If you think the King of Pop was Michael Jackson, think again. Rather the real head of the Pop patriarchy was recognizable not by his lone silvery glove but by his array of shocking silvery-blonde wigs. One icon is famous for garish eccentricities, while the other is famous for simple ones. It was this love affair with simplicity, in fact, that turned objects as ordinary as a can of soup into coveted objets d’arts. That, above all else, was Andy Warhol’s truest contribution to the American psyche.
Born unto blue-collar Slovakian immigrants in 1928, Andrew Warhola left his working-class nest upon graduation from Pennsylvania’s Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1949. After his application to teach at an Indiana art school was rejected, he headed instead for the metropolitan utopia of New York City. (The expression “When one door closes, another opens” is a bit of an understatement in Andy’s case.) His first published illustrations appeared later that same year in Glamour magazine, and it was a typo alongside writer Katherine Sontag’s piece "Success is a job in New York" that resulted in his eventual decision to drop the “a” from his family name.
What started off as gigs as an illustrator for publications like Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, eventually lead to a career as one of the most influential artists of all time. But while commercial success was swift, recognition as an artist in his own right was not. When earlier paintings were deemed by critics as nothing particularly special, in an act of desperation he offered friend Muriel Latow $50 to help generate ideas for subject matter. It was Muriel’s simple suggestion to paint what he loves that elicited a matter-of-fact “I like money,” and subsequently sparked Andy’s idea of cash as subject. Thereby altering not only the style of his work, but the trajectory of his professional life. It was Muriel who is also credited with having suggested he consider objects that are so “everyday” they are unnoticed: “Like a can of soup.” After Muriel helped ensure the wellspring sprung, Andy fast became known as the guy who painted soup cans. With cans as the inspiration to excavate and explore the ordinary, professionally he never dried up again.
All in all, it was a well-spent $50.
The vehement tackling of his work lead directly to the rise of a movement that, until then, had been fledgling at best: Pop art – the evolution of the commonplace from mundane to celebrated hero. (Perhaps Andy said it best when he observed: “When you think about it, department stores are kind of like museums.”) By the early 1960s, he was utilizing bold, unnatural colours to depict images of famous personalities – Marilyn, Jackie, Liz, and Liza – inadvertently making the image of the already-adored icon as coveted as the actual icon itself. And inadvertently as well, making himself every bit as famous as the subjects he captured. His preferred modus operandi was silk screening, which allowed him to create series of repeat images, rationalizing along the way that: “If one is good, more must be better.”
In 1962 Andy founded The Factory, a workspace which attracted not only a team of like-minded pop artists, but its fair share of greats from other disciplines as well, including Breakfast at Tiffany’s writer Truman Capote and lip-endowed Rolling Stone, Mick Jagger. In addition to his unique paintings, Andy completed nearly 300 arguably plot-less films at The Factory, including the likes of Sleep – which chronicles one man’s six-hour nap.
However, The Factory wasn’t just a place of creation for Andy. It was here that, in July 1968, he was severely wounded when a disgruntled artist named Valerie Solanis opened fire, shooting him near fatally. The founder (and only member) of a group dubbed SCUM – Society for Cutting Up Men – Solanis claimed Andy had too much control over her life. He never fully recovered from the incident and for the remaining two decades of his life, wore his waist wrapped.
After Valerie’s outburst of man-hatred, Andy took some time to shift the focus of his work. In 1973, he launched Interview, a still-operating magazine centered upon his fascination with the cult of celebrity, and a year later, he published The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (from A to B and back again). His art became less about mass production and more about larger, individual images of the rich and famous. In a collision of pop culture royalty, Andy eventually painted Michael Jackson – a piece which appeared on the cover of the March 19th, 1984 issue of Time.
In an effort to simplify a move from his Manhattan studio to a new location, Andy began to package items collected over the years into uniform cardboard boxes, later referring to these vessels as his Time Capsules. By the time of his death, he had amassed over 600 capsules. He had so many possessions – including an extravagant array of cookie jars – that it took Sotheby's nine days to auction off his estate, grossing more than $20 million (USD).
Andy Warhol devised high art from what would otherwise be considered low objects and elevated our perception of the everyday from oft-overlooked inanimate thing to intriguing item to be revered – canning the idea that beauty had to be separate from the everyday experience of life. By the simple act of making art more accessible, for that, well to us he’ll always be King.
Andy Warhol died February 22nd, 1987 from complications after a gall bladder operation.
