Andy+Warhol

"In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes." –Andy Warhol (Murray). In the field of art, there are very few people who thrive and succeed quite just like Andy Warhol. He went from a young man with huge ambitions to a man with worldwide recognition and fame. Starting with not even a single penny to his name, he built his way up into a recognized and loved household name through his paintings in the 1900's (Murray). Although some people today can only name a few paintings that he has done, there is no denying the impact that he has made in the art field as well as the way that he paved for artists later to come. He truly was a trailblazer for artists everywhere and an inspiration for many generations to come. Without Andy Warhol, modern art would be boring, generic, and plain.
 * Introduction **



 Andy Warhol was a world famous painter who was born in 1928. He lived until 1987, when he died in New York at the age of 58 (Menand). Warhol was born to Czech parents who immigrated to Pittsburgh (Murray). Warhol was raised in a Catholic household and was a devout Catholic until his death (Lyon). Although he was very wealthy and well off during his career, he was poor and had very little money as a child (Murray). He was the youngest of four children and lived in a very poor neighborhood (Menand). Unfortunately, Warhol’s father died when he was thirteen, but before he passed on he realized Warhol’s talent and started saving money to send him to Carnegie Tech (Lyon).
 * Personal Background **

Warhol was a sickly and frail child (Murray). He had gallbladder troubles for the majority of his life and was very weak (Lyon). By the time he got to school, he felt like an outsider because of how different he was from other children (Lowmiller). However, he didn’t let his weaknesses stop him from achieving his goals. When Warhol was a teen, he put a lot of effort into honing his artistic talents to become an artist (Lowmiller). Eventually, his hard work paid off and he went to Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh and majored in pictoral design. He graduated in 1949 and moved to New York City almost immediately after graduating (Menand).

 When Warhol moved to New York City, he had nothing with him except for a bag of his belongings (Murray). He lived in a “roach-infested flat,” carried his portfolio in a brown paper bag, and wore dirty paint splattered shoes (Lyon). He started out as an illustrator and then worked his way up from there (Moore). Warhol eventually successfully made it in his career and was supplying illustrations to some of the most famous and prestigious magazines in the world (Lyon). At one point in his career, he suffered from a gunshot wound from a crazed fan. He announced his retirement in 1965 to the world (Menand).

As a child, Andy Warhol was shy and quiet but also very ambitious (Murray). While all of the other schoolchildren played games with each other, Warhol was by himself, sketching people and practicing his artistry (Lowmiller). Although a young Warhol did not have much of a social life, he had the drive to succeed and “make it” it as a painter (Murray). By realizing his ambition to be an artist and putting in countless hours of hard work into refining his skillset, Warhol eventually got the recognition and fame that he had so desperately hoped for as a child (Lowmiller).
 * Personality Traits[[image:Edie-Sedgwick-and-Andy-Warhol.jpg width="328" height="397" align="right" caption="Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick" link="@https://dirtcheapmag.wordpress.com/tag/edie-sedgwick/"]] **

When Warhol grew up, some of his traits were altered. For example, his shyness gave away and he started going to parties very often and made many new connections (Lyon). Some things, however, stayed the same. Since he was a child, Warhol had always been obsessed with celebrities and the idea of glamour. He loved stalking the celebrities that he had admired and later gossiping about them. Loving celebrities and gossiping never left Warhol when he got older; he would spend many hours on the phone trying to catch up to speed with what was happening to the stars around him and he would surround himself with people who also loved to gossip (Menand).

Eventually, Warhol became quite the shutterbug. He would bring his camera everywhere and would photograph, film, and record almost everything (Moore). Andy ended up leaving over 6,300 film reels and videos for the world to discover when he died. No matter what the video was about, Warhol paid a lot of attention to each component in it. Warhol was a very detail-oriented man and thought of movies as “a part of [his] life” (Fanzo).

Before Andy Warhol had everything, he started with nothing. He came from a very poor household so he could not afford much of anything (Muray). Warhol also had extremely bad health and gallbladder issues so he needed to be extremely careful of what he did (Lyon). His social life was not that great either. As a child, Warhol had no friends and was outcasted by his peers. He never got the chance to make any meaningful connections or develop social skills (Lyon). It also did not help that he was homosexual at a time where it was not as accepted as it is today and had terrible cystic acne. Due to his unpopularity and bad appearance, Warhol started to have terrible insecurity issues. It got to the point where he altered his appearance and started wearing wigs (Menand).
 * Obstacles **

When Andy graduated from college, he moved to New York. Warhol struggled at first because he started out with no money and very few belongings (Murray). Once Warhol’s career progressed further, he started making films in his studio that he named “The Factory.” His first few films were huge successes, but his later films flopped. Because of his failure to recreate the riches that he had gained from his other films, a very tense work environment was created. It was plagued by jealousy, stress, drug use, and poor business decisions (Fanzo).

In the world of art, there is no denying the impact that Andy Warhol had made in his lifetime. With the use of repetition in paintings and bright, vivid colors, he established himself as a painter. A couple of the paintings that use repetition are “32 Campbell Soup Cans” and “Marilyn Diptych” (Israel). Those are also two of the most famous paintings that helped him start the pop art movement (Menand).
 * [[image:andy-warhol-marilyn.png width="493" height="497" align="left" caption="One of Warhol's most famous paintings, Marilyn Monroe" link="@http://artwithmsk.com/2014/01/15/keith-haring-meets-andy-warhol-pop-prints/"]]Historical Significance **

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Warhol was not only a painter, but also a filmmaker. He made people view movies as an art; not just something that they view for pleasure and then forget (Fanzo). Warhol made over 500 film portraits of people and most have had wide acclaim (Israel). He had done most of his work in his studio called “The Factory.” The Factory became a popular hangout spot and attracted many different demographics of people. His studio helped launch some peoples’ careers and make them extremely well-known and famous. Some of the most famous celebrities who loved to visit The Factory were Edie Sedgwick, Betsey Johnson, and from time to time, Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan (Gilmore). When Warhol died, he had left around six thousand three hundred recordings to be found (Fanzo).

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Just because a person does not enjoy films and paintings does not mean they can get away from the Jack-of-all-trades that is Andy Warhol. Warhol worked in many forms of media and was quite accomplished in most of them. In addition to being a filmmaker and painter, he was also a writer, photographer, producer, designer, actor, model, illustrator, editor, businessman, etc. Although he had many jobs, he was not reckless and nonchalant about them. He practiced his trades and refined them to perfection; adequate was simply not good enough for Warhol.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">At a time when people severely underestimated the press and media’s power, publicity did not really matter (Hughes). Warhol, however, saw things a little differently and cared about getting his name out. He knew how to manipulate the press and how to say the right thing at the right time. He “used” the media constantly and changed the art world forever because of it. Warhol had turned art into a business by understanding how the media works, attracting attention, being at the right places at the right time, and talking to the right people (Israel).

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Warhol was also very open about his homosexuality and wished to make it a more acceptable idea. He had tried to make heterosexuality a less important thing and make homosexuality normal to talk about and to practice. He had succeeded in his mission, Warhol made painting homoeroticism more common (Israel).

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Fanzo, Michelle. "Andy Warhol's Films." //Carnegie Magazine//. May/June 1994: 42-45. //SIRS Renaissance//. Web. 08 Dec. 2014. **SE#6** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Gilmore, Kim. "Andy Warhol and The Factory." //Bio.com//. A&E Networks Television, 22 Feb. 2012. Web. 19 Mar. 2015. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Hughes, Robert. "The Rise of Andy Warhol." //The Rise of Andy Warhol by Robert Hughes//. The New York Review of Books, 18 Feb. 1982. Web. 19 Mar. 2015. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Israel, Matthew. "10 Reasons Why Andy Warhol Matters | Matthew Israel | Artsy." //Artsy//. March 2013. //Artsy//. Web. 19 Mar. 2015. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Lowmiller, Joe. "Andy Warhol: Prince of Pop." //Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy// 49.1 (2005): 75. //ProQuest//. Web. 25 Sep. 2014. **SE#1** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Lyon, Todd. "The Wigged-Out World of Andy Warhol." //Biography//. March 1997: 50+. //SIRS Renaissance//. Web. 20 Oct. 2014. **SE#3** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Menand, Louis. "Top of the Pops." //New Yorker// (Vol. 85, No. 44). 08 Jan. 2010: 56-65. //SIRS Renaissance//. Web. 20 Oct. 2014. **SE#4** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Moore, Booth. "Chasing Andy." //Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, CA)//. 28 Jun. 2002: 1E+. //SIRS Renaissance//. Web. 20 Nov. 2014. **SE#5** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Murray, Shaar, Charles. "Skin deep." //New Statesman//. 30 Jan. 2006: 42. //eLibrary//. Web. 03 Oct. 2014. **SE#2** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">"The Quotations Page: Quote from Andy Warhol." //The Quotations Page//. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Feb. 2015. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">"A Quote by Andy Warhol." //Goodreads//. Web. 06 Feb. 2015.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">References **