American painter and film-maker, the most famous practitioner of Pop art — the movement that took its subjects from advertising, packaging and celebrity photographs. He made the Campbell's soup cans and the silkscreened Marilyns in New York, but announced his retirement from painting in Paris in 1965, kept a Left Bank apartment through the 1970s, and portrayed the couturier Yves Saint Laurent, whose circle he moved in. The younger artist Keith Haring named Warhol's fusion of art and everyday life as the example that set him on his own course.
Andy Warhol was born Andrew Warhola in Pittsburgh on 6 August 1928, the son of working-class immigrants from what is now Slovakia, and spent the 1950s as one of the most successful commercial illustrators in New York, drawing shoes and advertisements for Tiffany & Co., The New York Times and Columbia Records. In 1962 he began painting the objects of that trade — soup cans, dollar bills, film stars, disasters — in silkscreen, and Pop art, the movement that made its subject the mass-produced imagery of advertising, packaging and celebrity, acquired its most famous practitioner.
The life is a New York life: the silver-lined studio called the Factory, the films from 1963 onward, the shooting in 1968 by Valerie Solanas, a writer who had appeared in one of those films, which he never fully recovered from, the magazine Interview, the portraits of everyone who could pay for one, and his death in a Manhattan hospital on 22 February 1987 after routine gallbladder surgery. Paris carries a small set of specific episodes, and the sharpest is May 1965: Warhol came over for a show of his Flowers paintings at the Paris gallery of Ileana Sonnabend, the dealer who was then selling American Pop art to Europe, and told the French press he was giving up painting for film. He kept a Left Bank apartment in the 1970s, made portraits of Yves Saint Laurent in 1972, and painted the couturier's bulldog in 1986.
Warhol was born in Pittsburgh in 1928 and studied pictorial design at the Carnegie Institute of Technology before moving to New York. Through the 1950s he was, as the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh puts it, 'one of the most successful illustrators of his time', with clients including Tiffany & Co., The New York Times and Columbia Records — a decade of paid drawing that later fed straight into the art.
In 1962 he exhibited a series of paintings of Campbell's Soup Cans, and the reaction made him famous almost immediately. He moved to silkscreen — a commercial printing process in which ink is pushed through a stencilled mesh, so the same image can be put down again and again, with the registration, the alignment of one colour layer over the next, slipping from print to print — and used it on the film star Marilyn Monroe, the singer Elvis Presley, electric chairs, car crashes and dollar signs. In 1963 he started making films, among them Sleep (1963), Empire (1964) and The Chelsea Girls (1966), and his studio, the Factory, became the address for a shifting cast of people who appeared in them.
Warhol's first Flowers paintings — a photograph of four hibiscus blooms, cropped square and repeated in flat colour — were shown at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York in November 1964, the dealership that represented most of the American Pop artists. In May 1965 a second, larger set went on show in Paris at the gallery of Ileana Sonnabend, the dealer whose Paris rooms had spent the early 1960s introducing American Pop art to European collectors — Robert Rauschenberg, who glued newsprint and stuffed animals into his paintings; Jasper Johns, who painted flags and targets; and Warhol.
Warhol crossed the Atlantic for it, and while in Paris announced that he was retiring from painting to concentrate on film. He told it as a decision already taken. It did not hold — he was silkscreening again within a couple of years, and after 1972 he painted commissioned portraits at industrial volume — but the announcement was made in Paris, to the French press, at the show that a French gallery had put on, and it reads now as the moment he formally attached himself to cinema.
On 3 June 1968 Valerie Solanas, a writer who had appeared in his film I, a Man, shot him in the chest at the Factory. He barely survived, and the studio afterwards was a tighter, more corporate operation than the open house it had been. In the year of his recovery he co-founded Interview, a magazine about film, fashion and celebrity that still exists.
In 1968 Warhol met Yves Saint Laurent and the couturier's partner Pierre Bergé, and the three became friends; the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris, the museum in Saint Laurent's old workrooms at 5 avenue Marceau, records that Warhol considered him 'the most important French artist'. In 1972 Warhol made a series of portraits of Saint Laurent by the standard Warhol procedure of that decade: he took an instant Polaroid photograph of the sitter, had it enlarged and traced, printed the outline onto canvas by silkscreen, and painted the colour in by hand. In 1986 he painted Saint Laurent's French bulldog, Moujik, whose image later turned up on greeting cards.
He was in the city often through the 1970s, shot the film L'Amour (1972) around it, and kept an apartment on the Left Bank, on the rue du Cherche-Midi in the 6th arrondissement, shared with his business manager Fred Hughes. The circle he moved in was the fashion one: Saint Laurent; Karl Lagerfeld, the German designer who was Saint Laurent's rival and later ran Chanel; Loulou de la Falaise, the Anglo-French designer of Saint Laurent's jewellery and his closest working companion; and Paloma Picasso, the painter Pablo Picasso's daughter, herself a jewellery designer — the Paris that the journalist Alicia Drake's history of the decade reconstructs, and that Warhol's own dictated diaries log from the inside, dinner by dinner.
By the mid-1980s Warhol had attached himself to artists thirty years younger. He and Jean-Michel Basquiat — the young Brooklyn-born painter who had come out of New York street graffiti and was, by then, one of the most sought-after artists in the world — painted together from 1984 — the Andy Warhol Museum counts 'over 150 collaborative canvases over a four-year period' — with Warhol laying down logos and headlines by hand and Basquiat painting across them. The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York hung the results in its 2018 retrospective, among them Paramount (1984–85) and Third Eye (1985).
Keith Haring, the other young artist he worked with — the New Yorker whose chalk drawings of barking dogs and radiant babies covered the city's subway advertising panels — named Warhol's 'unique fusion of art and life' as the thing that decided him on making public art, and counted him among the friends and mentors who backed the Pop Shop, the store Haring opened to sell T-shirts, badges and posters of his own images cheaply, when the art world sneered at it as a sell-out.
Warhol died in New York on 22 February 1987 of complications after surgery to remove his gall bladder. He was fifty-eight. Basquiat, who had been as close to him as to anyone alive until their joint exhibition of 1985 was mocked by the critics and the friendship cooled, was badly shaken by the death and died of a heroin overdose eighteen months later, aged twenty-seven.
Born Andrew Warhola on 6 August in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Works in New York as one of the most successful commercial illustrators of the decade, for Tiffany & Co., The New York Times and Columbia Records.
Exhibits the Campbell's Soup Cans, and becomes the public face of Pop art.
Begins making films — Sleep (1963), Empire (1964), The Chelsea Girls (1966) and the Screen Tests.
Shows his second Flowers series at Galerie Ileana Sonnabend in Paris in May, and announces during the trip that he is giving up painting for film.
Shot in the chest at the Factory on 3 June by Valerie Solanas, a writer who had appeared in his film I, a Man.
Meets Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé; the three become friends.
Co-founds Interview, the magazine of film, fashion and popular culture.
Makes a series of portraits of Yves Saint Laurent.
Keeps an apartment on the rue du Cherche-Midi on the Left Bank with his manager Fred Hughes, and moves through the Paris fashion circle of Saint Laurent, Karl Lagerfeld, Loulou de la Falaise and Paloma Picasso.
Begins painting with Jean-Michel Basquiat; the two produce more than 150 collaborative canvases over four years.
Paints Moujik, Yves Saint Laurent's French bulldog.
Dies in New York City on 22 February from complications following surgery to remove his gall bladder, aged 58.
Collaborated with · 1984–1985
The Andy Warhol Museum states that the two artists 'together produced over 150 collaborative canvases over a four-year period' in the mid-1980s. The Whitney Museum's 2018 retrospective showed the results, among them Paramount (1984–85) and Third Eye (1985); the pair exhibited the collaborations together at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York in 1985.
Met · 1970
Warhol kept a Left Bank apartment on the rue du Cherche-Midi in the 1970s and moved through the same Paris circle as Lagerfeld and Yves Saint Laurent — the milieu Alicia Drake's history of the decade reconstructs, and the one Warhol's own diaries record from the other side.
Painted a portrait of · 1972
The Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris dates the meeting to 1968 — 'Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé met Andy Warhol in 1968 and soon became friends' — and records that Warhol made a series of portraits of the couturier in 1972. Warhol went on to paint Saint Laurent's bulldog Moujik in 1986.
The Keith Haring Foundation's own biography names Warhol twice: his "unique fusion of art and life" as a model for Haring's decision to make truly public art, and Warhol himself among the "friends, fans and mentors" who backed the Pop Shop when much of the art world sneered.
Not as a resident, but he kept an apartment on the Left Bank — on the rue du Cherche-Midi in the 6th arrondissement, shared with his business manager Fred Hughes — and came often through the 1970s, filming L'Amour (1972) around the city. His life and studio were in New York; Paris was where he exhibited, socialized with the fashion world and, in 1965, announced that he was giving up painting.
In May 1965 the Galerie Ileana Sonnabend showed his second series of Flowers paintings — the cropped, repeated hibiscus blooms he had first exhibited in New York the previous November. Warhol came over for it and told the press during the trip that he was retiring from painting to work on film. He did not stay retired, but the announcement was made in Paris, and it marks the point where he committed publicly to cinema.
Yes. The Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris dates their meeting to 1968 — Warhol met the couturier and his partner Pierre Bergé, and the three became friends. Warhol made a series of portraits of Saint Laurent in 1972, and in 1986 painted his French bulldog, Moujik. The museum records that Warhol called Saint Laurent the most important French artist.
Paintings, jointly, from 1984. Basquiat was the Brooklyn-born painter, thirty-two years younger, who had come out of New York street graffiti; the Andy Warhol Museum counts more than 150 collaborative canvases over four years. Warhol usually laid down hand-painted logos and headlines and Basquiat painted figures and words across them. The Whitney's 2018 retrospective showed several, including Paramount (1984–85) and Third Eye (1985). Their joint exhibition in New York in 1985 was badly reviewed, and the friendship cooled before Warhol's death in February 1987.
Warhol's New York studio, its walls lined with silver foil, run from 1963 as a workshop, film set and social hub at once. It is where the silkscreens were printed in quantity, where the films were shot, and where the group of performers and hangers-on known as the Warhol superstars gathered. It is also where Valerie Solanas shot him on 3 June 1968.
In New York City on 22 February 1987, of complications following surgery to remove his gall bladder. He was fifty-eight, and had never fully recovered from the 1968 shooting.
Because several specific things in his life happened here: the 1965 Sonnabend exhibition and the retirement announcement that came with it, the Left Bank apartment of the 1970s, the friendship with Yves Saint Laurent and the portraits that came out of it, and the Paris fashion circle he moved through with Karl Lagerfeld and others. New York holds the career. Paris holds episodes, and they are datable ones.
Influenced
The Keith Haring Foundation's own biography names Warhol twice: his "unique fusion of art and life" as a model for Haring's decision to make truly public art, and Warhol himself among the "friends, fans and mentors" who backed the Pop Shop when much of the art world sneered.
Collaborated with · 1984–1985
The Andy Warhol Museum states that the two artists 'together produced over 150 collaborative canvases over a four-year period' in the mid-1980s. The Whitney Museum's 2018 retrospective showed the results, among them Paramount (1984–85) and Third Eye (1985); the pair exhibited the collaborations together at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York in 1985.
Met · 1970
Warhol kept a Left Bank apartment on the rue du Cherche-Midi in the 1970s and moved through the same Paris circle as Lagerfeld and Yves Saint Laurent — the milieu Alicia Drake's history of the decade reconstructs, and the one Warhol's own diaries record from the other side.
Painted a portrait of · 1972
The Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris dates the meeting to 1968 — 'Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé met Andy Warhol in 1968 and soon became friends' — and records that Warhol made a series of portraits of the couturier in 1972. Warhol went on to paint Saint Laurent's bulldog Moujik in 1986.
The sources below include biographies, scholarly essays, interviews, and primary materials that informed this page. They reflect both the historical record and ongoing critical conversations about Andy Warhol and their work.
The Andy Warhol Museum's biography — Pittsburgh, the illustration career, the 1962 soup cans, the films, the 1968 shooting, Interview, the Basquiat collaborations, and his death.
Warhol's own account of the 1960s, including the May 1965 Paris trip for the Sonnabend Flowers show and the announcement that he was giving up painting.
The full-length biography, for the Paris exhibitions, the retirement announcement and the Left Bank apartment.
The Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris on the 1968 meeting, the friendship, the 1972 portrait series and the 1986 painting of the dog Moujik.
The Whitney's 2018 retrospective of more than 350 works, which showed the collaborative canvases with Basquiat.
The Keith Haring Foundation on what Haring took from Warhol, and Warhol's support for the Pop Shop.
The history of 1970s Paris fashion that places Warhol's circle inside Saint Laurent's and Lagerfeld's.
Warhol's dictated diaries, which record the Paris social round of the 1970s and 1980s.
These references anchor the page in the documented record and in the scholarly conversations around Andy Warhol. Every claim on this page traces back to one or more of the works listed here.
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