Andrew Warhola was born in Pennsylvania in 1927 or 1928. He liked to shroud his origins in mystery, often giving different dates and places where he was born. He grew up in poverty during the Great Depression. He was extremely talented in sketching portraits and by the time he was twelve he was retouching the portrait photographs that his brother took. Between 1937 and 1941 he attended free Saturday art classes at the Carnegie Institute of Technology and in 1945 he was admitted to what is now Carnegie Mellon University where he majored in pictorial design.
After receiving his degree in 1949 he moved to New York City. His first commercial art commission was published in Glamour. He changed his name to Warhol sometime in the early 1950s. His mother moved to New York in 1953 and lived with him until 1971. He was an extremely successful commercial artist in the 1950s and won many awards from the Art Directors Club and the American Institute of Graphic Arts. In 1960, Mr. Warhol started working in the American Pop Art style. In 1962 he developed his signature pop art style featuring, "a monumental contemporary iconic image mechanically silk-screened and centered over a brightly colored background or, alternatively, smaller, overlapping images serialized on a large canvas" (The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives). Throughout his career he was controversial and extravagant.
Beginning in 1963, Mr. Warhol began experimenting with filmmaking. In 1967 he was shot and severely injured by Valeire Solanas who claimed that Andy Warhol had too much influence over her life. After a long recovery he published Interview which, "began as a tabloid film journal and then developed … into a trendsetting bible of celebrity chic and haute couture" (The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives). He continued to make a name for himself with his art.
He died on February 22, 1987 of cardiac arrest following gall bladder surgery.
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