100 Facts About Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol's works explore the relationship between artistic expression, advertising, and celebrity culture that flourished by the 1960s, and span a variety of media, including painting, silkscreening, photography, film, and sculpture.

Andy Warhol promoted a collection of personalities known as Warhol superstars, and is credited with inspiring the widely used expression "15 minutes of fame".

Andy Warhol authored numerous books, including The Philosophy of Andy Warhol and Popism: The Warhol Sixties.

Andy Warhol lived openly as a gay man before the gay liberation movement.

Andy Warhol has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions, books, and feature and documentary films.

Andy Warhol has been described as the "bellwether of the art market".

Andy Warhol's works include some of the most expensive paintings ever sold.

Andy Warhol was born on August 6,1928, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Andy Warhol's parents were working-class Lemko emigrants from Miko, Austria-Hungary.

Andy Warhol's father emigrated to the United States in 1914, and his mother joined him in 1921, after the death of Andy Warhol's grandparents.

Andy Warhol later described this period as very important in the development of his personality, skill-set and preferences.

Andy Warhol served as art director of the student art magazine, Cano, illustrating a cover in 1948 and a full-page interior illustration in 1949.

Andy Warhol earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in pictorial design in 1949.

Andy Warhol somehow gave each shoe a temperament of its own, a sort of sly, Toulouse-Lautrec kind of sophistication, but the shape and the style came through accurately and the buckle was always in the right place.

In 1952, Andy Warhol had his first solo show at the Hugo Gallery in New York, and although that show was not well received, by 1956, he was included in his first group exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Andy Warhol habitually used the expedient of tracing photographs projected with an epidiascope.

Andy Warhol was an early adopter of the silk screen printmaking process as a technique for making paintings.

In 1962, Andy Warhol was taught silk screen printmaking techniques by Max Arthur Cohn at his graphic arts business in Manhattan.

In May 1962, Andy Warhol was featured in an article in Time magazine with his painting Big Campbell's Soup Can with Can Opener, which initiated his most sustained motif, the Campbell's soup can.

On July 9,1962, Andy Warhol's exhibition opened at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles with Campbell's Soup Cans, marking his West Coast debut of pop art.

In November 1962, Andy Warhol had an exhibition at Eleanor Ward's Stable Gallery in New York.

At the exhibit, Andy Warhol met poet John Giorno, who would star in Andy Warhol's first film, Sleep.

In December 1962, New York City's Museum of Modern Art hosted a symposium on pop art, during which artists such as Andy Warhol were attacked for "capitulating" to consumerism.

In early 1963, Andy Warhol rented his first studio, an old firehouse at 159 East 87th Street.

Later that year, Andy Warhol relocated his studio to East 47th Street, which would turn into The Factory.

Andy Warhol had his second exhibition at the Stable Gallery in the spring of 1964, which featured sculptures of commercial boxes stacked and scattered throughout the space to resemble a warehouse.

Andy Warhol's painting of a can of a Campbell's soup cost $1,500 while each autographed can sold for 3 for $18, $6.50 each.

In 1967 Andy Warhol established Factory Additions for his printmaking and publishing enterprise.

Andy Warhol authored in 1967 the SCUM Manifesto, a separatist feminist tract that advocated the elimination of men; and appeared in the 1968 Warhol film I, a Man.

Andy Warhol was seriously wounded by the attack and barely survived.

Andy Warhol had physical effects for the rest of his life, including being required to wear a surgical corset.

Andy Warhol was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and eventually sentenced to three years under the control of the Department of Corrections.

Andy Warhol had a retrospective exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1971.

Andy Warhol socialized at various nightspots in New York City, including Max's Kansas City and, later in the 1970s, Studio 54.

Andy Warhol was generally regarded as quiet, shy, and a meticulous observer.

In 1977, Andy Warhol was commissioned by art collector Richard Weisman to create Athletes, ten portraits consisting of the leading athletes of the day.

Andy Warhol had a re-emergence of critical and financial success in the 1980s, partially due to his affiliation and friendships with a number of prolific younger artists, who were dominating the "bull market" of 1980s New York art: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, David Salle and other so-called Neo-Expressionists, as well as members of the Transavantgarde movement in Europe, including Francesco Clemente and Enzo Cucchi.

Andy Warhol earned street credibility and graffiti artist Fab Five Freddy paid homage to Andy Warhol by painting an entire train with Campbell soup cans.

Andy Warhol was being criticized for becoming merely a "business artist".

In 1984, Vanity Fair commissioned Andy Warhol to produce a portrait of Prince, in order to accompany an article that celebrated the success of Purple Rain and its accompanying movie.

In January 1987, Andy Warhol traveled to Milan for the opening of his last exhibition, Last Supper, at the Palazzo delle Stelline.

Andy Warhol's family sued the hospital for inadequate care, saying that the arrhythmia was caused by improper care and water intoxication.

The malpractice case was quickly settled out of court; Andy Warhol's family received an undisclosed sum of money.

Andy Warhol was dressed in a black cashmere suit, a paisley tie, a platinum wig, and sunglasses.

Andy Warhol was laid out holding a small prayer book and a red rose.

Andy Warhol frequently used silk-screening; his later drawings were traced from slide projections.

At the height of his fame as a painter, Andy Warhol had several assistants who produced his silk-screen multiples, following his directions to make different versions and variations.

Andy Warhol produced both comic and serious works; his subject could be a soup can or an electric chair.

In 1979, Andy Warhol was commissioned to paint a BMW M1 Group 4 racing version for the fourth installment of the BMW Art Car project.

Andy Warhol was initially asked to paint a BMW 320i in 1978, but the car model was changed and it didn't qualify for the race that year.

Andy Warhol was the first artist to paint directly onto the automobile himself instead of letting technicians transfer a scale-model design to the car.

Andy Warhol has been described as playing dumb to the media.

Andy Warhol has suggested that all one needs to know about his work is "already there 'on the surface".

Andy Warhol would come to the Factory to urinate on canvases that had already been primed with copper-based paint by Andy or Ronnie Cutrone, a second ghost pisser much appreciated by Andy, who said that the vitamin B that Ronnie took made a prettier color when the acid in the urine turned the copper green.

Andy Warhol always had a little extra bounce in his walk as he led them to his studio.

In 1984, Andy Warhol was commissioned by collector and gallerist Alexander Iolas to produce work based on Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper for an exhibition at the old refectory of the Palazzo delle Stelline in Milan, opposite from the Santa Maria delle Grazie where Leonardo da Vinci's mural can be seen.

Andy Warhol exceeded the demands of the commission and produced nearly 100 variations on the theme, mostly silkscreens and paintings, and among them a collaborative sculpture with Basquiat, the Ten Punching Bags.

Andy Warhol continued his practice of drawing through the last years of his life and career, and the work from this later period exemplifies a long and storied career's worth of honed skill and technique.

The value of Andy Warhol's work has been on an endless upward trajectory since his death in 1987.

Andy Warhol made 22 versions of the Elvis portraits, 11 of which are held in museums.

In November 2013, Andy Warhol's rarely seen 1963 diptych, Silver Car Crash, sold at Sotheby's for $105.4 million, a new record for the artist.

In May 2017, Andy Warhol's 1962 painting Big Campbell's Soup Can With Can Opener sold for $27.5 million at Christie's.

One Christmas, Andy Warhol left a small Head of Marilyn Monroe by the Tremaine's door at their New York apartment in gratitude for their support and encouragement.

Andy Warhol attended the 1962 premiere of the static composition by La Monte Young called Trio for Strings and subsequently created his famous series of static films.

Andy Warhol's 1965 film Vinyl is an adaptation of Anthony Burgess' popular dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange.

Andy Warhol was a fan of filmmaker Radley Metzger film work and commented that Metzger's film, The Lickerish Quartet, was "an outrageously kinky masterpiece".

Andy Warhol designed the cover art for The Rolling Stones' albums Sticky Fingers and Love You Live, and the John Cale albums The Academy in Peril and Honi Soit in 1981.

One of Andy Warhol's last works was a portrait of Aretha Franklin for the cover of her 1986 gold album Aretha.

In 1984, Andy Warhol co-directed the music video "Hello Again" by the Cars, and he appeared in the video as a bartender.

In 1986, Andy Warhol co-directed the music video "Misfit" by Curiosity Killed the Cat and he made a cameo in video.

The first of several bound self-published books by Andy Warhol was 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy, printed in 1954 by Seymour Berlin on Arches brand watermarked paper using his blotted line technique for the lithographs.

Andy Warhol created the fashion magazine Interview that is still published.

The first works that Andy Warhol submitted to a fine art gallery, homoerotic drawings of male nudes, were rejected for being too openly gay.

In Popism, furthermore, the artist recalls a conversation with the filmmaker Emile de Antonio about the difficulty Andy Warhol had being accepted socially by the then-more-famous gay artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg.

De Antonio explained that Andy Warhol was "too swish and that upsets them".

Andy Warhol regularly volunteered at homeless shelters in New York City, particularly during the busier times of the year, and described himself as a religious person.

Andy Warhol regularly attended Liturgy, and the priest at Andy Warhol's church, Saint Vincent Ferrer, said that the artist went there almost daily, although he was not observed taking Communion or going to Confession and sat or knelt in the pews at the back.

The priest thought he was afraid of being recognized; Andy Warhol said he was self-conscious about being seen in a Roman Rite church crossing himself "in the Orthodox way".

Andy Warhol's art is noticeably influenced by the Eastern Christian tradition which was so evident in his places of worship.

Andy Warhol's brother has described the artist as "really religious, but he didn't want people to know about that because [it was] private".

Andy Warhol's friends referred to his numerous collections, which filled not only his four-story townhouse, but a nearby storage unit, as "Andy's Stuff".

Andy Warhol's collections included a Coca-Cola memorabilia sign, and 19th century paintings along with airplane menus, unpaid invoices, pizza dough, pornographic pulp novels, newspapers, stamps, supermarket flyers, and cookie jars, among other eccentricities.

Andy Warhol owned more than 40 and felt very protective of his hairpieces, which were sewn by a New York wig-maker from hair imported from Italy.

Andy Warhol collected many books, with more than 1,200 titles in his collection.

The foundation serves as the estate of Andy Warhol, but has a mission "to foster innovative artistic expression and the creative process" and is "focused primarily on supporting work of a challenging and often experimental nature".

All digital images of Andy Warhol are exclusively managed by Corbis, while all transparency images of Andy Warhol are managed by Art Resource.

The Andy Warhol Foundation released its 20th Anniversary Annual Report as a three-volume set in 2007: Vol.

Andy Warhol founded Interview magazine, a stage for celebrities he "endorsed" and a business staffed by his friends.

Andy Warhol endorsed products, appeared in commercials, and made frequent celebrity guest appearances on television shows and in films.

Andy Warhol appeared as himself in the film Cocaine Cowboys and in the film Tootsie.

Andy Warhol always wore those silver wigs, but he never admitted it were wigs.

Andy Warhol is one of main characters of the 2012 British television show Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy.

In September 2016, it was announced that Jared Leto would portray the title character in Andy Warhol, an upcoming American biographical drama film produced by Michael De Luca and written by Terence Winter, based on the book Andy Warhol: The Biography by Victor Bockris.

Andy Warhol appeared as a recurring character in TV series Vinyl, played by John Cameron Mitchell.

Andy Warhol was portrayed by Evan Peters in the American Horror Story: Cult episode "Valerie Solanas Died for Your Sins: Scumbag".

Andy Warhol was featured in the first of these commercials that were produced by Lois and were released in the summer of 1969.

Andy Warhol recorded it with the Velvet Underground, and this version was released on the VU album in 1985.

Andy Warhol is featured as a character in the Miracleman series of comics.

Later on, 18 copies of Andy Warhol are seen in the underworld beneath the pyramid structure Olympus, where they produce pop art relating to the new superhuman regime.

One Andy Warhol clone numbered 6 is assigned to and develop a friendship with a clone of Emil Gargunza before the latter's betrayal and attempted escape.