ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987):

ICON OF THE POP ART MOVEMENT

http://www.english-online.at/artarchitecture/andy-warhol/andy-warhol-icon-of-pop-artmovement.htm

Andy Warhol

was the most popular figure in the pop

art movement that came up in the 1950s in the United States and Great Britain. During his career he produced
paintings, films, commercials, print ads and other works of art.

Andy Warhol s parents came to America from Czechoslovakia at the beginning of the
20th century. As a boy Andy liked to draw and cut up pictures. The family lived in Pittsburgh, where
Warhols father worked in a coal mine.
While in high school Warhol took art classes and drew sketches at the Carnegie Museum. He liked to go to the
movies and started collecting fan articles of famous movies and stars. These objects appeared later on in

Andy Warhol

Warhol

s works.

studied art in Pittsburgh and after moving to New York in 1949 he began work as

an illustrator for magazines such as the New Yorker or Vogue. During this time he started using a
special technique to draw images for ads. Andy Warhol became unsatisfied with this job and wanted to have
his pictures shown in art galleries.
During the 1960s

Andy Warhol concentrated on painting realistic pictures of everyday items. This

style became known as pop art. Among his most famous paintings were comic strips, images of Marylyn
Monroe, Muhammad Ali, Coca Cola bottles and the electric chair.

His probably best known painting was the famous Campbell soup can. In his drawings

Warhol simplified objects and portraits and painted them in many different colors.
Warhols life was his art studio, called the Factory. There he met many other famous
artists and celebrities. The Factory was also used as a film studio in which Andy Warhol
The center of

produced many of his famous underground films. They usually had no special plot but were very long. In one of
them he shows a man sleeping for five hours.
In 1968 a frustrated actress, Valerie Solanas, walked into

Warhol

s studio and shot the

artist. Although he had already been pronounced dead, doctors managed to reanimate him and save his life.

Warhol never fully recovered from this incident.

During the 1970s and 80s

Andy Warhol

continued to paint with the same silk screen technique

that had made him popular but, in some way, his career was declining. In 1987

Warhol

died at the

age of 58 during a routine gall bladder operation.

Andy Warhol

had a unique personality. He was a declared homosexual who liked to be

famous and stand in the spotlights. He liked to be surrounded by flashy characters like Mick Jagger and Jim
Morrison.
The

Andy Warhol

Museum, in Pittsburgh is the largest art museum dedicated to one single

artist. It holds more than 12,000 works of the icon of pop art. The highest-priced painting is Eight Elvises ,
images of Elvis Presley, which was sold for over 100 million dollars.

READING
COMPREHENSION
Identify the document .

..

Read the text and underline all the words referring to ART.
Find the right definition.

Recover:

Art gallery:

Commercial:

Decline:

c- Building in which pictures and paintings are shown to the public

Comic strip:

d- To become healthy after an illness

Celebrity:

Technique:

Incident:

Icon:

a- To go down
b- Idol, famous person

e- Something that happened

f-

Advertisement on television or on the radio

g- Simple drawing that does not show much detail

Sketches:

h- A series of pictures that tell a story

i-

Method of drawing

j-

Famous person who is still alive

Complete the grid down below with basic information about the artist.

Birth and
Social
background

Education

Personality

Hobbies

Occupation

Works of Art

Today

 Give a definition for

Movement / Artists.

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