Andy Warhol, A Pop Icon

1415 Words6 Pages
Diana Sexton

Professor Kelly Sherman

English 122

15 June 2011

Andy Warhol: The Pop Culture Icon

The degree in which an artist interprets the world makes him unique. As a profound influence on the twentieth century pop art movement, Andy Warhol ascended to become a cornerstone in the modern art world. Andy Warhol was a master at creating a distinctive account of what came before him and what surrounded him. It was this rare talent that made Andy Warhol a pop culture icon with a profound influence on the world of modern art.

Andrew Warhola born in 1928 came from a working class family in Forest City, Pennsylvania. His poor upbringing contributed to his future obsession with money and celebrity. In 1946, he moved to New York City where he quickly became an accomplished art designer. He was a graphic designer for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar and although successful, Warhol became disenchanted with his career and set out to be part of the new movement of pop art (Lucie-Smith 336).

In the early 1960s, Andy Warhol rattled the art world with silk screens of Hollywood beauties and the now legendary, Campbell's Soup Cans. Up to that point, society had never seen anything so literal be called art. In fact, the Campbell Soup Company forced Warhol to defend the paintings as legitimate works of art after they sued him for copyright infringement. They later dropped the lawsuit after deciding it was good advertising (Pohland 157). The Soup Cans sparked something inside Warhol and he began to use everyday objects as his inspirations: Brillo soap-pad boxes, Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, Heinz 57, and Kellogg's, to name a few. He began painting these objects by hand, but eventually silk-screened them directly to the canvas. This process outraged the art world. One critic even said, "His work is just too silly to think about" (Russell). He became a constant irritant to

More about Andy Warhol, A Pop Icon

Open Document