Andy Warhol, Pittsburgh 1928 - 1987 New York

Andy Warhol is an American icon, the founder and leading figure of the Pop art revolution. Born in Pittsburgh, Warhol attended the Carnegie Institute of Technology before moving to New York, where he quickly became a successful illustrator, working for luxury brands including Harper’s Bazaar and Tiffany & Co. When he turned to painting, mass-produced products and celebrities became his primary subjects, from Campbell’s soup cans to Marilyn Monroe. At the same time Warhol pioneered the revolutionary technique of silk-screening, a process which concealed all traces of his hand while allowing a chosen image to be repeated over and over again with endless variations. Among many other artistic projects, Warhol also created hundreds of sculptures that reproduced supermarket products like Brillo and Kellogg’s boxes, and made experimental films about boredom, time, and repetition. By the 1970s, he was an international star—socialites and celebrities wanted to be immortalized in his inimitable style, and to secure invitations to The Factory, his silver-painted studio and party palace. At once satirizing and celebrating materialism and fame, mixing a voyeuristic sensibility with technical innovation, Warhol was the quintessential artist of the American twentieth century.