Two members of the Group, Richard Hamilton and Eduardo Paolozzi, are generally seen as the father of London's pop art. The starting signal was a lecture held at the first meeting of the Independent Group in 1952. The lecture, entitled Bunk, was delivered by Eduardo Paolozzi, who was born of Italian parents and brought up in Scotland. Bunk was a kind of projected collage using pictures mostly from American illustrated magazines, from comics and science fiction literature; a jumble of images from the media and advertising. Projected onto screens, their insistent banality and trivial components were intensified to irritating effect.
Richard Hamilton was teaching design at the Royal College of Art in London, where the young artists Peter Blake and Richard Smith were studying. Paolozzi taught textile design from 1949-55 at the Central School of Art and Design in London, and from 1955-58 at St. Martin's School of Art, also in London. Blake and Smith belonged to the second generation of British pop art. Blake's work inclined strongly towards figurative realism, while Smith tended towards pronounced abstraction.
While the first phase of British pop art had focused on performed media imagery, the impulses for its second phase came from a more immediate appreciation for its changes in society and their influence on the personality. During this period Peter Blake was working on collages, assemblages and paintings which combined mass - produced imagery with abstract signs and suggestively decorative fields of colour. Even abstract painters like Robyn Denny used the pure colours and generous arrangements of form in their non - representational compositions to refer to the new levels of perception and the
relation of these to the new subject matter in art - as the ironic tiles of his paintings suggest.
The influence of pop art spread quickly in geographical terms (Cambridge University) and among the younger generation. In 1958, R.B. Kitaj came to London on a scholarship and decided to stay on there. It was largely due to his influence that British pop art responded with such intensity to American imagery and the early phase of American pop art. Later, Richard Smith and Peter Blake visited America themselves. A third phase of British pop art developed and made its presence publicly felt for the first time in exhibition "Young Contemporaries" in 1960 - the first exhibition to provide a general survey of the new art movement. Once again, Lawrence Alloway wrote the text of the catalogue. He did so without using the term "pop art" for these young artists: Barrie Bats, Derek Boshier, Patrick Caulfield, David Hockney, Allen Jones, R.B. Kitaj, Peter Philips and Norman Toynton.
The representatives of the third, and last generation of pop artists whose use of media language was the most pronounced, the most conceptual and intellectual were Peter Philips, Patrick Caulfield and Joe Tilson. Philips transformed his conception of the machine age into dynamic forms, uninhibitedly exploiting the language of advertising. He sees technology as the mirror of natural and vital laws which technology deceives, commercializes and destroys. His harsh
paintings visualize the nightmare of a vicious circle releasing its aggression, propaganda and chaos into an overcharged atmosphere.
ANDY WARHOL
“The King of Pop Art”
Andrew Warhola was born on August 6, 1928 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His parents were immigrants from Slovakia. His father was a construction worker and died when his son was only 13. Andy showed an early talent in drawing and painting. After high school he studied at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, where he graduated in 1949 with a degree in commercial art. Then he moved to New York City and worked as an artist. His first moment of fame was in August of 1949, when he was hired by Glamour Magazine to do some illustrations for a section titled "Success is a Job in New York". However, the credit misspelled his last name as Warhol, which caused him to drop the final “a” from his last name.
His first solo exhibition was opened at the Hugo Gallery in New York in 1952. He also had a group exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1956.
He was hired to draw more advertisements and at age of 31 he was one of the most successful fashion illustrators. But however, he was not satisfied with himself or his artwork. He began taking images from lower culture, magazines, newspapers, and incorporating them into his work. He knew this would cause a controversy because this imagery was not made for the exclusive, but for those
in lower societal positions. Warhol began to experiment with his newfound medium and began working in repetition. At first he started by using rubber stamps, but found that the results were 'too homemade' and wanted something more commercialistic. It was then that he coined his technique of "photosilkscreening" that brought his so much acclaim and fame. This is also the method that he used to create his popular Campbell's soup can and other images, beginning in 1962.
In 1962, he founded an art studio called The Factory. It was an art studio that hired artists to mass produced everything from prints to shoes.
In the 1960s, Andy began making bizarre experimental films. Responding to one of his critics he said: “Our movies may have looked like home movies, but then our home wasn’t like anybody else’s.” From 1963 through 1968 Warhol shot hundreds of these home movies. They are “short and dauntingly long, silent and sound, scripted and improvised, often in black and white though also in colour, still as death and alive to its moment”, as Manohla Dargis describes them in an article. Moreover she wrote: ”Awkward, beautiful, raw, spellbinding, radical — they are films like few others, in part because, first and foremost, they are also sublime art.” His first such films
included "Sleep", "Empire", and "The Chelsea Girls".
Then in 1965, he began travelling around the world with a musical group called The Velvet Underground. Warhol, with Paul Morrissey, acted as the band's manager. In 1966 he "produced" their first album , as well as providing its album art.
His actual participation in the album's production amounted
to simply paying for the studio time. After the band's first
album, Warhol and band leader started to disagree
more about the direction the band should take, and the contact between them faded.
On June 3, 1968, a woman named Valerie Solanis, a rejected superstar, came into The Factory (Warhol`s studio) and shot Andy in the chest three times. She had worked there on occasion and also formed an organization called "SCUM", or the Society for Cutting Up Men. At the hospital he was initially pronounced dead, but the doctors managed to massage his heart back into life. Valerie was put in a mental hospital and later given prison for three years.
Andy recovered and started a magazine called inter/VIEW in 1969. He continued to paint over that time and also published a book on his philosophy. During the 70s, he began painting portraits of celebrities and the rich. He also started a popular nightclub, which became one of the hottest places in town.
Andy died at 6:31 am on February 22, 1987 in the New York Hospital after complications with a gall bladder operation. His funeral was attended by more than two thousand people and a memorial museum was opened for him in Pittsburgh, in 1994. Today he is remembered as a revolutionary artist that triggered the beginning of the pop art movement.
This is one of the last photos taken of Andy Warhol. Five days
before his death he participated in a celebrity fashion
show at the Tunnel nightclub which also featured Miles
Davis. Warhol was in a considerable amount of pain
from his gallbladder during the show.
ANDY WARHOL`S PAINTINGS
Warhol was a very successful commercial illustrator. His detailed and elegant drawings for I. Miller shoes were particularly popular. These illustrations consisted mainly of "blotted ink" drawings (or ), a technique which he applied in much of his early art. Although many artists of this period worked in commercial art, most did so discreetly. Warhol was so successful, however, that his
profile as an illustrator seemed to undermine his efforts to be taken seriously as an artist.
In the early 1960s, Warhol tried to exhibit some of his drawings using these techniques in a gallery, only to be turned down. He began to rethink the relationship between his commercial work and the rest of his art. Instead of treating these things as opposites, he merged them, and began to take commercial and popular culture more explicitly as his topic.
was an experimental form that several artists were independently adopting; some of these pioneers, such as , later became synonymous with the movement. Warhol, who became famous as the "Pope of Pop", turned to this new style, where popular subjects could be part of the artist's palette. His early paintings show images taken from and advertisements, hand-painted with paint drips. Those drips emulated the style of successful abstract expressionists (such as ). Eventually, Warhol pared his image vocabulary down to the icon itself—to brand names, celebrities, dollar signs—and removed all traces of the artist's "hand" in the production of his paintings.
To him, part of defining a niche was defining his subject matter. Cartoons were already being used by Lichtenstein, by , and so on; Warhol wanted a distinguishing subject. His friends suggested he should paint the things he loved the most. In his signature way of taking things literally, for his first major he painted his famous cans of , which he claimed to have had for lunch for most of his life.
He loved , so he painted them as well. From these beginnings he developed his later style and subjects. Instead of working on a signature subject matter, as he started out to
do, he worked more and more on a signature style, slowly
eliminating the hand-made from the artistic process. Warhol frequently used ; his later drawings were traced from slide projections. Warhol went from being a to being a of paintings. At the height of his fame as a painter, Warhol had several assistants who produced his silk-screen multiples, following his directions to make different versions and variations.
Warhol produced both comic and serious works; his subject could be a soup can or an electric chair. Warhol used the same techniques—silkscreens, reproduced serially, and often painted with bright colours—whether he painted celebrities, everyday objects, or images of suicide, car crashes, and disasters (as part of a 1962-1963 series called "Death and Disaster").
The "Death and Disaster" paintings (such as "Red Car Crash", "Purple Jumping Man", "Orange Disaster") transform personal tragedies into public spectacles, and signal the use of images of disaster in the then evolving .
The unifying element in Warhol's work is his deadpan style—artistically and personally affectless. This was mirrored by Warhol's own behaviour, as he often played "dumb" to the media, and refused to explain his work. The artist was famous for having said that all you need to know about him and his works is already there, "on the surface."
Warhol's work as a Pop Artist has always had aspects. His series of paintings and blots are intended as comments on art and what art could be. His cow wallpaper and his paintings (canvases prepared with copper paint that was then oxidized with ) are also noteworthy in this context.
Equally noteworthy is the way these works—and their —mirrored the atmosphere at Andy's New York "Factory."
MY PERSONAL OPINION ABOUT ANDY WARHOL
I liked Andy Warhol`s work from the first time I saw it, but it was no sooner than when I was writing this essay, that I became his great fan. Now that I know so much about this inspiring artist and filmmaker, even 30 pages would not be enough to tell everything.
His life was not long and his childhood was really hard, but succeeded anyway. As a child he suffered from a nervous system disease causing involuntary movements. Because of his health problems he became an outcast among his school-mates and bonded with his mother very strongly. Later he had almost only female friends. Some people think this could have influenced his later sexuality - although he never came out, he is said to have been homosexual. And, of course, this must have also influenced his art immensely. Maybe his homosexuality was one of the main aspects his work was so different and controversial? We will never know. But what we know for sure is that he is considered the founder of the POP art movement and has even been nicknamed the Prince of Pop art. And even though the world suffered a great lose with his death, he then, after his death, became even more recognized and famous. In my opinion his fame is no surprise at all – in my eyes, his artwork is so valuable and collectible not just because of the uniqueness and originality; it is because of the global appeal to people of all ages, races, religions, and cultures. With his style of art he could and still can reach almost everyone. This extraordinary style will always move forward touching and changing people`s lives every day. Andy Warhol surely was a one of a kind and will never be recreated. To understand his art is a feeling many people over look. It is an everyday reminder that we do not take the time to look at what goes on around us. Especially in these times, when everything is moving faster and faster, I think it is important to look at and value all the things around us. Andy Warhol was a person who did that and also wanted to drawl people`s attention to it. And although he can not spread his philosophy himself anymore, his works will keep doing this for him and will continue to reflect our changing times.
ANDY WARHOL`S FAMOUS QUOTATIONS
There are quite a few famous quotations listed below, but the most famous is the following one:”Everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.” (Andy Warhol)
It has produced a common cliché about fame in pop-culture which is called . It refers to the fleeting condition of that attaches to an object of attention, and then passes to some new object as soon as the public's is exhausted. It is often used in reference to figures in the industry and other areas of .
In Warhol reiterated his claim: "...my prediction from the finally came true: In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes." But then, becoming bored with continually being asked about this particular statement, Warhol deliberately tried to confuse interviewers by changing the statement variously to "In the future 15 people will be famous" and "In 15 minutes everybody will be famous."
Some other Warhol`s quotations:
“Isn't life a series of images that change as they repeat themselves?” ()
“They always say that time changes things, but you
actually have to change them yourself.” (Andy Warhol)
“I am a deeply superficial person.” (Andy Warhol)
“An artist is someone who produces things that people don't need to have but that he - for some reason - thinks it would be a good idea to give them.” ()
LIST OF SOURCES
- Tilman Osterwold, POP ART, 2003, Taschenverlag
- Honnef Klaus, Andy Warhol: 1928 – 1987. Kunst als Kommerz, 1999, Taschenverlag
- Leksikon Cankarjeve Založbe, 1990, Cankarjeva Založba