Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol became the art star of the 1960s. This portrait was made in 1972, a peak year in the career of the artist. Throughout the film Warhol remains behind his mask as critics and followers describe him as voyeuristic, demonic, innovative, shrewd, and influential. Like several fellow artists of the 1960s, Warhol started out as a graphic designer and window decorator. By 1962 he had taken his artistic imagery directly from the shelves of the supermarket and daily tabloids. These early works include the Brillo Boxes and Campbell Soup Cans. Unlike his artistic peers, who elevated Pop imagery and techniques to 'high art' and steadfastly remained there, Warhol took his irreverence to commercial and aesthetic extremes. As the filmmaker, Emile de Antonio, a longtime friend, reflects: 'Andy understood that the real nature of American life today is publicity.' Warhol's mass media tactics, his factory output of paintings, prints and films made him the most adventurous, most enterprising, and definitely the naughtiest member of the Pop movement. He died in 1987.