James Baquet

    Sometime in the 20th century, it started becoming harder and harder to tell the difference between fine art and someone pulling your leg. Part of the blame falls on Andy Warhol (1928-1987).

    Faithful paintings of Campbell’s Soup cans? Seemingly misprinted graphics of Marilyn Monroe? Is this guy kidding us?

    And yet one list of the 74 most expensive paintings ever sold (adjusted for inflation) has seven paintings by Warhol, placing him third behind Picasso and Van Gogh.

    Andrew Warhol was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where, though a sickly child, he graduated from high school on schedule, and then took a bachelor of fine arts degree from the esteemed Carnegie Institute of Technology. The same year, he moved to New York City, where he spent most of his life.

    Working at first as a commercial artist, Warhol then began experimenting with various media, and depicting the common objects and figures as noted above, as well as such things as Coca-Cola bottles and dollar bills. Aside from Marilyn, he produced images of other pop icons like Elvis Presley, Marlon Brando, and Elizabeth Taylor.

    From his studio (called “The Factory”) he branched out into filmmaking, music production, lithography, drawing, sculpture, and theater. Unifying most of his endeavors was the style dubbed “pop art,” a movement that blurred the lines between fine art and popular culture.

    His most famous statement was “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” It seems he showed the way by getting famous for painting soup cans and by being a “personality.” Even now, 30 years after his death, his bleached-out appearance is widely recognized. He has portrayed himself in several movies and television shows, and been portrayed by other actors in several more.

    Warhol died of surgical complications at the young age of 58. He left virtually all of his wealth (over US$20 million) to a foundation for the “advancement of the visual arts” in his name. Its mission is “to foster innovative artistic expression and the creative process” and is “focused primarily on supporting work of a challenging and often experimental nature.”

    Vocabulary

    Which word above means:

    1. true, accurate

    2. entertainers recognizable by almost everyone in a culture

    3. promote, support

    4. made unclear

    5. named, called

    6. respected

    7. badly-produced

    8. fresh, new

    9. kidding you

    10. problems after an operation