Living Between Roles-The Life of Andy Warhol
By Melissa Montgomery

Andy Warhol was born Andrew Warhola in Pittsburgh in 1928 to working class Slovak immigrants. He was the first member of his family to receive a college education. He studied pictorial design at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now called Mellon University). He moved to New York in the early 1950’s and became a successful commercial artist, working for Vogue, Harper’s and The New Yorker Magazine. He had his first solo show in New York City 1952 - drawings at the Hugo Gallery and later that decade at the famous Bodley Gallery.

Warhol came to international fame as a photographer, illustrator and filmmaker in the 1960’s. He began making his famous silkscreen prints in larger than life sizes. He appropriated current iconic images such as Superman, Elizabeth Taylor, and Marilyn Monroe and mass produced colorful prints which were instant bestsellers. No one had done anything like it before- taken celebrity images and made them into art. Warhol was the first artist to cross over art and celebrity culture. Today his appropriation of the Campbell’s soup can is instantly recognizable anywhere in the world as classic Warhol. Andy coined the phrase ‘pop art’- taking mundane objects and making them into works of art.

Warhol also began working in other media during the 1960’s – sculpture, film making and photography. Workers at the factory mass produced Warhol’s iconic silk screens and the sale of them plus such mundane items as posters, postcards and shoes supplied Warhol with a sizable steady income- unheard of for most artists.

In 1963 he established The Factory- a studio space that was located in an abandoned factory- and began making art films there. The Factory became a meeting and creative place for many of the 1960’s art and music world luminaries: Bob Dylan, Viva, Nico, Edie Sedgwick, The Velvet Underground, Viva and Billy Name. Andy Warhol made over 300 films during this time. They are not “great” films but they are unique in that they capture the lifestyle and attitudes of the artists that was rampant in New York during the 1960’s. Some of the films are the first of their kind- the film ‘Sleep’ consists of a man sleeping for six hours. Kitchen, starring ‘It’ girl Edie Sedgwick takes place in one small kitchen and is almost entirely inaudible due to poor sound. The 1960’s ended badly for Andy when one of the frequent visitors to the factory shot him in the chest.

In early 1971 his muse and star of many Factory films Edie Sedgwick died from a drug overdose, thus thwarting his dreams of one day becoming a bonafide Hollywood filmmaker.
The 1970’s saw Andy Warhol reinventing himself again as he opened a night club, started a magazine called ‘Interview’ (which is still published today) and became an expert in portraits of the rich and famous. He wrote a book titled, “The Philosophy of Andy Warhol” in which he astutely observes that, "Making money is art, and working is art and good business is the best art."

By the 1980’s he had travelled around the world and had a retrospective of his work at the Pasadena Museum. He published book- POPism- a retrospective of his work from the 1960’s. A video diary of his interviews for Interview magazine was begun as the first program for Warhol TV. Andy knew how to change with the times- he was often miles ahead of his contemporaries, making the trends instead of following them. In 1987 Andy had routine gall bladder surgery and tragically died afterwards at the age of 59.

When asked to describe his life in art, Warhol once said, “I love it when they ask actors, 'what are you doing now?’ and they say, ‘I’m between roles.’ To be ‘living life between roles’, that’s my favorite."