Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol (1928-1987) was an American artist and filmmaker, initiator and leading exponent of the Pop Art movement of the 1960s, whose mass production culminated the alleged banality of American commercial culture. A handy self-promoter, he advocated a concept of the artist as an impersonal, even empty figure who is nevertheless a successful celebrity, businessman and social climber. Warhol began painting in the late 1950s and suddenly became famous in 1962 when he exhibited paintings of Campbell’s soup cans, Coca-Cola bottles and wooden replicas of Brillo soap boxes. In the mid-sixties Warhol concentrated on making films. Chelsea Girls (1966), Eat (1963), My Hustler (1965) and Blue Movie (1969) are known for their striking eroticism, plotless boredom and excessive length.