Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol (/ˈwɔːrhɒl/; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol is considered the most important artist of the second half of the 20th century. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, advertising, and celebrity culture that flourished by the 1960s, and span a variety of media, including painting, sculpture, photography, and filmmaking. Some of his best-known works include the silkscreen paintings Campbell's Soup Cans (1962) and Marilyn Diptych (1962), the experimental film Chelsea Girls (1966), the multimedia events known as the Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1966–67), and the erotic film Blue Movie (1969) that started the "Golden Age of Porn".
Born and raised in Pittsburgh in a family of Rusyn immigrants, Warhol initially pursued a successful career as a commercial illustrator in the 1950s. After exhibiting his work in art galleries, he began to receive recognition as an influential and controversial artist in the 1960s. His New York studio, The Factory, became a well-known gathering place that brought together distinguished intellectuals, drag queens, playwrights, bohemian street people, Hollywood celebrities and wealthy patrons. He directed and produced several underground films starring a collection of personalities known as Warhol superstars, and is credited with inspiring the widely used expression "15 minutes of fame." Warhol managed and produced the experimental rock band the Velvet Underground. Warhol expressed his queer identity through many of his works at a time when homosexuality was actively suppressed in the United States.
After surviving an assassination attempt by radical feminist Valerie Solanas in June 1968, Warhol focused on transforming The Factory into a business enterprise. He founded Interview magazine and authored numerous books, including The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975) and Popism: The Warhol Sixties (1980). He also hosted the television series Fashion (1979–80), Andy Warhol's TV (1980–83), and Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes (1985–87). Warhol died of cardiac arrhythmia, aged 58, after gallbladder surgery in February 1987.
Warhol has been described as the "bellwether of the art market", with several of his works ranking among the most expensive paintings ever sold. In 2013, Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) (1963) sold for $105 million, setting a record for the artist. In 2022, Shot Sage Blue Marilyn (1964) sold for $195 million, which is the highest price paid at auction for a work by an American artist. Warhol has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions, books, and documentary films. The Andy Warhol Museum in his native city of Pittsburgh, which holds an extensive permanent collection of art and archives, is the largest museum in the United States dedicated to a single artist.
Warhol was born on August 6, 1928, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was the fourth child of Ondrej Warhola (Americanized as Andrew Warhola Sr.; 1889–1942) and Julia Warhola (née Zavacká, 1891–1972). His parents were working-class Rusyn emigrants from Mikó, Czechoslovakia (now Miková in northeast Slovakia).
In 1912, Warhol's father emigrated to the United States and found work in a coal mine. His wife joined him nine years later in 1921. The family lived at 55 Beelen Street and later at 3252 Dawson Street in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh. They were Ruthenian Catholic and attended St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church. Warhol had two older brothers, Paul (1922–2014) and John (1925–2010), as well as an older sister, Maria (1912; died in infancy). Warhol's nephew James Warhola, became a successful children's book illustrator.
At the age of eight, Warhol had a streptococcal infection that led to scarlet fever. Because there were no antibiotics to treat the illness it progressed to rheumatic fever and ultimately the neurological condition Sydenham's chorea, sometimes referred to as St. Vitus' Dance. At times he was confined to bed and made to remain home from school. He would spend these days drawing, creating scrapbooks from Hollywood magazines, and cutting out images from comic books that his mother bought him. He also enjoyed using the family's Kodak Baby Brownie Special camera, and after noticing his passion for photography, his father and brothers built a darkroom in the basement for him.
When Warhol started art classes at Holmes School in 1937, his art teacher saw his potential and got him admitted to Saturday drawing lessons at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh. In 1942, his father died after drinking contaminated water from a coal mine in West Virginia.
Warhol excelled in school and won a Scholastic Art and Writing Award. After graduating from Schenley High School in 1945, he enrolled at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, where he studied commercial art. During his time there, Warhol joined the campus Modern Dance Club and Beaux Arts Society. He also served as art director of the student art magazine, Cano, illustrating a cover in 1948 and a full-page interior illustration in 1949. These are believed to be his first two published artworks. Warhol earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in pictorial design in 1949.
Warhol moved to New York City with $200 a week after graduating from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in June 1949. He was accompanied by his classmate Philip Pearlstein. They lived in a six-floor walk-up tenement apartment on St. Mark's Place near Tompkins Square Park.
Warhol went to see Tina Fredericks, the art director of Glamour magazine, on his second day in New York. He had met Fredericks on his brief visit to New York the year prior. His career as a commercial artist began when she commissioned him to draw shoes for an advertisement after purchasing a small $10 drawing of an orchestra for herself.
In 1952, Alexander Iolas is credited as discovering Warhol, and he organized his first solo show at the Hugo Gallery in New York.
In 1955, Warhol began designing advertisements for shoe manufacturer Israel Miller. He developed his "blotted line" technique, applying ink to paper and then blotting the ink while still wet, which was akin to a printmaking process on the most rudimentary scale. His use of tracing paper and ink allowed him to repeat the basic image and also to create endless variations on the theme. American photographer John Coplans recalled that "nobody drew shoes the way Andy did. He somehow gave each shoe a temperament of its own, a sort of sly, Toulouse-Lautrec kind of sophistication, but the shape and the style came through accurately and the buckle was always in the right place. The kids in the apartment [which Andy shared in New York – note by Coplans] noticed that the vamps on Andy's shoe drawings kept getting longer and longer but [Israel] Miller didn't mind. Miller loved them."
In 1956, Warhol was included in his first group exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. That year, he traveled around the world with his friend, production designer Charles Lisanby, studying art and culture in several countries.
In 1956, Warhol began to sketch ornate footwear as a hobby. He designed whimsical shoes that were embellished with gold leaf, and each represented a famous figure such as Truman Capote, Kate Smith, James Dean, Julie Andrews, Elvis Presley, and Zsa Zsa Gabor. They sold for $50 to $225 apiece when they were exhibited at the Bodley Gallery in New York in 1957.
To attract attention to himself as an artist, Warhol printed books of his illustrations such as 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy (1957), which he would distribute to people, in an attempt to generate work. He would often use his mother Julia Warhol's calligraphy to accompany his illustrations.
Warhol habitually used the expedient of tracing photographs projected with an epidiascope. Using prints by Edward Wallowitch, his "first boyfriend", the photographs would undergo a subtle transformation during Warhol's often cursory tracing of contours and hatching of shadows. Warhol used Wallowitch's photograph Young Man Smoking a Cigarette (c. 1956) for a 1958 design for a book cover he submitted to Simon and Schuster for the Walter Ross pulp novel The Immortal, and later used others for his series of paintings.
With the rapid expansion of the record industry, RCA Records hired Warhol, along with another freelance artist, Sid Maurer, to design album covers and promotional materials.
As a commercial artist, Warhol was working with high-end advertising clients such as Tiffany & Co. by the late 1950's.
In 1960, Warhol purchased a townhouse at 1342 Lexington Avenue in the Carnegie Hill neighborhood of Manhattan, which he also used as his art studio.
In April 1961, Warhol's pop paintings were exhibited for the first time in the window display of the Bonwit Teller department store on Fifth Avenue. Five paintings based on comic strips and newspaper ads served as the backdrop for mannequins wearing spring dresses: Saturday's Popeye, Little King, Superman, Before and After, and Advertisement.
In 1962, Warhol was taught silkscreen printmaking techniques by Max Arthur Cohn at his graphic arts business in Manhattan. Warhol is often considered to be a pioneer in silkscreen printmaking and his techniques became more elaborate throughout his career. In his book Popism: The Warhol Sixties, Warhol writes: "When you do something exactly wrong, you always turn up something".
In May 1962, Warhol was featured in an article in Time with his painting Big Campbell's Soup Can with Can Opener (Vegetable) (1962), which initiated his most sustained motif, the Campbell's soup can. That painting became Warhol's first to be shown in a museum when it was exhibited at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford in July 1962. On July 9, 1962, Warhol's exhibition opened at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles with Campbell's Soup Cans, marking his West Coast debut of pop art.
In November 1962, Warhol had an exhibition at Eleanor Ward's Stable Gallery in New York. The exhibit included the works Gold Marilyn, eight of the classic Marilyn series also named Flavor Marilyns, Marilyn Diptych, 100 Soup Cans, 100 Coke Bottles, and 100 Dollar Bills. Gold Marilyn was bought by the architect Philip Johnson and donated to the Museum of Modern Art.
In December 1962, New York City's Museum of Modern Art hosted a symposium on pop art, during which artists such as Warhol were attacked for "capitulating" to consumerism. Critics were appalled by Warhol's open acceptance of market culture, which set the tone for his reception.
In 1963, Warhol formed The Druds, a short-lived avant-garde noise band that included notable figures from the New York minimal art and proto-conceptual art scenes, including Larry Poons, La Monte Young, Walter De Maria, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenberg, and Lucas Samaras.
In January 1963, Warhol rented his first studio—an old firehouse at 159 East 87th Street—where he created his Elvis series, which included Eight Elvises (1963) and Triple Elvis (1963). These portraits, along with a series of Elizabeth Taylor portraits, were shown at his second exhibition at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. Later that year, Warhol relocated his studio to East 47th Street, which would turn into The Factory. The Factory became a popular gathering spot for a wide range of artists, writers, musicians and underground celebrities.
Warhol had his second exhibition at the Stable Gallery in the spring of 1964, which featured sculptures of commercial boxes stacked and scattered throughout the space to resemble a warehouse. For the exhibition, Warhol custom ordered wooden boxes and silkscreened graphics onto them. The sculptures—Brillo Box, Del Monte Peach Box, Heinz Tomato Ketchup Box, Kellogg's Cornflakes Box, Campbell's Tomato Juice Box and Mott's Apple Juice Box—sold for $200 to $400 depending on the size of the box.
A pivotal event was The American Supermarket exhibition at Paul Bianchini's Upper East Side gallery in late 1964. The show was presented as a typical small supermarket environment, except that everything in it—from the produce, canned goods, meat, posters on the wall, etc.—was created by prominent pop artists of the time, among them sculptor Claes Oldenburg, Mary Inman and Bob Watts. Warhol designed a $12 paper shopping bag—plain white with a red Campbell's soup can. His painting of a can of a Campbell's soup cost $1,500 while each autographed can sold for three for $18, $6.50 each. The exhibit was one of the first mass events that directly confronted the general public with both pop art and the perennial question of what art is.
Warhol used assistants to increase his productivity and these collaborations would remain a defining and controversial aspect of his working methods throughout his career. One of Warhol's most important collaborators during this period was Gerard Malanga who assisted him with the production of silkscreens and films at The Factory, Warhol's studio that was covered in aluminium foil and painted silver by Billy Name.
In November 1964, Warhol's first Flowers series exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York. In May 1965, his second Flowers series, which had more sizes and color variation that the previous, was shown at Galerie Ileana Sonnabend in Paris. During this trip Warhol announced that he was retiring from painting to focus on film.
From the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, Warhol also groomed a retinue of bohemian and counterculture eccentrics upon whom he bestowed the designation "superstars", including Baby Jane Holzer, Brigid Berlin, Ondine, Edie Sedgwick, Ingrid Superstar, Nico, International Velvet, Mary Woronov, Viva, Ultra Violet, Joe Dallesandro, Candy Darling, Holly Woodlawn, Jackie Curtis and Jane Forth. These people participated in the Factory films, and some—like Berlin—remained friends with Warhol until his death. Important figures in the New York underground art/cinema world, such as writer John Giorno and filmmaker Jack Smith, also appear in Warhol films of the 1960s, revealing Warhol's connections to a diverse range of artistic scenes during this time. Less well known was his support and collaboration with several teenagers during this era, who would achieve prominence later in life, including writer David Dalton, photographer Stephen Shore and artist Bibbe Hansen (mother of pop musician Beck).
The experimental rock group The Velvet Underground was taken on by Warhol around the end of 1965. In his capacity as their manager, he included them as a key component of his Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia performances in 1966 and 1967, and he funded their debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967).
Warhol made a conscious decision to oppose conventional painting, stating that he no longer believed in painting. In response to art dealer Ivan Karp's suggestion to paint cows, Warhol produced Cow Wallpaper, which covered the walls of the Leo Castelli Gallery during his April 1966 exhibition.
In 1967, Warhol established Factory Additions for his printmaking and publishing enterprise. To duplicate prints for a wide audience, Factory Additions published multiple portfolios of ten images each in editions of 250. These were then printed using professional screen printers.
Warhol intended to present the film Chelsea Girls (1966) at the 1967 Cannes Film Festival, but it wasn't shown because "the festival authorities explained that the film was too long, there were technical problems."
In February 1968, Warhol's first solo museum exhibition was mounted at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm.
1968 assassination attempt
On June 3, 1968, radical feminist writer Valerie Solanas shot Warhol and Mario Amaya, art critic and curator, at The Factory. Solanas had been a marginal figure in the Factory scene before the shooting. She authored the SCUM Manifesto, a separatist feminist tract that advocated the elimination of men; and appeared in the Warhol film I, a Man (1967). Amaya received only minor injuries and was released from the hospital later the same day. Warhol was seriously wounded by the attack and barely survived: he remained in hospital for nearly two months. Solanas turned herself in to the police a few hours after the attack and said that Warhol "had too much control over my life." She was subsequently diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and eventually sentenced to three years in prison.
One of the assistants at the Factory, Jed Johnson, had witnessed the shooting. Johnson visited Warhol regularly during his hospitalization, and the two developed an intimate relationship. Johnson moved in with Warhol shortly after he was discharged from the hospital to help him recuperate and take care of his ailing mother, Julia Warhola.
The assassination attempt had a profound effect on Warhol's life and art. He had physical effects for the rest of his life, including being required to wear a surgical corset. The Factory became more regulated, and Warhol focused on making it a business enterprise. He credited his collaborator Paul Morrissey with transforming the Factory into a "regular office."
Post-shooting
In August 1968, Warhol made an appearance in court after Phillip "Fufu" Van Scoy Smith, an investor in a canceled film adaptation of the Charlotte Brontë novel Jane Eyre, sued him for $80,000. A legal battle ensued for 2 years, ending after the backer failed to show up in court.
In September 1968, Warhol and Ultra Violet attended a party to celebrate the completion of the film Midnight Cowboy. In the film, there is a party scene featuring members of the Factory that was filmed during Warhol's hospitalization.
Warhol hosted a party at the Factory for Nico's album The Marble Index in September 1968. Warhol, Viva and Ultra Violet appeared on the cover of the November 10, 1968, issue of The New York Times Magazine.
In 1969, Warhol and his entourage traveled to Los Angeles to discuss a prospective movie deal with Columbia Pictures. Warhol, who has always had an interest in photography, used a Polaroid camera to document his recuperation after the shooting. In 1969, some of his photographs were published in Esquire magazine. He would become well known for always carrying his Polaroid camera to chronicle his encounters. Eventually, he used instant photography as the basis for his silkscreen portraits when he resumed painting in the 1970s.
Warhol and British journalist John Wilcock founded Interview magazine in the fall of 1969. The magazine was initially published as inter/VIEW: A Monthly Film Journal. It was revamped a few years later and came to represent Warhol's social life and fascination with celebrity.
In 1969, Warhol received an invitation to curate an exhibition using items from the permanent collection of the RISD Museum in Providence. In October 1969, the exhibition Raid the Icebox opened at Rice University's Institute for the Arts in Houston. In 1970, the show traveled to the Isaac Delgado Museum in New Orleans before arriving at the RISD Museum.
Compared to the success and scandal of Warhol's work in the 1960s, the early 1970s were much quieter years, as he became more entrepreneurial. He was generally regarded as quiet, shy and a meticulous observer. Art critic Robert Hughes called him "the white mole of Union Square". His fashion evolved from what Warhol called his "leather look" to his "Brooks Brothers look," which included a Brooks Brothers shirt and tie, DeNoyer blazer, and Levi jeans.
As Warhol continued to forge into filmmaking, he had established himself as "one of the most celebrated and well-known pop art figures to emerge from the sixties." The Pasadena Art Museum in Pasadena organized a major retrospective of his work in 1970. The show traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands; Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Tate Gallery, London; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. The Whitney exhibition in 1971 distinctly featured Warhol's Cow Wallpaper (1966) as the backdrop for his paintings.
In May 1971, Warhol's theater production, Andy Warhol's Pork, opened at the La MaMa Experimental Theatre in New York. In August 1971, it was brought to the Roundhouse in London.
In late 1971, Warhol and his business partner Paul Morrissey purchased Eothen, an oceanfront estate in Montauk, New York on Long Island. They began renting the main house on the property in 1972. Lee Radziwill, Jackie Kennedy, The Rolling Stones, Elizabeth Taylor, Truman Capote, and Halston were among the estate's notable guests.
Warhol is credited with both the cover concept and photography for The Rolling Stones' albums Sticky Fingers (1971). He received a Grammy nomination for Best Album Cover at the 14th Annual Grammy Awards in 1972. Although Warhol was considered to be apolitical, he participated in an exhibition with the poster Vote McGovern (1972) in effort to raise funds for George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign.
Warhol and his longtime partner Jed Johnson got a dachshund puppy, Archie Warhol, in November 1972. Warhol doted on Archie and took him everywhere: to the studio, parties, restaurants, and on trips to Europe. He created portraits of Johnson, Archie, and Amos—a second dachshund they got a few years later.
Warhol began traveling to Europe more frequently and developed a fondness for Paris. Warhol had an apartment that he shared with his business manager Fred Hughes on the Left Bank of Paris on Rue du Cherche-Midi.
In October 1972, Warhol's work was included in the inaugural show at the Art Museum of South Texas in Corpus Christi, Texas.Between 1972 and 1973, Warhol created a series of portraits of Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong with funding from two New York galleries, Knoedler & Co. and the Leo Castelli Gallery, as well as art collector Peter Brant. In February 1974, some of the Mao portraits were installed at the Musée Galliera in Paris.
In 1974, Warhol and Johnson moved from his home on Lexington Avenue to a townhouse at 57 East 66th Street in Manhattan's Lenox Hill neighborhood. By this time, Warhol's public presence had increased significantly due to his attendance at parties. In 1974, he said, "I try to go around so often so much and try to go to every party so that they'll be bored with me and stop writing about me."
Warhol designed the sets for the Broadway musical Man on the Moon by John Philips of the Mamas & the Papas, which opened in January 1975 at the Little Theatre in New York. In May 1975, Warhol attended President Gerald Ford's state dinner in honor of the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, at the White House. In September 1975, he went on an eight-city U.S. book tour for his book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B & Back Again), followed by stops in Italy, France, and England.
In 1976, Warhol and painter Jamie Wyeth were commissioned to paint each other's portraits by the Coe Kerr Gallery in Manhattan. In January 1977, Warhol traveled to Kuwait for the opening of his exhibition at the Dhaiat Abdulla Al Salem Gallery. In June 1977, Warhol was invited to a special reception honoring the "Inaugural Artists" who had contributed prints to the Jimmy Carter presidential campaign. In 1977, Warhol was commissioned by art collector Richard Weisman to create Athletes, ten portraits consisting of the leading athletes of the day.
The opening of Studio 54 in 1977 ushered in a new era in New York City nightlife. Warhol would often socialize at Studio 54 and take note of the drug-fueled activities that his friends engaged in at parties. In 1977, Warhol began taking nude photographs of men in various poses and performing sexual acts—referred to as "landscapes"—for what became known as the Torsos and Sex Parts series. Most of the men were street hustlers and male prostitutes brought to the Factory by Halston's lover Victor Hugo. This caused tension in Warhol's relationship with Johnson who did not approve of his friendship with Hugo. "When Studio 54 opened things changed with Andy. That was New York when it was at the height of its most decadent period, and I didn't take part. I never liked that scene, I was never comfortable. ... Andy was just wasting his time, and it was really upsetting. ... He just spent his time with the most ridiculous people," said Johnson.
In 1979, Warhol formed a publishing company, Andy Warhol Books, and released the book Exposures, which contained his photographs of famous friends and acquaintances. In November 1979, he embarked on a three-week book tour in the US.
According to former Interview editor Bob Colacello, Warhol devoted much of his time to rounding up new, rich patrons for portrait commissions—including Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, his wife Empress Farah Pahlavi, his sister Princess Ashraf Pahlavi, Mick Jagger, Liza Minnelli, John Lennon, Diana Ross and Brigitte Bardot. In November 1979, the Whitney Museum of American Art mounted the exhibition Andy Warhol: Portraits of the '70s to celebrate the "very commercial celebrity of the '70s, the decade of People magazine and designer jeans." Some critics disliked his exhibits of portraits of personalities and celebrities, calling them superficial, facile and commercial, with no depth or indication of the significance of the subjects.
Warhol had a re-emergence of critical and financial success in the 1980s, partially due to his affiliation and friendships with a number of prolific younger artists, who were dominating the "bull market" of 1980s New York art: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, David Salle and other so-called Neo-Expressionists, as well as members of the Transavantgarde movement in Europe, including Francesco Clemente and Enzo Cucchi. Warhol also earned street credibility and graffiti artist Fab Five Freddy paid homage to him by painting an entire train with Campbell soup cans.
His 1980 exhibition Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century at the Jewish Museum in Manhattan was panned by critics. Warhol—who was uninterested in Judaism and Jews—had described in his diary as "They're going to sell."
The New York Academy of Art was founded in part by Warhol. First established in 1980, the institute's mission was to "revive traditional methods of training artists." According to Stuart Pivar, a fellow co-founder and art collector, "What happened was that Modernism got boring [for Warhol] ... But his overall game plan, what he really believed, was that the modern age was going away and that we were entering a neoclassical period."
In 1981, Warhol worked on a project with Peter Sellars and Lewis Allen that would create a traveling stage show called, A No Man Show, with a life-sized animatronic robot in the exact image of Warhol. The Andy Warhol Robot would then be able to read Warhol's diaries as a theatrical production. Warhol was quoted as saying, "I'd like to be a machine, wouldn't you?"
Warhol also had an appreciation for intense Hollywood glamour. He once said: "I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They're so beautiful. Everything's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic." Warhol occasionally walked the fashion runways and did product endorsements, represented by Zoli Agency and later Ford Models.
In 1983, Warhol was commissioned to create a poster for the centennial of the Brooklyn Bridge. The poster was his contribution to the 1983 New York Art Expo.
Warhol created a series of endangered species silkscreen prints for his exhibition Warhol's Animals: Species at Risk at New York City's American Museum of Natural History in April 1983. Warhol donated 10 of the 150 sets he made to wildlife organizations "so they could sell them to raise money."
Prior to the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics, he teamed with 15 other artists, including David Hockney and Cy Twombly, and contributed a Speed Skater print to the Art and Sport collection. The Speed Skater was used for the official Sarajevo Winter Olympics poster.
In 1984, Vanity Fair commissioned Warhol to produce a portrait of Prince, to accompany an article that celebrated the success of Purple Rain and its accompanying movie. Referencing the many celebrity portraits produced by Warhol across his career, Orange Prince (1984) was created using a similar composition to the Marilyn "Flavors" series from 1962, among some of Warhol's first celebrity portraits. Prince is depicted in a pop color palette commonly used by Warhol, in bright orange with highlights of bright green and blue. The facial features and hair are screen-printed in black over the orange background.
In September 1985, Warhol's joint exhibition with Basquiat, Paintings, opened to negative reviews at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery. That month, despite apprehension from Warhol, his silkscreen series Reigning Queens was shown at the Leo Castelli Gallery. In the Andy Warhol Diaries, Warhol noted: "They were supposed to be only for Europe—nobody here cares about royalty and it'll be another bad review."
In January 1987, Warhol traveled to Milan for the opening of his last exhibition, Last Supper, at the Palazzo delle Stelline. The next month, Warhol modeled with jazz musician Miles Davis for Koshin Satoh's fashion show at the Tunnel in New York City on February 17, 1987.
Warhol died at age 58 following gallbladder surgery at New York Hospital in Manhattan on February 22, 1987. Reportedly, he had been making a good recovery from the surgery before dying in his sleep at 6:32 a.m. from a sudden post-operative irregular heartbeat. Prior to his diagnosis and operation, Warhol delayed having his recurring gallbladder problems checked, as he was afraid to enter hospitals and see doctors.
Warhol's brothers took his body back to Pittsburgh, where an open-casket wake was held at the Thomas P. Kunsak Funeral Home. The solid bronze casket had gold-plated rails and white upholstery. Warhol was dressed in a black cashmere suit, a paisley tie, and a platinum wig. He was laid out holding a small prayer book and a red rose. The funeral liturgy was held at the Holy Ghost Byzantine Catholic Church on Pittsburgh's North Side on February 26, 1987. Monsignor Peter Tay delivered the eulogy. After the liturgy, the casket, covered with white roses and asparagus ferns, was driven to St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery in Bethel Park, a south suburb of Pittsburgh, where Warhol was buried near his parents. The priest said a brief prayer at the graveside and sprinkled holy water on the casket. Before the casket was lowered, Warhol's close friend and associate publisher of Interview, Paige Powell, dropped a copy of the magazine and a bottle of Beautiful Eau de Parfum by Estée Lauder into the grave.
A memorial service was held in Manhattan for Warhol at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York on April 1, 1987. It was attended by over 2,000 people, including Warhol collaborators and numerous celebrities such as Raquel Welch, Debbie Harry, Liza Minnelli, Claus von Bülow, and Calvin Klein, among others. Eulogies were given by John Richardson and Yoko Ono. Following the memorial, there was a luncheon at the Diamond Horseshoe nightclub beneath the Paramount Hotel.
In December 1991, Warhol's family sued the hospital in the New York Supreme Court for inadequate care, before judge Ira Gammerman, saying that the arrhythmia was caused by improper care and water intoxication. The malpractice case was quickly settled out of court; Warhol's family received an undisclosed sum of money.
Prior to his surgery, doctors expected Warhol to survive, though a re-evaluation of the case about thirty years after his death showed many indications that Warhol's surgery was in fact riskier than originally thought. It was widely reported at the time that Warhol had died of a "routine" surgery, though when considering factors such as his age, a family history of gallbladder problems, his previous gunshot wound, and his medical state in the weeks leading up to the procedure, the potential risk of death following the surgery appeared to have been significant.
By the beginning of the 1960s, pop art was an experimental form that several artists were independently adopting; some of these pioneers, such as Roy Lichtenstein, would later become synonymous with the movement. Warhol, who would become famous as the "Pope of Pop", turned to this new style, where popular subjects could be part of the artist's palette. His early paintings show images taken from cartoons and advertisements, hand-painted with paint drips. Those drips emulated the style of successful abstract expressionists such as Willem de Kooning.
From these beginnings, he developed his later style and subjects. Instead of working on a signature subject matter, as he started out to do, he worked more and more on a signature style, slowly eliminating the handmade from the artistic process. Warhol was an early adopter of the silkscreen printmaking process as a technique for making paintings. His later drawings were traced from slide projections. Warhol had several assistants through the years, including Gerard Malanga, Ronnie Cutrone, and George Condo, who produced his silkscreen multiples, following his directions to make different versions and variations.
Warhol's first pop art paintings were displayed in April 1961, serving as the backdrop for New York Department Store Bonwit Teller's window display. This was the same stage his Pop Art contemporaries Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist and Robert Rauschenberg had also once graced. It was the gallerist Muriel Latow who came up with the ideas for both the soup cans and Warhol's dollar paintings. On November 23, 1961, Warhol wrote Latow a check for $50 which, according to the 2009 Warhol biography, Pop, The Genius of Warhol, was payment for coming up with the idea of the soup cans as subject matter. For his first major exhibition, Warhol painted his famous cans of Campbell's soup, which he claimed to have had for lunch for most of his life.
It was during the 1960s that Warhol began to make paintings of iconic American objects such as dollar bills, mushroom clouds, electric chairs, Campbell's soup cans, Coca-Cola bottles, celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and Elizabeth Taylor, as well as newspaper headlines or photographs of police dogs attacking African-American protesters during the Birmingham campaign in the civil rights movement. His work became popular and controversial. Warhol had this to say about Coca-Cola:
In 1962, Warhol created his famous Marilyn series. The Flavor Marilyns were selected from a group of fourteen canvases in the sub-series, each measuring 20" x 16". Some of the canvases were named after various candy Life Savers flavors, including Cherry Marilyn, Lemon Marilyn and Licorice Marilyn. The others are identified by their background colors.
Warhol produced both comic and serious works; his subject could be a soup can or an electric chair. Warhol used the same techniques—silkscreens, reproduced serially, and often painted with bright colors—whether he painted celebrities, everyday objects, or images of suicide, car crashes and disasters, as in the 1962–63 Death and Disaster series.
In the 1970s, Warhol evolved into a commercial artist, painting mostly commissioned portraits of celebrities. In 1979, Warhol was commissioned to paint a BMW M1 Group 4 racing version for the fourth installment of the BMW Art Car project. He was initially asked to paint a BMW 320i in 1978, but the car model was changed and it didn't qualify for the race that year. Warhol was the first artist to paint directly onto the automobile himself instead of letting technicians transfer a scale-model design to the car. Reportedly, it took him only 23 minutes to paint the entire car. Racecar drivers Hervé Poulain, Manfred Winkelhock and Marcel Mignot drove the car at the 1979 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Some of Warhol's work, as well as his own personality, has been described as being Keatonesque. Warhol has been described as playing dumb to the media. He sometimes refused to explain his work. He has suggested that all one needs to know about his work is "already there 'on the surface'".
His Rorschach inkblots are intended as pop comments on art and what art could be. His cow wallpaper (literally, wallpaper with a cow motif) and his oxidation paintings (canvases prepared with copper paint that was then oxidized with urine) are also noteworthy in this context. Equally noteworthy is the way these works—and their means of production—mirrored the atmosphere at Andy's New York "Factory". Former Interview editor Bob Colacello provides some details on Andy's "piss paintings":
Warhol's 1982 portrait of Basquiat, Jean-Michel Basquiat, is a silkscreen over an oxidized copper "piss painting". After many years of silkscreen, oxidation, photography, etc., Warhol returned to painting with a brush in hand. In 1983, Warhol began collaborating with Basquiat and Clemente. Warhol and Basquiat created a series of more than 50 large collaborative works between 1984 and 1985. Despite criticism when these were first shown, Warhol called some of them "masterpieces", and they were influential for his later work.
In 1984, Warhol was commissioned by collector and gallerist Alexander Iolas to produce work based on Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper for an exhibition at the old refectory of the Palazzo delle Stelline in Milan, opposite from the Santa Maria delle Grazie where Leonardo da Vinci's mural can be seen. Warhol exceeded the demands of the commission and produced nearly 100 variations on the theme, mostly silkscreens and paintings, and among them a collaborative sculpture with Basquiat, the Ten Punching Bags (Last Supper). The Milan exhibition that opened in January 1987 with a set of 22 silk-screens, was the last exhibition for both the artist and the gallerist. The series of The Last Supper was seen by some as "arguably his greatest", but by others as "wishy-washy, religiose" and "spiritless". It is the largest series of religious-themed works by any American artist.
Artist Maurizio Cattelan describes that it is difficult to separate daily encounters from the art of Andy Warhol: "That's probably the greatest thing about Warhol: the way he penetrated and summarized our world, to the point that distinguishing between him and our everyday life is basically impossible, and in any case useless." Warhol was an inspiration towards Cattelan's magazine and photography compilations, such as Permanent Food, Charley, and Toilet Paper.
In the period just before his death, Warhol was working on Cars, a series of paintings for Mercedes-Benz.
According to a 2023 Artnet article, "Though he is often associated with printmaking—specifically silkscreen—Warhol was also an incredibly talented illustrator and draughtsman, and drawing was an integral part of his practice throughout his career. His early drawings on paper bare a resemblance to both continuous line and blind contour drawing techniques, giving his work a sense of ease and immediacy. While working primarily within commercial advertisement, he pioneered the blotted line technique, which synthesized graphite drawing on paper with elements of printmaking. Warhol continued his practice of drawing through the last years of his life and career, and the work from this later period exemplifies a long and storied career's worth of honed skill and technique."
In 1970, screens and film matrixes that had been used to produce original Warhol works in the 1960s were taken to Europe for the production of Warhol screenprints under the name "Sunday B Morning". Warhol signed and numbered one edition of 250 before subsequent unauthorized unsigned versions were produced. The unauthorized works were the result of a falling out between Warhol and some of his New York City studio employees who went to Brussels where they produced work stamped with "Sunday B Morning" and "Add Your Own Signature Here". Since the works began as a collaboration, Warhol facilitated exact duplication by providing the photo negatives and precise color codes. Some of the unauthorized productions bore the markings "This is not by me, Andy Warhol". The most famous unauthorized reproductions are 1967 Marilyn Monroe portfolio screenprints. These "Sunday B Morning" Marilyn Monroe prints were among those still under production as of 2013. Art galleries and dealers also market Sunday B Morning reprint versions of several other screenprint works including Flowers, Campbell's Soup I, Campbell's Soup Cans II,Gold Marilyn Monroe Mao and Dollare bill prints. Although the original Sunday B Morning versions had black stamps on the back, by the 1980s, they switched to blue.
In 1970, Warhol's painting Campbell's Soup Can With Peeling Label (1962) sold for $60,000 at an auction by Parke-Bernet Galleries. At the time it was the high price ever paid at a public auction for a work by a living American artist.
In the 1970s, the price of a commissioned portrait by Warhol was $25,000, two for $40,000. The value of Andy Warhol's work has been on an endless upward trajectory since his death in 1987. In 2014, his works accumulated $569 million at auction, which accounted for more than a sixth of the global art market. However, there have been some dips. According to art dealer Dominique Lévy: "The Warhol trade moves something like a seesaw being pulled uphill: it rises and falls, but each new high and low is above the last one." She attributes this to the consistent influx of new collectors intrigued by Warhol. "At different moments, you've had different groups of collectors entering the Warhol market, and that resulted in peaks in demand, then satisfaction and a slow down," before the process repeats another demographic or the next generation.
In 1998, Orange Marilyn (1964), a depiction of Marilyn Monroe, sold for $17.3 million, which at the time set a new record as the highest price paid for a Warhol artwork. In 2007, one of Warhol's 1963 paintings of Elizabeth Taylor, Liz (Colored Liz), which was owned by actor Hugh Grant, sold for $23.7 million at Christie's.
In 2007, Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson sold Warhol's Turquoise Marilyn (1964) to financier Steven A. Cohen for $80 million. In May 2007, Green Car Crash (1963) sold for $71.1 million and Lemon Marilyn (1962) sold for $28 million at Christie's post-war and contemporary art auction. In 2007, Large Campbell's Soup Can (1964) was sold at a Sotheby's auction to a South American collector for 7.4 million. In November 2009, 200 One Dollar Bills (1962) at Sotheby's for $43.8 million.
In 2008, Eight Elvises (1963) was sold by Annibale Berlingieri for $100 million to a private buyer. The work depicts Elvis Presley in a gunslinger pose. It was first exhibited in 1963 at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. Warhol made 22 versions of the Elvis portraits, eleven of which are held in museums. In May 2012, Double Elvis (Ferus Type) sold at auction at Sotheby's for $37 million. In November 2014, Triple Elvis (Ferus Type) sold for $81.9 million at Christie's.
In May 2010, a purple self-portrait of Warhol from 1986 that was owned by fashion designer Tom Ford sold for $32.6 million at Sotheby's. In November 2010, Men in Her Life (1962), based on Elizabeth Taylor, sold for $63.4 million at Phillips de Pury and Coca-Cola (4) (1962) sold for $35.3 million at Sotheby's. In May 2011, Warhol's first self-portrait from 1963 to 1964 sold for $38.4 million and a red self-portrait from 1986 sold for $27.5 million at Christie's. In May 2011, Liz No. 5 (Early Colored Liz) sold for $26.9 million at Phillips.
In November 2013, Warhol's rarely seen 1963 diptych, Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster), sold at Sotheby's for $105.4 million, a new record for the artist. In November 2013, Coca-Cola (3) (1962) sold for $57.3 million at Christie's. In May 2014, White Marilyn (1962) sold for $41 million at Christie's. In November 2014, Four Marlons (1964), which depicts Marlon Brando, sold for $69.6 million at Christie's. In May 2015, Silver Liz (diptych), painted in 1963, sold for $28 million and Colored Mona Lisa (1963) sold for $56.2 million at Christie's. In May 2017, Warhol's 1962 painting Big Campbell's Soup Can With Can Opener (Vegetable) sold for $27.5 million at Christie's. In 2017, billionaire hedge-fund manager Ken Griffin purchased Orange Marilyn privately for around $200 million. In March 2022, Silver Liz (Ferus Type) sold for 2.3 billion yen ($18.9 million) at Shinwa Auction, which set a new record for the highest bid ever at auction in Japan. In May 2022, Shot Sage Blue Marilyn (1964) sold for $195 million at Christie's, becoming the most expensive American artwork sold at auction.
Emily and Burton Tremaine were among Warhol's early collectors and influential supporters. Among the over 15 artworks purchased, Marilyn Diptych (now at Tate Modern, London) and A boy for Meg (now at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC), were purchased directly out of Warhol's studio in 1962. One Christmas, Warhol left a small Head of Marilyn Monroe by the Tremaine's door at their New York apartment in gratitude for their support and encouragement.
Robert Scull and Ethel Scull were among the first people to support Warhol's artwork. Ethel Scull 36 Times (1963), which is presently housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection, was Warhol's first commissioned portrait.
Warhol was a fan of "Business Art", as he stated in his book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol from A to B and Back Again. "I went into business art. I wanted to be an art business man or a business artist. Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art," he said. His transformation into a mere business artist was a point of criticism. In hindsight, however, some critics have come to view Warhol's superficiality and commerciality as "the most brilliant mirror of our times", contending that "Warhol had captured something irresistible about the zeitgeist of American culture in the 1970s."
In addition to his paintings and drawings, Warhol directed and produced films, managed the Velvet Underground, and authored numerous books, as well as producing works in such diverse media as audio, photography, sculpture, theater, fashion and performance art. His ability to blur the lines between art, commerce, and everyday life was central to his creative philosophy.
Warhol attended the 1962 premiere of the static composition by La Monte Young called Trio for Strings and subsequently created his famous series of static films. Filmmaker Jonas Mekas, who accompanied Warhol to the premiere, claims Warhol's static films were directly inspired by that performance. Between 1963 and 1968, Warhol made more than 600 underground films, including short black-and-white "screen test" portraits of Factory visitors. Many of his films premiered at the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre in Greenwich Village and 55th Street Playhouse in Midtown Manhattan.
His early experimental films were silent observations of very typical daily life. Sleep (1964) monitors poet John Giorno sleeping for six hours. Kiss (1964) shows couples kissing. The film Eat (1964) consists of an artist Robert Indiana eating a mushroom for 45 minutes. The 35-minute film Blow Job (1964) is one continuous shot of the face of DeVeren Bookwalter supposedly receiving oral sex from poet Willard Maas, although the camera never tilts down to see this.
For these efforts, Mekas presented Warhol with the Independent Film Award of 1964, "the underground's answer to Oscar." Newsday's Mike McGrady hailed Warhol as "the Cecil B. DeMille of the Off-Hollywood movie makers."
Batman Dracula is a 1964 film that was produced and directed by Warhol, without the permission of DC Comics. It was screened only at his art exhibits. A fan of the Batman series, Warhol's movie was an "homage" and is considered the first appearance of a blatantly campy Batman. The film was until recently thought to have been lost, until scenes from the picture were shown at some length in the 2006 documentary Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis.
Warhol's 1965 film Empire is an eight-hour view of the Empire State Building, and shortly after he released Vinyl (1965), an adaptation of Anthony Burgess' popular dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange. Other films record improvised encounters between Factory regulars such as Brigid Berlin, Viva, Edie Sedgwick, Candy Darling, Holly Woodlawn, Ondine, Nico and Jackie Curtis. The underground artist Jack Smith appears in the film Camp.
Warhol's most popular and critically successful film was Chelsea Girls (1966). It was the first underground film of the 1960s to reach widespread popularity and capture the attention of notable film critics. The film was highly innovative in that it consisted of two 16 mm-films being projected simultaneously, with two different stories being shown in tandem. From the projection booth, the sound would be raised for one film to elucidate that "story" while it was lowered for the other. The multiplication of images evoked Warhol's seminal silkscreen works of the early 1960s.
The 1969 film Blue Movie—in which Warhol superstars Viva and Louis Waldon make love in bed—was Warhol's last film as director. It is a seminal film in the Golden Age of Porn, and at the time it was controversial for its frank approach to a sexual encounter. Blue Movie was publicly screened in New York City in 2005, for the first time in more than 30 years.
In the wake of the 1968 shooting, Warhol's assistant director, Paul Morrissey, took over most of the film-making chores for the Factory collective, steering Warhol-branded cinema towards more mainstream, narrative-based, B-movie exploitation fare with Flesh (1968), Trash (1970) and Heat (1972). All of these films, including the later Andy Warhol's Dracula (1973) and Andy Warhol's Frankenstein (1974), were far more mainstream than anything Warhol as a director had attempted. Joe Dallesandro starred in these latter films, which are now considered cult classics. The last Warhol-produced film, Bad, starred Carroll Baker and was made without either Morrissey or Dallesandro. It was directed by Warhol's boyfriend Jed Johnson, who had assisted Morrissey on several films.
Most of the films directed by Warhol were pulled out of circulation by Warhol and the people around him who ran his business. With assistance from Warhol in 1984, the Whitney Museum and the Museum of Modern Art began to restore his films, which are occasionally shown at museums and film festivals. In 2022, the Andy Warhol Museum announced the launch of The Warhol TV, a streaming platform that allows users to watch free museum content and to rent a selection of Warhol's films from its collection.
In 1965, Warhol adopted the band the Velvet Underground, making them a crucial element of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia performance art show. Warhol, with Paul Morrissey, acted as the band's manager, introducing them to Nico (who would perform with the band at Warhol's request). While managing The Velvet Underground, Andy would have them dressed in all black to perform in front of movies that he was also presenting. In 1966, he "produced" their first album The Velvet Underground & Nico, as well as providing its album art. His actual participation in the album's production amounted to simply paying for the studio time.
After the band's first album, Warhol and band leader Lou Reed started to disagree more about the direction the band should take, and Warhol was fired in 1967. In 1989, Reed and John Cale reunited for the first time since 1972 to write, perform, record and release the concept album Songs for Drella, as a tribute to Warhol. In October 2019, an audio tape of publicly unknown music by Reed, based on Warhol's 1975 book, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again, was reported to have been discovered in an archive at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.
Warhol designed many album covers for various artists beginning during his days as an illustrator in the 1950s. The album covers he designed include for I'm Still Swinging (1955) by The Joe Newman Octet, Blue Lights, Vols. 1 & 2 (1958) by Kenny Burrell, This Is John Wallowitch!!! (1964) by John Wallowitch, Sticky Fingers (1971) and Love You Live (1977) by The Rolling Stones, The Academy in Peril (1972) by John Cale, Silk Electric (1982) by Diana Ross, and Aretha (1986) by Aretha Franklin.
In 1984, Warhol co-directed the music video "Hello Again" by the Cars, and he appeared in the video as a bartender. In 1986, Warhol co-directed the music video "Misfit" by Curiosity Killed the Cat and he made a cameo in video.
Beginning in the 1950s, Warhol produced several unbound portfolios of his work. In 1957, his bound book 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy was printed by Seymour Berlin. Berlin also printed some of Warhol's other self-published books, including Gold Book and Wild Raspberries. Warhol's book A La Recherche du Shoe Perdu marked his "transition from commercial to gallery artist". (The title is a play on words by Warhol on the title of French author Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu.) In an effort to generate work, the majority of these books were printed in order to be given out to people to draw attention to his illustrations.
After gaining fame, Warhol "wrote" several books that were commercially published:
Warhol created the fashion magazine Interview that is still published. The loopy title script on the cover is thought to be either his own handwriting or that of his mother, Julia Warhola, who would often do text work for his early commercial pieces.
Warhol created covers for a number of magazines, including Time and Vogue.
Although Andy Warhol is most known for his paintings and films, he authored works in many different media.
Warhol lived as a gay man before the gay liberation movement, but he often veiled his personal life in the press. In 1980, Warhol proclaimed that he was still a virgin. Former Interview editor Bob Colacello felt it was probably true and that what little sex he had was probably "a mixture of voyeurism and masturbation—to use [Andy's] word abstract." However, Warhol's assertion of virginity is contradicted by his hospital treatment in 1960 for condylomata, a sexually transmitted disease. His friend Charles Lisanby, whom Warhol had unrequited romantic feelings for, said Warhol told him sex was "messy and distasteful." "He told me he'd had sex a few times, he had tried it and didn't really like it," said Lisanby. Furthermore, some of Warhol's friends from his early career claimed to have either witnessed Warhol having sex or heard him boasting about his sexual relations.
Due to Warhol's own admission that he was asexual, it has been assumed that all his relationships were platonic. Warhol superstar Jay Johnson, whose twin brother was Warhol's partner, stated, "He enjoyed the idea that he was considered a voyeur and that he was considered asexual. That was his mystique." The Factory photographer Billy Name was briefly Warhol's lover. He said Warhol was "the essence of sexuality. It permeated everything. Andy exuded it, along with his great artistic creativity ... It brought a joy to the whole art world in New York." "But his personality was so vulnerable that it became a defense to put up the blank front," said Name. Warhol's other lovers included aspiring filmmaker Danny Williams and artist John Giorno. Paramount Pictures executive Jon Gould was one of his last companions. His most enduring romantic relationship was with Jed Johnson who nursed him back to health after he was shot. Johnson collaborated with Warhol on films, and went on to achieve fame as an interior designer. Warhol and Johnson "functioned as husband and husband, sharing a bed and a domestic life" for 12 years.
The impact of Warhol's homosexuality on his work and connection with the art industry has been extensively studied. Throughout his career, Warhol produced erotic photography and drawings of male nudes. Many of his most famous works—portraits of Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland, and Elizabeth Taylor and films such as Blow Job, My Hustler and Lonesome Cowboys—draw from gay underground culture or openly explore the complexity of sexuality and desire. As has been addressed by a range of scholars, many of his films premiered in gay porn theaters, including the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre and 55th Street Playhouse, in the 1960s.
The first works that Warhol submitted to a fine art gallery, homoerotic drawings of male nudes, were rejected for being too openly gay. In Popism, furthermore, the artist recalls a conversation with the filmmaker Emile de Antonio about the difficulty Warhol had being accepted socially by the then-more-famous (but closeted) gay artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. De Antonio explained that Warhol was "too swish and that upsets them". In response to this, Warhol writes, "There was nothing I could say to that. It was all too true. So I decided I just wasn't going to care, because those were all the things that I didn't want to change anyway, that I didn't think I 'should' want to change ... Other people could change their attitudes but not me". In exploring Warhol's biography, many turn to this period—the late 1950s and early 1960s—as a key moment in the development of his persona.
Some have suggested that his frequent refusal to comment on his work, to speak about himself (confining himself in interviews to responses like "Um, no" and "Um, yes", and often allowing others to speak for him)—and even the evolution of his pop style—can be traced to the years when Warhol was first dismissed by the inner circles of the New York art world.
Warhol was a practicing Ruthenian Catholic. He regularly volunteered at homeless shelters in New York City, particularly during the busier times of the year, and described himself as a religious person. In 1966, his mother Julia Warhola told Esquire magazine that he was a "good religious boy" and he attended one o'clock Mass at St. Paul's every Sunday. The priest at Warhol's church, Saint Vincent Ferrer, said that the artist went there almost daily, and although he was not observed taking Communion or going to Confession, he sat or knelt in the pews at the back. The priest thought he was afraid of being recognized; Warhol said he was self-conscious about being seen in a Latin Catholic church crossing himself "in the Orthodox way" (right to left instead of the reverse). In 1980, Warhol met Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square.
Many of Warhol's later works depicted religious subjects, including two series, Details of Renaissance Paintings (1984) and The Last Supper (1986). Warhol made almost 100 variations on the theme of the Last Supper, which the Guggenheim felt "indicates an almost obsessive investment in the subject matter". In addition, a body of religious-themed works was found posthumously in his estate.
Warhol's art is noticeably influenced by the Eastern Christian tradition which was so evident in his places of worship. Warhol's brother has described the artist as "really religious, but he didn't want people to know about that because [it was] private". Despite the private nature of his faith, in Warhol's eulogy John Richardson depicted it as devout: "To my certain knowledge, he was responsible for at least one conversion. He took considerable pride in financing his nephew's studies for priesthood".
From November 2021 to June 2022, the Brooklyn Museum displayed the Andy Warhol: Revelation exhibition. The exhibition delved at the artist's enduring connection to his faith, which was often reflected in his artwork.
Warhol was an avid collector. His friends referred to his numerous collections, which filled not only his four-story townhouse, but also a nearby storage unit, as "Andy's Stuff". The true extent of his collections was not discovered until after his death, when The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh took in 641 boxes of his "Stuff".
Warhol's collections included a Coca-Cola memorabilia sign, and 19th century paintings along with airplane menus, unpaid invoices, pizza dough, pornographic pulp novels, newspapers, stamps, supermarket flyers and cookie jars, among other eccentricities. It also included significant works of art, such as George Bellows's Miss Bentham. One of his main collections was his wigs. Warhol owned more than 40 and felt very protective of his hairpieces, which were sewn by a New York wig-maker from hair imported from Italy. In 1985, a girl snatched Warhol's wig off his head. It was later discovered in Warhol's diary entry for that day that he wrote: "I don't know what held me back from pushing her over the balcony."
In 1960, he had bought a drawing of a light bulb by Jasper Johns. Another item found in Warhol's boxes at the museum in Pittsburgh was a mummified human foot from Ancient Egypt. The curator of anthropology at Carnegie Museum of Natural History felt that Warhol most likely found it at a flea market.
Warhol collected many books, with more than 1,200 titles in his collection. Of these, 139 titles have been publicly identified through a 1988 Sotheby's Auction catalog, The Andy Warhol Collection and can be viewed online. His book collection reflects his eclectic taste and interests, and includes books written by and about some of his acquaintances and friends. Some of the titles in his collection include The Two Mrs. Grenvilles: A Novel by Dominick Dunne, Artists in Uniform by Max Eastman, Andrews' Diseases of the Skin: Clinical Dermatology by George Clinton Andrews, D.V. by Diana Vreeland, Blood of a Poet by Jean Cocteau, Watercolours by Francesco Clemente, Little World, Hello! by Jimmy Savo, Hidden Faces by Salvador Dalí and The Dinah Shore Cookbook.
In 1991, the Warhol Family Museum of Modern Art was established in Medzilaborce, Slovakia by Warhol's family and the Slovak Ministry of Culture. In 1996, it was renamed the Andy Warhol Museum of Modern Art.
In 1992, Warhol's estate donated 15-acres of land on his former property Eothen to The Nature Conservancy. Now called The Andy Warhol Preserve, it is part of a 2,400-acre protected area in Montauk.
In 1994, the Andy Warhol Museum opened in Pittsburgh. It holds the largest collection of the artist's works in the world.
In 1998, Warhol's Upper East Side townhouse at 57 E 66th Street in Manhattan was designated a cultural landmark by the Historical Landmarks Preservation Center to commemorate the 70th anniversary of his birthday.
In 2002, the US Postal Service issued an 18-cent stamp commemorating Warhol. Designed by Richard Sheaff of Scottsdale, Arizona, the stamp was unveiled at a ceremony at The Andy Warhol Museum and features Warhol's painting "Self-Portrait, 1964". In March 2011, a chrome statue of Andy Warhol and his Polaroid camera was revealed at Union Square in New York City.
A crater on Mercury was named after Warhol in 2012.
In 2013, to honor the 85th anniversary of Warhol's birthday, The Andy Warhol Museum and EarthCam launched a collaborative project titled Figment, a live feed of Warhol's gravesite.
In 2024, Warhol was posthumously awarded the Order of the White Double Cross of the Second Class by the Slovak Republic's ambassador to the U.S. on the 37th anniversary of his death, at the behest of Slovakian President Zuzana Čaputová, "for promoting the Slovak Republic's good name abroad."
Warhol's will dictated that his entire estate—with the exception of a few modest legacies to family members—would go to create a foundation dedicated to the "advancement of the visual arts". Warhol had so many possessions that it took Sotheby's nine days to auction his estate after his death; the auction grossed more than $20 million.
In 1987, in accordance with Warhol's will, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts was formed. The foundation serves as the estate of Andy Warhol, but also has a mission "to foster innovative artistic expression and the creative process" and is "focused primarily on supporting work of a challenging and often experimental nature".
The Artists Rights Society is the US copyright representative for the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for all Warhol works with the exception of Warhol film stills. The US copyright representative for Warhol film stills is the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. Additionally, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has agreements in place for its image archive. All digital images of Warhol are exclusively managed by Corbis, while all transparency images of Warhol are managed by Art Resource.
The Andy Warhol Foundation released its 20th Anniversary Annual Report as a three-volume set in 2007: Vol. I, 1987–2007; Vol. II, Grants & Exhibitions; and Vol. III, Legacy Program.
The Foundation is in the process of compiling its catalogue raisonné of paintings and sculptures in volumes covering blocks of years of the artist's career. Volumes IV and V were released in 2019. The subsequent volumes are still in the process of being compiled.
The Foundation remains one of the largest grant-giving organizations for the visual arts in the US.
Many of Warhol's works and possessions are on display at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. The foundation donated more than 3,000 works of art to the museum.
Warhol founded Interview, a stage for celebrities he "endorsed" and a business staffed by his friends. One might even say that he produced people (as in the Warholian "Superstar" and the Warholian portrait). Warhol endorsed products, appeared in commercials, and made frequent celebrity guest appearances on television shows and films.
Warhol appeared in the films Dynamite Chicken (1971), The Driver's Seat (1974), Cocaine Cowboys (1979) and Tootsie (1982).
After his death, Warhol was portrayed by Crispin Glover in Oliver Stone's film The Doors (1991), by Jared Harris in Mary Harron's film I Shot Andy Warhol (1996), and by David Bowie in Julian Schnabel's film Basquiat (1996). Bowie recalled how meeting Warhol in real life helped him in the role, and recounted his early meetings with him:
Warhol appeared as a character in Michael Daugherty's opera Jackie O (1997). Actor Mark Bringleson makes a brief cameo as Warhol in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997). Many films by avant-garde cineast Jonas Mekas have caught the moments of Warhol's life. Sean Gregory Sullivan depicted Warhol in the film 54 (1998). Guy Pearce portrayed Warhol in the film Factory Girl (2007) about Edie Sedgwick's life. Actor Greg Travis portrays Warhol in a brief scene from the film Watchmen (2009). Comedian Conan O'Brien portrayed Warhol in the film Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022).
In the movie Highway to Hell a group of Andy Warhols are part of the Good Intentions Paving Company where good-intentioned souls are ground into pavement. In the film Men in Black 3 (2012) Andy Warhol turns out to really be undercover MIB Agent W (played by Bill Hader). Warhol is throwing a party at The Factory in 1969, where he is encountered by MIB Agents K and J.
Andy Warhol (portrayed by Tom Meeten) is one of main characters of the 2012 British television show Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy. The character is portrayed as having robot-like mannerisms. In the 2017 feature The Billionaire Boys Club, Cary Elwes portrays Warhol in a film based on the true story about Ron Levin (portrayed by Kevin Spacey) a friend of Warhol's who was murdered in 1986. In September 2016, it was announced that Jared Leto would portray the title character in Warhol, an upcoming American biographical drama film produced by Michael De Luca and written by Terence Winter, based on the book Warhol: The Biography by Victor Bockris.
In 1965, Warhol and his muse Edie Sedgwick appeared on The Merv Griffin Show. Warhol doesn't say much save for bashful gestures and whispering "yes" or "no," while Sedgwick mediates a conversation on how Pop Art is art without any sense of emotion.
In 1969, Warhol was commissioned by Braniff International to appear in two television commercials to promote the luxury airline's "When You Got It – Flaunt It" campaign. The campaign was created by the advertising agency Lois Holland Calloway, which was led by George Lois, creator of a famed series of Esquire covers. The first commercial series involved the unlikely paring of Warhol and heavyweight boxing champion Sonny Liston who shared the fact that they both flew Braniff Airways. The odd commercial worked and Warhol was featured in another commercial entering a Braniff jet and being greeted by a Braniff hostess, while espousing their like for flying Braniff. The rights to Warhol's films for Braniff and his signed contracts are owned by a private trust and are administered by Braniff Airways Foundation in Dallas, Texas.
Warhol appeared on the BBC series Arena in a scene with writers William S. Burroughs and Victor Bockris in an episode that aired in January 1981. Warhol filmed a segment for the sketch comedy television show Saturday Night Live, which aired in October 1981. In a 1981 Sony Beta Tapes advertisement, Warhol featured beside a Marilyn image to showcase the tapes' capacity to record "brilliant color and delicate shading." In 1983, he appeared in a commercial for TDK Videotape.
In 1985, Warhol appeared in a Diet Coke commercial. He also had a guest appearance on the 200th episode of the television series The Love Boat wherein a Midwestern wife (Marion Ross) fears Andy Warhol will reveal to her husband (Tom Bosley) her secret past as a Warhol superstar named Marina del Rey.
In 1986, Warhol appeared in an ad for the Drexel Burnham Lambert investment group.
Warhol appeared as a recurring character in TV series Vinyl, played by John Cameron Mitchell. Warhol was portrayed by Evan Peters in the American Horror Story: Cult episode "Valerie Solanas Died for Your Sins: Scumbag". The episode depicts the attempted assassination of Warhol by Valerie Solanas (Lena Dunham).
Warhol strongly influenced the new wave/punk rock band Devo, as well as David Bowie. Bowie recorded a song called "Andy Warhol" for his 1971 album Hunky Dory. Lou Reed wrote the song "Andy's Chest" in response to the attempted assassination of Warhol. The song was originally recorded by the Velvet Underground in 1969, but it wasn't released until a version appeared on Reed's solo album Transformer in 1972. The band Triumph also wrote a song about Andy Warhol, "Stranger In A Strange Land" off their 1984 album Thunder Seven.
Many books have been written about Warhol. In 1989, the biography The Life and Death of Andy Warhol by author Victor Bockris was published. Bockris expanded the book in 2003 for the 75th anniversary of Warhol's birth and called it Warhol: The Biography. Former Interview editor Bob Colacello wrote the book Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close Up, which was published in 1990. A biography written by art critic Blake Gopnik was published in 2020 under the title Warhol.
Warhol is featured as a character in the Miracleman series of comics. It is first mentioned that he was resurrected by the alien scientist Mors and subsequently convinces the latter to mass-produce copies of himself. Later on, 18 copies of Warhol are seen in the underworld beneath the pyramid structure Olympus, where they produce pop art relating to the new superhuman regime. One Warhol clone numbered 6 is assigned to and develop a friendship with a clone of Emil Gargunza (Miracleman's creator) before the latter's betrayal and attempted escape.
Warhol makes an appearance in the 2003 video game The Sims: Superstar as the photographer in Studio Town. Warhol (played by Jeff Grace) makes a cameo appearance in the 2022 video game Immortality.