Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol was born in 1928 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He started getting familiar with art from a young age. Andy Warhol attended the Carnegie Institute of Technology where he studied pictorial design, meaning images and drawings. Often these drawings are used in the production of advertisement and magazine.  

Andy Warhol became very successful when he moved to New York in the 1949, were he worked as a commercial artist. Such magazine as "Vogue" and "Harper's Bazaar", Warhol took part in the 1950 to draw images for them. Pop art movement took part  of his painting career. Such movement was strongest during the 1960s.

One of his first exhibition in 1962, Warhol created a number of paintings of red and white soup cans. It was very shocking to the art world, because it was something different than they used to. Each artwork looked the same except for the words written on the can that described the different kind of soup.

When it come to his work, Warhol uses very smooth technique in any way, so it doesn't look hand-made to the viewer. He also painted images such as Coca Cola bottles, dollar symbols and popular cleaning products. Mainly Andy Warhol took the most everyday objects and turned them into fine art. 

Warhol also started producing silk-screen prints. It involved, method of reproduction allows the artist make image fast as possible. The ideal of mass production really fascinates Andy. In fact, the place where he created art was called The Factory. Warhol also did number of different subjects, such as death and disaster (which showed images of car accidents and execution). He also did various artwork including famous people (Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley etc...).

Warhol created an unusual public personality, this because he would wear strange wigs. This resembles to one of his quotes saying "In future, everybody will be famous for fifteen minutes".

Andy Warhol is also a film maker, publisher and manager of a rock band. His aim was to produce several low budget art films, which he did in early 1960s. 

Another project that took part in his life was the "Interview" magazine which he was able to interview famous people. In 1968, Andy Warhol was shot and badly   injured, and this made him more famous. Through out the years he also keep producing artwork. Warhol also wrote several books and also created cable television programs.

Andy Warhol died at the age of 58 in 1987. His money went to help Andy Warhol Foundation which helps support the visual arts. Andy Warhol Museum opened on 1994 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and one can see more then 500 works done by himself which the artworks resembles from every period of his career.

Andy Warhol helped change the way the world define modern art. His colourful Pop Art images and personality made him one of the most famous and important people in American art and culture. 

These are some of Andy Warhol's work:

Chanel No.5 Perfume advertising poster  

This very colourful poster represents the classic ladies perfume Chanel No.5. It was used by Chanel company in 1997 on the streets of Paris. Such design was created in the 1980's but, due to his unexpected early death, this image was not used unit much later. This poster shows a symmetrical layout, well used of the grid system, it can be easily recognise due to the less typography and to the clear image shown (of such perfume). 

Vintage LP record album 

In music history there have been many different album cover featuring Andy Warhol artwork. Few examples are shown in the image above. The first one of Count Basie is actually rare and it used commercial art that Andy did in the 1950's. The one next to it, with the Rolling Stone Love You Live art was specially commissioned by Mick Jagger. The one with the banana cover is for a band called the Velvet Underground which was owned by Warhol and this image practically an icon and has been reproduced on hundreds of T-Shirts. And the last image of Paul Anka's portrait was just that, a portrait. Mr. Anka hired Warhol to do a few paintings of him and later he chose this one to be an album cover. 

Andy Warhol teams up with the Sony Company

In the 1920's Warhol was asked by the Sony Corporation to do an art print for their super-popular Sony Walkman. The above poster represents primary colours, use of sans serif typography and it can be well recognised. Moving to the next image, the company also asked Warhol to appear in their magazine print advertisement for Sony Beta videotapes. Such magazine ad shows a the personality of Andy Warhol itself and it is well presented when it comes to the layout making use of the grid system.    

Graphic work by Andy Warhol:

Reference

Wrbican, M., 2006. Andy Warhol. [online] Available at: <http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episades/andy-warhol/a-documentary-film/44/> [Accessed October 2013].

Livingston, A. I., 2003. Graphic Design and Designers. London: The Thames & Hudson.

Beazley, M., Aynsley, J., eds., 2004. Pioneers of Modern Graphic Design: A Complete History. London: Octopus Publishing Group Ltd.