Andy Warhol was born Andrew Warhola in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1928. In 1945 he attended the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) where he majored in pictorial design. After graduation in 1949, Warhola moved to New York where he found steady work as a commercial artist. He worked as an illustrator for several magazines including Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and The New Yorker and created advertisements and window displays for retail stores such as Bonwit Teller and I Miller. Prophetically, his first assignment was for Glamour magazine for an article titled ‘Success is a job in New York’.
Throughout the 1950s, Warhola enjoyed a successful career as a commercial artist, winning several commendations from the Art Director's Club and the American Institute of Graphic Arts. In these early years, he shortened his surname to Warhol. In 1952, the artist held his first solo show — the exhibition ‘Fifteen Drawings Based on the Writings of Truman Capote’ at the Hugo Gallery. His work was exhibited in several other venues during the 1950s, including his first group show at the Museum of Modern Art in 1956.
The 1960s was an extremely prolific decade for Warhol. Appropriating images from popular culture, he created many paintings that remain icons of twentieth-century art, such as the Campbell's Soup Cans, ‘Disaster’ works and Marilyns. In addition to painting, Warhol began making films and created many classics of avant-garde cinema over a five-year period from 1963, including Sleep 1963, Empire 1963, Kiss 1963–64 and The Chelsea Girls 1966. He made about 600 films from 1963 to 1976, ranging from almost 500 short Screen Tests (four-minute portrait films from 1963–66), to the 25-hour long film **** (aka Four Stars, in 1967–68).
In 1968, Valerie Solanas, founder and sole member of SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) walked into Warhol's studio, known as the Factory, and shot him in what was a nearly fatal attack.
At the start of the 1970s, Warhol began publishing Interview magazine and renewed his focus on painting. Works created during this decade include the Mao, Skull, Hammer and Sickle, Torso and Shadow works, as well as many commissioned portraits. Warhol also published The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again). Firmly established as a major twentieth-century artist and international celebrity, Warhol exhibited his work extensively in museums and galleries around the world.
The artist began the 1980s with the publication POPism: The Warhol ’60s and with exhibitions in 1982 of Gun, Knives, Cross and Dollar Sign paintings in New York and Madrid. He also created two cable television shows, Andy Warhol's T.V. in 1982 and Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes for MTV in 1986. His paintings from the 1980s include the Self-Portrait, The Last Supper, Rorschach and Camouflage series. Warhol also engaged in a series of collaborations with younger artists, including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francesco Clemente and Keith Haring.
Following routine gall bladder surgery, Warhol died on 22 February 1987 aged 59. After his burial in Pittsburgh, his friends and associates organised a memorial mass at St Patrick's Cathedral in New York which was attended by more than 2000 people.
In 1989, the Museum of Modern Art in New York held a major retrospective of Warhol’s works. The Andy Warhol Museum opened in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in May 1994.
