Andy

Born in 1928 at Pittsburgh of Czechoslovak immigrant parents. In 1954 he left school with a high school diploma. Between 1945 and 1949 he studied pictorial design and art history, sociology and psychology at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh. Met Philip Pearlstein and moved to New York with him in 1949. He worked for "Vogue" and "Harper's Bazaar", did window displays for Bonwit Teller and his first advertisements for I. Miller shoe company. In 1952 he had his first one-man exhibition at the Hugo Gallery, New York. He designed stage sets, dyed his hair straw-blond and moved into a house in Lexington Avenue with his mother and several cats. In 1954 he was in a collective exhibition at the Loft Gallery, New York. In 1956 he had an individual exhibition of his drawings for Boy Book at the Bodley Gallery, and his Golden Shoes were exhibited in Madison Avenue. He travelled in Europe and Asia. In 1960 he made his first pictures based on comic-strips and company trade names. In 1962 he produced his silkscreen prints on canvas of dollar notes, Campbell's Soup cans, Marilyn Monroe, etc. He was also included in the exhibition The New Realists at the Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, and started his series of disaster pictures: Car Crash, Plane Crash, Suicide, Tunafish Disaster and Electric Chair. Between 1962 and 1964 he produced over 2,000 pictures in his "Factory". In 1963 he made the movies Sleep (6 hours long) and Empire (8 hours long). In 1964 his Flower Pictures were exhibited at the Galerie Sonnabend, Paris. He was also forced for political reasons to paint over his Thirteen Most Wanted Men which he had attached to the wall of the New York State Pavilion for the World's Fair in New York. He made his first sculptures with affixed silkscreen prints of company cartoons. In 1965 he had an exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia. In 1967 he produced the first record of the rock band "Velvet Underground" and between 1966 and 1968 made several films with them. His Cow Wallpaper and Silver Pillows were shown at the Leo Castelli Gallery. In 1968 he had an exhibition at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm. In July of the same year he was shot down, and dangerously wounded, by Valerie Solanis, the only member of S.C.U.M. (The Society for Cutting Up Men). In 1968 he brought out his novel "a", which consisted of telephone calls recorded in his Factory. He made the first movie for the cinema, Flash, with Paul Morissey, followed by Trash in 1970. In 1969 the first number of the magazine "Interview" appeared, which Warhol helped bring out. Between 1969 and 1972 he was commisioned to do a number of portraits. In 1972 he showed at the the Kunstmuseum, Basle. The first edition of his book THE Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again) was published in 1975. In 1976 the Württembergischer Kunstverein showed The Graphic Work - 1942-1975, also shown in Düsseldorf, Bremen, Munich, Berlin and Vienna. In 1978 he showed at the Kunsthaus, Zurich, and at the Louisiana Museum, Humblebaek. The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, showed The Portraits of the 70s in 1979. In 1980 he became production manager of the cable TV station "Andy Warhol's TV". In the same year Joseph Beuys by Andy Warhol was shown at the Centre d'Art Contemporain, Geneva, he showed Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century at the Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami, and at the Jewish Museum, New York, and POPism, The Warhol '60s was published. In 1981 the exhibition Andy Warhol - Paintings 1961-1968 was shown at the Kestner-Gesselschaft, Hanover, and at the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich. The Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts, Vienna, showed Warhol '80. From 1982 to 1986 he made pictures of disasters. In 1982 he exhibited a series of oxidations and pictures of Nazi architecture at the documenta "4" exhibition, Kassel. He exhibited Guns, Knives, Crosses at the Leo Castelli Gallery, and at the Galeria Fernando Vijande, Madrid. He exhibited Warhol's Animals: Species at Risk at the American Museum of Natural History, New York, and at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Cleveland. In 1986 he made portraits of Lenin and self-portraits. In 1987 he died as a result of an operation. In 1988 the Hamburger Kunstverein showed Death Pictures. In 1989 the Museum of Modern Art, New York, organized the hitherto largest retrospective exhibition of his work. His estate was auctioned at Sotheby's. His will provided for an endowment fund for the patronage of art.