Andy Warhol

At eight he caught a streptococcal infection that turned into scarlet fever, then rheumatic fever, then Sydenham's chorea, and there were no antibiotics to stop any of it. He spent long stretches in bed, drawing, pasting scrapbooks out of Hollywood magazines and cutting up the comic books his mother bought him. The household was Rusyn, from a village in what is now northeast Slovakia, and his father dug coal: in May 1942, as the boy was finishing grade school, Andrej Warhola died of tubercular peritonitis, years after drinking contaminated water in a West Virginia mine. Carnegie Tech gave him a degree in pictorial design in 1949. He left for New York in June with a classmate and a portfolio.

He drew shoes first. Glamour, Vogue and Harper's Bazaar bought his illustrations, I. Miller made him famous inside the trade from 1955, and the Art Directors Club gave him a medal in 1952 and another award in 1956. Then in 1962 he took up the silkscreen, which let a painting be made by machine and by other people, and the subject matter went to the supermarket shelf. Thirty-two soup cans opened at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles on July 9, 1962. Marilyn came the same year, the electric chairs and car crashes soon after, plywood Brillo boxes in 1964 at 200 to 400 dollars each. The Factory produced films by the hour, a magazine, and a record for a band nobody was buying yet.

On June 3, 1968, Valerie Solanas walked into the Factory and shot him and the critic Mario Amaya. Amaya was released the same day. Warhol was in hospital for nearly two months, the surgical repair of his abdomen failed to hold, and he wore a corset under his clothes for the remaining 19 years of his life. Solanas, who had written a manifesto arguing for the elimination of men, was found to have paranoid schizophrenia and served three years. What sits oddly against the surfaces is the private practice underneath them. Warhol was a Ruthenian Catholic who went to Mass, volunteered in New York soup kitchens and homeless shelters, and travelled to Saint Peter's Square in 1980 to meet the Pope.

He had refused gallbladder surgery since 1973 because hospitals frightened him. He submitted in February 1987 and died of a cardiac arrhythmia the morning after the operation, at 6:31 on February 22. A state health department report that April found the nursing care inadequate, and the malpractice suit settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. His will turned nearly everything into a foundation. Sotheby's sold the contents of his houses over 10 days in 1988 for about 25 million dollars, Pittsburgh opened a museum to him in 1994, and in 2022 one silkscreened Marilyn brought 195 million. In 2023 the Supreme Court ruled 7 to 2 against his foundation over a photograph of Prince he had copied.

Andy Warhol's life against the full span of the corpus.

• Campbell's Soup Cans artwork
  Thirty-two canvases, one per variety, shown at the Ferus Gallery 1962
• Marilyn Diptych artwork
  Made from a publicity still, weeks after Monroe died 1962
• Brillo Box artwork
  Plywood cartons at 200 to 400 dollars, indistinguishable across a room from the real thing 1964
• Empire film
  Eight hours of one building 1964
• The Velvet Underground & Nico album
  He financed it and put a banana on the sleeve 1967
• Interview company
  The magazine he founded with the journalist John Wilcock 1969

• c. 1936 aged ~8 Sydenham's chorea keeps him in bed for long stretches at eight He drew, kept scrapbooks of film stars, and cut up comic books.
• May 1942 aged 13 His father dies of tubercular peritonitis Andrej Warhola had drunk contaminated water in a West Virginia coal mine years earlier.
• 1949 aged ~21 Takes a degree in pictorial design at Carnegie Tech and moves to New York
• July 9, 1962 aged 33 Thirty-two soup cans open at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles He had adopted the silkscreen the same year.
• 1964 aged ~36 Billy Name lines the East 47th Street Factory with foil and silver paint
• June 3, 1968 aged 39 Valerie Solanas shoots him at the Factory He spent nearly two months in hospital and wore a surgical corset afterward.
• 1974 aged ~46 Starts filling the Time Capsules They ran to 610 boxes of mail, photographs, receipts and food.
• February 22, 1987 aged 58 Dies at New York Hospital the morning after gallbladder surgery A state report two months later found the nursing care inadequate.
• May 18, 2023 aged 94 The Supreme Court rules against his foundation in the Prince case A 7 to 2 decision held that licensing his Prince silkscreen was not fair use.

• Jean-Michel Basquiat 1960–1988
  Neo-expressionist painter who rose from graffiti artist to one of the most celebrated artists of the 1980s. collaborator
• Keith Haring 1958–1990
  Street artist whose bold, cartoon-like figures addressed social issues and brought art to public spaces. supported downtown
• Truman Capote 1924–1984
  Writer of Breakfast at Tiffany's and In Cold Blood — an early nonfiction novel. subject of his first solo show
• Marilyn Monroe 1926–1962
  Actress and cultural icon whose blend of vulnerability and glamour made her a symbol of Hollywood's golden age. painted her from a publicity still
• Roy Lichtenstein 1923–1997
  Pop artist whose comic-strip-inspired paintings became icons of 1960s American art. rival in the same movement
• Jackson Pollock 1912–1956
  Abstract expressionist whose drip painting technique revolutionized modern art. the generation he displaced