Andy Warhol

American painter and filmmaker, as well as a major figure in the pop art movement.

Full name Andrew Warhol
Born August 6, 1928 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Died February 22, 1987 (aged 58) New York, New York
American nationality
Occupation artist, filmmaker, photographer and graphic designer
Main works Campbell's Soup Can (1962) Chelsea Girls (1966) Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1966)

See Wikipedia

Biography

Andy Warhol was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was the fourth child of Ondrej Warhola and Julia (née Zavacká, 1892–1972), whose first child was born in their homeland and died before their emigration to the United States. His parents were working-class immigrants from Mikó (now called Miková) in northeastern Slovakia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Warhol's father emigrated to the United States in 1914, and his mother joined him in 1921, after the death of Andy Warhol's grandparents. His father worked in a coal mine. The family lived at 55 Beelen Street, and later at 3252 Dawson Street, in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The family was Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic and attended St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church in Pittsburgh. Andy Warhol had two older brothers, Ján and Pavol, who were born in what is now Slovakia.

Marilyn Monroe

Hollywood movie star Marilyn Monroe passed away on August 5, 1962. In the same year, weeks after her death, Warhol created what would become his most famous silkscreen print: a tribute to the diva.

The same image of Marilyn received different experiments with bright colors, the original photograph was part of the advertising campaign for the film Niagara , released in 1953. Warhol's work became one of the emblems of pop art.

Mao Zedong

Warhol began to take an interest in the figure of former Chinese president Mao Zedong in 1972, the year in which Richard Nixon, then president of the United States, made his first visit to China. In that same year, the American artist began sketching caricatures of Chinese authority. The image created of the leader that became the most famous caricature of Chinese authority was painted in 1973. Made with strong brushstrokes and lots of color, Mao Zedong even appears as if he were wearing makeup. The lipstick and eye shadow stand out against the black and white photograph, as do the background, reinvented in pink, and the clothing, colored in fluorescent yellow.

Banana

The yellow banana was used as the cover for the debut album by the band The Velvet Underground. Andy Warhol was very involved in music and, in the 1960s, decided to join the group. Five years later, he even became the band's manager. The album with the banana on the cover is considered “the most prophetic rock album of all time” and one of the greatest albums in history according to Rolling Stone magazine. The famous banana, in turn, became detached from the image of the band and the album to become one of the symbolic images of pop art.