The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Consumption and Consumer Studies

Warhol, Andy

VINCE CARDUCCI

College for Creative Studies, USA

DOI: 10.1002/9781118989463.wbeccs237

Andy Warhol (1928–87) was an American artist, filmmaker, and pop culture avatar who first gained renown in the early 1960s as one of the founders of the visual art movement known as pop art. He subsequently came to be recognized as one of the most influential artists of the latter twentieth century by supporters and detractors alike. Warhol is known for his iconic representations of consumer products, advertisements, and celebrities. Subjects include: rows of Campbell Soup cans and Coca-Cola bottles, stacks of Brillo boxes, portraits of Elvis Presley, Jackie Kennedy, and Marilyn Monroe, and images derived from the media and other aspects of everyday life. He created paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, films, videos, and multimedia installations and performances, mixing mechanical processes with hand-rendered techniques. By the end of his life he was a celebrity in his own right, featured as an endorsement personality in advertisements, making guest appearances on television programs and in motion pictures, and living the life of an international society figure whose activities were chronicled in the media.

Before entering the art world, Warhol had a highly successful career as a commercial artist in New York City, starting in the late 1940s after graduating from art school in his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and continuing throughout the following decade. ...