Pop: The Genius of Andy Warhol (1928-1987)

By Nurul Syamimi binti Mohd Mokhtar

Andy Warhol was part of the pop-art movement. Like many of the more modern

movements, it didn't focus so much on technique (like say, impressionists) but more on

subject matter and in particular, questioning what is art and breaking down or stretching

symbolism to it's limits. Pop-art, in essence, tried to take the old, stuffy, pretentious "fine

art" world and instead do the reverse. Instead of subjects being classical stories or grand

landscapes or other "classy" subjects, they made their art about the present world and

everyday stuff. Warhol in particular emphasized mass media, things that were reprinted

and ubiquitous, hence doing stuff like painting a can of soup or highly uses screen

printing in his stuff.

His original 32 paintings of Campbell’s canned soup (titled Campbell’s Soup

Cans) played a major role in defining Andy Warhol’s artistic career. Apart from helping

him get his first solo exhibition the Campbell’s Soup Cans steered the direction of

Warhol’s future work.

Andy Warhol, Campbells’ Soup Cans, 1962 © 2014 Andy Warhol Foundation / ARS, NY / TM Licensed

by Campbell’s Soup Co. All rights reserved. Source: MoMa

When Warhol first exhibited Campbell’s Soup Cans, in 1962, each of the thirty-two

canvases rested on a shelf mounted on the wall, like groceries in a store. The number of paintings corresponds to the varieties of soup then sold by the Campbell Soup Company.

Warhol assigned a different soup variety to each, checking them off on a product list supplied by Campbell once their “portraits” were completed.

He liked to use bright colours and silk screening techniques to mass-produce

artworks based on publicity photographs of stars, like this famous image of Marilyn

Monroe:

Andy, Warhol, [no title] 1967. © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, NY and

DACS, London 2014

In Marilyn Monroe, Warhol found a fusion of two of his consistent themes: death and the

cult of celebrity. The star died tragically in August 1962. In the following two years,

Warhol made thirty silkscreen paintings of her, always using the same

publicity photograph from the 1953 film Niagara. This set of ten screenprints was

produced in 1967, in an edition of 250. The repeated image serves as the basis for a series

of startling colour transformations.

Silk-screening is a process which can create lots of artworks/prints that look the

same. The design is separated out into individual colours, and the position of each colour

is marked out by a stencil. By pushing ink through the stencils one at a time, the colours

build up to form a picture. Sometimes Warhol would switch colours around and present a

group of prints with inverted or contrasting colours together:

Andy Warhol, Marilyn Diptych, 1962, © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, NY

and DACS, London 2014

Marilyn Monroe died in August 1962, having overdosed on barbiturates. In the following

four months, Warhol made more than twenty silkscreen paintings of her, all based on the

same publicity photograph from the 1953 film Niagara. Warhol found in Monroe a

fusion of two of his consistent themes: death and the cult of celebrity. By repeating the

image, he evokes her ubiquitous presence in the media. The contrast of vivid colour with

black and white, and the effect of fading in the right panel are suggestive of the star’s

mortality.

Warhol's work might contribute to introduced: brand equity, clothing, fashion and beauty,

imagery, packaging and self-concept.

In my opinion, the importance of the work wasn't necessarily it's aesthetic

qualities, but the questions it posed and how it reframed what people thought defined

"art."