Andy Warhol has undeniably been one of the most influential artist of his time. Warhol came from a poor family that lived in Pittsburgh. Throughout his childhood, he was very creative and spent a great deal of time copying cartoons when he was sick. Eventually, he went on to graduate college with an art degree and set of into the world.

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Most people can recognize at least one famous Warhol piece. Most popular are his Marilyn Monroe and the Campbell Soup prints. Despite the popularity of many of his pieces, Warhol’s work is still vastly misunderstood. I often speak to people that just find his work “dull” or “pointless.” At face value, Warhol and his artwork is hard to decipher. With this, I would like to try and unpack a bit of Warhol’s work and explain it.

During Andy Warhol’s time Pop Art was not known. Typical styles used in popular art was naturalistic and focused on representing things how they appeared. Warhol was trained as an artist in this sense, but they he began to form his own path in the world of art. His first major exhibition was in New York featuring his Brillo Soap boxes.

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This was only the beginning of Warhol’s use of commercial items and famous icons in his artwork. He would feature celebrities and famous figures of his time. The reason for this is that he knew that everyone would recognize the subject of each piece. Every single person in the United States knew what Coca-Cola was. They also likely knew the first lady Jacky Kennedy. He utilized these popular icons in a way that could relate his audience to his pieces.

Secondly, he added bright colors to his artwork in a way that desensitized his viewers. Imagine walking into a gallery that is filled with the bright colors of each and every one of his pieces. I can testify from my own experience that it takes quite some time to take every single print in.

Okay, okay. I have explained to you aspects of his work, but why is it still so famous? Well, it lies in the fact that he is the first person to truly pave the way of the pop art movement. Whether or not everyone in the art community liked Warhol’s work didn’t matter. He had already planted the seeds for an entirely separate art movement. His work was vastly influential and aligns him with the status of artists like Picasso. Because of that, Warhol will always be aligned with creating the pop art movement and his works will go down in history.

 

 

 

 

 

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