Andy Warhol - A Biography

             Andy Warhol (born Andrew Warhola) was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1928. He was a sickly child and read a lot of movie magazines. His artistic talent was noticed as a child by his art teachers. His mother gave him a Hershey candy bar every time he finished a page in his coloring book. He attended Saturday art classes for children at the Carnegie Museum of Art. Andy earned his college degree in commercial and graphic design from Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University).
             After graduating from Carnegie Tech in 1949, Warhol moved to New York City to search for a career as a commercial artist. His mother also moved with him to New York. His first apartment was infested with roaches, with no hot water, and the bath tub was in the kitchen. They kept between eight and twenty cats at a time.
             He became a fashion illustrator for such magazines as Seventeen and Glamour. He was known as the best shoe illustrator in New York. Magazines misprinted his name as Warhol. Even though he won design awards and financial rewards in the commercial world, he wanted to be recognized as a fine artist.
             Warhol decided that a strange personal image would lead to sales. The first time he showed his art to a collector, he opened the door wearing an eighteenth century mask of jewels and feathers. In the background, the same rock song blasted over and over (he had a habit of listening to a song one hundred times in a row). His trademark look consisted of sunglasses, blond wigs, black leather jackets, and high heeled boots. He emphasized his pale color with makeup. He seemed frail and unearthly, but he did one hundred push ups and fifty pull ups almost every morning.
             In the 1960's, Warhol became known as a Pop Artist. Pop Art originated in England in the 1950's and early sixties. Pop Artists painted people, places, and things that Americans saw every day – things that were popular, such as movie stars, food, a...

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