Work on Andy Warhol

Since the end of the Second World War, painting has been done in the United States. The leader of the American painters is called Jackson Pollock. He took out his guts by angrily throwing his paint on the canvas, which was placed on the ground. In reaction, in the early 60's, a popular art was born, the pop art, led by the pope of the counter-culture Andy Warhol The artist's intestinal agitations are over, and the simple and colorful images from everyday life: advertising, cinema, TV or comics are now in place.

Andy Warhol, whose real name was Andrew Warhola, was born on August 6, 1928 in Pittsburgh and died on February 22, 1987 in New York. As a child of Slovak immigrants of modest origin, he obtained a degree in Fine Arts, which opened the way to a career as an advertising designer and won him several awards. In 1961 and 1962, he produced his first works mixing everyday objects and artistic experience as for the Campbell's Soup Cans painting. From 1962 onwards, Andy Warhol began to produce a series of portraits of celebrities including Liz Taylor, Marylin Monroe and Jackie Kennedy. The artist uses the technique of silk-screening to show the mechanical and reproducible nature of his art. He used this method again in the 1970s for portraits of Mao Zedong and Mike Jagger. Andy Warhol in his creative process surrounded himself with a whole assembly of artists who frequented his studio "The Factory" opened in 1964 and became an essential place of the underground art scene and celebrities of that time. 1960s allow the artist to become famous in the art world. ... This is how the public will turn to this new art, the Pop Art, which uses everyday objects to show the mass consumption of the post-war period.

We are now going to remind you of the definition of the pop art

This art is inspired by the mass culture and the consumer society. Thus the artists of Pop Art represent the art as a consumable product: ephemeral, cheap and disposable. Advertising, the media, comics and television were the main sources of inspiration for this movement.

It was in 1962 that Warhol became fascinated with the photographic reproduction process of silk-screening. This technique was to become Warhol's style par excellence: simple, fast, and one could also make infinite modifications to the same matrix photo. Hard to believe, but it's a pure coincidence that Warhol chose to depict Marilyn Monroe in one of the first portraits, and today one of his most famous works.Warhol's selected photo was an advertisement from the movie "Nigeria", in which Marilyn had previously starred in 1953. He created many pop art works of Monroe using this image, including "Marilyn Diptych" and a series of ten portraits in the likeness of the actress Marilyn Monroe, created between 1963 and 1967, each measuring 91x91 cm.Today considered one of the most influential pieces in modern art. Instead of drawing or painting her face, Warhol chose a photo that he knew everyone knew.

But why Monroe? Marilyn embodies celebrity and the very notion of the "sex symbol".Andy Warhol, both in love with Marilyn Monroe and fascinated by death, began this series shortly after the actress' death. For example for Orange Marilyn, Warhol uses the image of a woman already mythologized, after her death. Here, he accentuates in Marylin what makes the image of the pin up: the lips, the "makeup" a little vulgar eyes, the blondness. The pin-ups, originally, were erotic images distributed to the soldiers (especially to the GIs) to raise the morale of the troops (hence their name, "pinged on the wall", in a way). The woman is an object of desire and an icon. 

...