At this point in American history, Andy Warhol has become a household name. His images of Marilyn Monroe and soup cans have been sold and recreated at such a rate that Andy Warhol is so intrinsically tied to the american pop art movement, that to say one is to say the other. It is arguable that especially among the younger generations, he is one of the most well known and easily recognizable artists.
His origin and activities outside of these iconic images however is less discussed and when closely examined, it is understandable why.
The man the world would come to know as Andy Warhol was born Andrew Warhola on August 6, 1928 in a neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania known as Oakland. His parents were devout byzantine catholics who worked to maintain their slovakian culture and instilled their children with as many of their traditional values as they could. Both of Warhol’s parents worked in trades. His father was a construction worker and his mother was an embroiderer.
It would be his mother in fact that would offer Andy his first drawing lessons during several months spent bedridden due to Chorea in his childhood. From there drawing became a passion not only his mother, but his father heavily supported. In fact, upon his father’s tragic death, Warhol was left his father’s entire saving to dedicate to an arts education.
Warhol put his father’s money to good use at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) where he studied pictorial design.
Throughout the early parts of his artistic career Warhol astounded many with his graphic images that subverted the materialism of the time. This would later fit in with his cultural domain known only as “The Factory.”
The Factory was a simple studio located for most of its time in Manhattan on E. 47th but the studio did move to Union Square in 1968. Everyone from Madonna to Lou Reed visited the hotspot for hipsters and socialites. Ranked in the same category as Studio 54 of the time, Warhol’s Factory saw the creation of some of the most ground breaking and avant garde media of it’s time.
The Factory was also a place where, as Warhol himself described, “Anything went.” People of all gender expressions and sexualities frequented the studio to not only engage in all of the creativity happening, but to be themselves with no judgement. Warhol himself engaged in drag and is often told to have been in love with different men the frequented his studio despite claiming virginity till he died.
What is special and what can be taken from Warhol’s life in addition to his beautiful and bright paintings, is his creation of safe spaces. The term “safe space” is often mocked in modern times, but as one attendee of the factory said, “It’s nice to not be trapped into something, even if that’s what you are.” This is the type of atmosphere that Warhol cultivated and from it, so much beauty was born. Perhaps, all of us could stand to create more spaces like this, if only to see what beauty can be born from it.
SOURCES
https://www.biography.com/people/andy-warhol-9523875