Andy Warhol

Hello! My name is Andy Warhol. You might know me for my bright, colorful pictures of soup cans and famous movie stars. I was born with the name Andrew Warhola on August 6th, 1928, in a city called Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. When I was a boy, I became quite sick and had to spend a lot of time resting in bed. It was a difficult time, but my mother, who was also an artist, gave me paper and pencils to keep me busy. That’s when I discovered my greatest passion: drawing. I drew everything I could see, and art quickly became my best friend and my special way of looking at the world.

After I finished my art studies in college, I knew I needed to be in a place full of energy and new ideas. In 1949, I packed my bags and moved to the most exciting city I could imagine: New York City! My first job there was as a 'commercial illustrator,' which is an artist who creates pictures for magazines and advertisements. I drew all sorts of things, like stylish shoes for newspaper ads and fun illustrations for magazine stories. I was good at my job and it paid the bills, but I had a bigger dream of showing my very own art in galleries for everyone to see.

I started to wonder, why couldn't art be about the things we see all around us every day? I loved visiting the grocery store and looking at the rows of colorful boxes and cans. They felt like art to me! So, I began painting them. In 1962, I held a famous art show that featured 32 paintings of Campbell's Soup Cans, one for each flavor they sold. At first, some people were confused. They had never seen paintings of soup cans before! But many others thought it was a brilliant new idea. This style became known as Pop Art, because it was inspired by popular culture. I also discovered a new technique called screenprinting, which allowed me to make many copies of the same image. It reminded me of a factory, so I even named my art studio 'The Factory'!

It wasn't just soup cans that I found interesting. I was also fascinated by famous people, like movie stars and musicians. I started making bright, colorful portraits of people like Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley. In my mind, their faces were as popular and recognizable as a can of soup! You could see them everywhere. I used bold, flashing colors in my portraits to show how exciting and larger-than-life these celebrities seemed to the world. My art was all about celebrating the popular things that everyone was talking about and seeing every day.

I continued to create art for my entire life, doing everything from painting and making movies to even managing a rock band. I once famously said that in the future, everyone would be world-famous for 15 minutes. I passed away on February 22nd, 1987. I lived to be 58 years old. Today, people remember me for helping to create the Pop Art movement and for showing the world that art can be found in the most ordinary places, even in a soup can on a supermarket shelf. I hope my work inspires you to look around and find the art that exists in your own everyday life.