Andy Warhol: Life and Printmaking
Andy Warhol is one of the most famous printmakers of all time, but he is also a very dynamic artist who dabbled in many different mediums. He is known for his works of Pop Art, where he focused mainly on mass production and culture. In this paper, I will discuss Warhol’s early life and dive into how that affected his works. I will also be discussing Warhol’s personal life, mainly his sexuality, and the effect that had on his works; then, I will discuss Warhol’s famous works of Marilyn Monroe in relation to his career as an artist.
Andy Warhol was born on August 6, 1928 in Pennsylvania. At birth, his name was legally as Andy Warhola, but he later dropped the “a” in his last name to become the famous “Andy Warhol” we know him as today. Warhol grew up with his family in the Catholic Church, and from youth, he suffered from Sydenham chorea, which is known as St. Vitus dance due to the involuntary movements that are caused by the disease. This kept young Warhol home from school often, where he read many comics and was exposed to newspaper and comic art. This disease also led to facial discoloration and pigment issues. In school, he was given the nicknames “Red-nosed Warhola,” and “Spot.” This side effect of Sydenham chorea provoked Warhol to have many cosmetic surgeries and beauty regimes later in life, which showed up in many of his works that depicted nose jobs, wigs, and bodybuilder imagery.
Warhol’s art career seems to have begun when he was only eight, receiving his first camera from his parents and beginning art classes at Carnegie Institute. He went to high school at Schenley High School in Pennsylvania. He attended Carnegie Institute of Technology, paid for by his father upon realizing his son had real talent in the arts. After graduating, Warhol moved to New York to pursue commercial art.
Andy Warho’s early career began in New York during the 1950’s. It started with a bang when his his first work appeared in the 1949 issue of Glamour magazine, an illustration for a story called “What is Success?.” Throughout the 50s, he had many clients, which included Tiffany & Co., Columbia Records, and Vogue. Warhol was also self-publishing series of artist’s books in 1950, which hand-colored by him and friends. During this time, he was known for his method of blotted-line ink drawings, which combined drawing and basic printmaking by drawing with ink on a transparent piece of paper and pressing it onto an absorbent paper. One of his famous works from this time is The French Look, which he created in 1958 using the blotted line technique.
Warhol’s personal life influenced his work immensely, including his sexuality. Warhol was a homosexual, and many of his pieces were influence by this, including many depicting young men and erotic portrayals of male nudes. He had a solo exhibit in 1956 at Bodley Gallery called Studies for a Boy Book. Some of works were rejected by galleries and the public due to the homosexual subjects of the piece. The Tanager Gallery rejected a piece due to subject matter of two men embracing. When Warhol began making films in the 60s, many included many themes of sexuality. One of these is Sleep, which was a film consisting of about 6 hours of him and his boyfriend sleeping nude. On Andy Warhol’s official website, Warhol.org, it describes Warhol “blurred the lines between his romantic and professional relationships, mixing business and pleasure.”
Warhol was one of the major artists who contributed to the Pop Art Movement. In his art, Warhol focused mainly on mass-produced products and commercial products, including any grocery items. One of these was Coca-Cola, 1961, which was a piece that really demonstrated his transition into Pop art. In 1962, Warhol began to focus on photographic silkscreen printing, and he began his series of celebrity portraits, including Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, and Elizabeth Taylor. During this same year, Warhol was the first solo pop artist to exhibit at Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. This exhibit included his famous piece, Campbell’s Soup Cans, 1962, exhibited in this gallery. In the next year, he began his Death and Disaster series, which dove into modern tragedies of suicides, car crashes, and others. In 1964, Warhol created his famous studio, “The Silver Factory,” which was decorated in silver with paint and foil. This studio became a creative area for Warhol and was also an environment for the experimentation of art, music, and drugs. Some more of Warhol’s interesting works included his box sculptures, created to look like replicas of supermarket product boxes, in this space, and he did so by using an assembly line and hiring studio assistants. Some of these famous boxes include Brillo Boxes, Heinz Boxes, Del Monte, and Boxes.
Warhol, in his later life, was known for co-founding Interview, a Pop culture fashion magazine, along with his commissions from socialites and film stars after designing cover for The Rollins Stones’ Fingers Album in 1971. In the 80s, he shortly experiemented with Abstraction, including his famous piece, Rorschach, 1984, before dying in 1987.
In regards to Warhol’s printmaking, I would like to focus on his portraits of Marilyn Monroe, including Marilyn Monroe, 1967, and Gold Marilyn Monroe, 1962. Marilyn Monroe, 1967, is a series of ten screen prints of the celebrity. This piece is on display at the MoMa, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the display at the states,
“For Marilyn, he created ten highly variable portraits, exploiting the possibilities in screenprinting for shifting colors and off-register effects. By celebrating the seemingly impervious veneer of glamour and fame, but acknowledging its darker inner complexity, these prints reveal Warhol's subtle grasp of American culture.” (MoMa.org)
The piece is seen as being an insight into why Warhol did pop culture works, to acknowledges the “darkness” of pop culture. Gold Marilyn Monroe, 1962, was created year of Marilyn Monroe’s suicide. This piece is a canvas painted gold with silkscreened face of Marilyn Monroe in the center of the composition. Also on display at the MoMa, the display states,
“By duplicating a photograph known to millions, Warhol undermined the uniqueness and authenticity characteristic of traditional portraiture. Instead he presented Monroe as an infinitely reproducible image.”
Through his portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Warhol made a statement about pop culture and the way in which public figures can be replaced because they are nothing but an icon or image to culture, not actually a person. There is much debate on the character of Warhol, whether he embraced or despised pup culture, but these pieces give insight into the mind of Warhol and his aching towards pop culture.
Andy Warhol was a dynamic artist that dove into culture and almost every area of art. His pieces are recognizable today, decades after his death. Warhol changed the world of printmaking with his blotted-line printing and silkscreen printing while commenting on culture and mass production in the process.