal and internal works....
Campbell's Soup Cans work suggests a mechanical uniformity that is repeated in the thousands of homes that have a similar object, a banal and common representation of the spirit of our time. Warhol continued to express his ideas about consumerism and kept using repetition in his work. He created several works that involved the same theme of Campbell’s Soup Cans throughout the years.