Kirsten Anderson - Who Was Andy Warhol?

Who Was
Andy Warhol?

By Kirsten Anderson
Illustrated by Gregory Copeland

Grosset & Dunlap
An Imprint of Penguin Group (USA) LLC

To Meg Belviso, who reads everything I writeKA
To my rep, Deborah Wolfe, for all that she has done for me over the yearsGC

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Text copyright 2014 by Kirsten Anderson. Illustrations copyright 2014 by
Penguin Group (USA) LLC. Cover illustration copyright 2014 by Nancy Harrison.
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ISBN 978-0-698-18738-2

Version_1

Who Was Andy Warhol?

In July 1962, a new art exhibit opened at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. When people walked into the gallery, they saw thirty-two paintings lined up on a shelf. They were paintings of cans of Campbells soup. Each painting showed a different flavor of soup.

Most people thought the paintings were silly. Critics didnt think the paintings should even be considered art. An art gallery down the street from the Ferus put real cans of Campbells soup in their window with a sign that said: DO NOT BE MISLED . GET THE ORIGI NAL . OUR LOW PRICE TW O FOR 33 CENTS .

Andy Warhol, the artist who painted the soup cans, heard all the jokes. He didnt care. He liked that people were talking about his work. He even posed for photographs in a grocery store with a shopping cart filled with Campbells soup.

He knew his soup can paintings were a different form of art. The 1960s were an exciting time. Why not make art that was fun? Why not paint pictures that celebrated the things that people saw in everyday life?

Very few people were interested in buying the soup can paintings in 1962. But in 1996, almost thirty-five years later, the Museum of Modern Art paid $15 million for thirty-two of them. By then Andy Warhol had become one of the most important artists of the twentieth century. He had changed the way people thought about art. He had created thousands of paintings. He had made movies. He had managed a rock band. People spent time at his studio just so they could seem cool.

Andy said, In the future, everybody will be world-famous for fifteen minutes long before the Internet even existed and people could post videos of themselves on YouTube for the world to see. And if there was one thing Andy understood, it was how to be famous. After all, he had turned Andrew Warhola, a poor, shy boy from Pittsburgh, into Andy Warhol: art superstar and international celebrity.

Chapter 1
Pittsburgh

Andrew Warhola was born on August 6, 1928, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He had two older brothers, Paul and John. His parents, Andrej and Julia, had come to Pittsburgh from Mikov, a small village in what is now Slovakia. Andrej came to the United States in 1912. Julia wasnt able to join him until 1921. Julia was very serious about her faith, which she shared with her sons. The family belonged to the Byzantine Catholic Church.

Pittsburgh was a busy city full of factories. It was the home of many large companies, such as U.S. Steel, H. J. Heinz, and Westinghouse Electric. Most neighborhoods were filled with the hardworking people who kept the factories going. The rich owners of the factories lived in mansions on the edges of the city.

Andrej worked in construction. Julia earned extra money by making flowers out of tin cans that she sold in wealthier Pittsburgh neighborhoods. Sometimes she worked as a house cleaner.

Andy started kindergarten when he was four. On the first day of school, a girl in his class hit him. Andy refused to go back and didnt return to school for a year. His brothers thought their mother was spoiling him.

His mother worried about Andy all the time. She let him stay home from school for the slightest reason. But when he was eight, Andy became ill with a serious disease called rheumatic fever. Andy missed two months of school that year. He spent his days reading comic books and movie-star magazines. Andy adored movies. He once wrote a fan letter to his favorite movie star, Shirley Temple, and got back an autographed picture from her. He kept the picture for the rest of his life.

It was clear early on that Andy had a gift for art, and Julia encouraged him to draw. The nearby Carnegie Institute offered free art classes to children who showed a talent for art. Andy was selected for the classes when he was nine years old.

Andy was shy and quiet. As he grew older, the skin on his face looked ashy and pale. Doctors did not know what caused the problem. Later, he developed rosacea, a condition that made his nose turn lumpy and red. Andy hated his appearance. He looked nothing like the glamorous movie stars he admired so much.

When Andy was just thirteen, his father died. Andrej had always thought Andy had a talent for art. He left money to help send Andy to college.

Chapter 2
Art School

In September 1945, Andy began college in the Department of Painting and Design at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University). He struggled during his first year. He was only seventeen and did not have the reading or writing skills he needed for college-level work.

In college, Andy discovered something important about himself. Being shy and quiet seemed to make others want to help him. He attracted people by not saying much. When he was quiet, people wondered what he was thinking. They became interested in him. He was able to get his new classmates to help him with his schoolwork. Writing was especially difficult for Andy. He sometimes asked his friends to help write papers for him.