About Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol was born Andrew Warhola in Pittsburgh on 6 August 1928. He was the third and youngest son of Andrej and Julia Warhola, immigrants to the US from Ruthenia, near Poland’s border, which is now part of Slovakia. Warhol was raised by a devout Byzantine Catholic mother, with whom he spent Sunday mornings gazing at Christ, the Virgin Mary, and other saints in a Byzantine Catholic church in Pittsburgh. Religious imagery was prominent at his childhood home. His mother made pen-and-ink drawings of angels, and in the hall hung a reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper. 

1945-1949 

Warhol’s talent for drawing is noticed at school and as a result he is able to attend free art courses at the renowned Carnegie Museum. From 1945-1949, Warhol studied Pictorial Design at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh. During his studies, Warhol often visited New York and he moved to Manhattan in 1950. His mother joined him there from 1952 and the two lived together from then on. 

1950-1960 

Thanks to his sheer ambition and innovative style, in the 1950s Warhol quickly became one of the most successful graphic artists in New York. In 1964, Warhol took over a whole floor of a commercial premises on 47th Street and called it The Factory. From this moment on, Warhol created replicas of boxes containing cleaning products and food; the most famous is the Brillo soap Pads Box. Production - through repetition and reproduction - became the core artistic methods of Warhol’s artistic practice. As well as producing his own creative work, Warhol was a producer for the band The Velvet Underground. In June 1968, Warhol became the victim of a nearly fatal attempt on his life in The Factory.   

1970-1980 

In 1970, Warhol continued to explore other forms of media. He starts filming his Factory Diaries recording a wide variety of events. In 1980, Warhol traveled to the Vatican to meet Pope John Paul II.    

On February 22, 1987, Warhol passed from complications following a gall bladder operation.