(American, b. August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987)

With his background and experience in commercial art, Warhol was one of the founders of the Pop Art movement in the United States in the 1950s.  He is perhaps, the most influential artist on post-war American art.

Warhol is best known for his extremely simple, larger-than-life, high-contrast color paintings and silk-screen prints of packaged consumer products, and everyday objects, such as poppy flowers and the banana appearing on the cover of the rock music album The Velvet Underground and Nico (1967).

He also rendered stylized portraits of twentieth century icons Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Elizabeth Taylor.

When Warhol first moved to New York after graduating from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, he worked as a commercial artist for advertising.  In the mid-'50s he became the chief illustrator for I. Miller Shoes, and in 1957 a shoe advertisement won him the Art Director's Club Medal.

Andy Warhol
Trucci I
Pen on Paper
17 x 14
c. 1955

During this time, Warhol had also been working on a series of pictures separate from the advertisements and illustrations.  He worked in his signature ‘blotted ink’ style; one that he perfected in his commercial assignments. These early works are intimate portrait studies, whimsical illustrations. Later drawings done in the  early1960s often combine elements of photography, collage, written instructions of working studies, and on occasion, pencil and crayon or watercolor. Warhol was a great appropriator, snatching images and fragments of consumer culture such as soup cans, money, newspapers, political figures and film stars and using them in his work. Warhol's often simple and mechanical way of working can be seen in the drawings made with the help of his mother, who was responsible for adding the handwritten text as well as the calligraphic "Andy Warhol" signature.

In the 1960s, Warhol began to make paintings of famous American products such as Campbell's soup cans and Coca-Cola. He switched to silkscreen prints, seeking not only to make art of mass-produced items but to mass produce the art itself. He said he wanted to be like a robot. He hired and supervised "art workers" engaged in making prints, shoes, films, books and other items at his studio, The Factory, located on Union Square in New York. Warhol's body of work furthermore includes commissioned portraits and commercials.

A lot of Warhol's works revolve around the concept of Americana and American culture. He painted money, food, women's shoes, celebrities, newspaper clippings and everyday objects. To him, these subjects represented American cultural values. He used popular imagery and methods to visualize the American cultural identity of the 20th century. This popular redefinition of American culture is a theme and result of Warhol's art. Because American culture has had great international influence, Warhol has as well.

Andy Warhol
Trucci II
Pen on Paper
17 x 14
c. 1955