Andy Warhol was the first to dare to reject the idea of conceptualism by making a simple Coca-Cola bottle a masterpiece.
His paintings are known all over the world. But what do we know about his personality and privacy?
- He had 25 cats. The artist loved Siamese cats. They all had the name Sam, and only one was Jester.
- He always lived with mom. Warhol lived without his mother only during his studies at the university and in the early years in New York. The woman worked as a graphic designer, taught him to draw, and was engaged in needlework.
- As a child, Andy got the Sydenham chorea. He was an outcast in the class. The future artist plunged headlong into the world of his fantasies and became interested in drawing. He started collecting collages from newspaper photographs of celebrities.
- Suspiciousness and fear of doctors accompanied Warhol to the end of his life
- Warhol went to church every day. He grew up in a house in close vicinity to the Catholic Cathedral. Andy visited it with his family at least twice a week. As a child, he could spend hours looking at icons and then redrawing them.
- Andy loved loneliness. He could sit in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel and watch the celebrities for hours. He spent his days strolling around New York and having dinner alone in the best restaurants in the city. Warhol always ordered dinner for two. On the way home, he gave the second food serving to the homeless.
- The artist had a complex at the expense of the shape of his nose. As a result, he underwent plastic surgery.
- Warhol died twice. In 1968 Valerie Solanas shot him. The radical feminist dreamed of killing all the men of the world. At the hospital, doctors established a clinical death. But then they found out who Warhol was. They rushed to reanimate him. The artist lived another 20 years. Andy turned this event into commercial art by replicating the image of a pistol. Today, the cost of the composition with a revolver is estimated at 6-7 million dollars.
- Andy made hundreds of erotic films without a clear understanding of what sex is. He was not embarrassed, and in his interviews more than once said that he would die a virgin. Warhol never revealed the details of his personal life.
- 100 million dollars – this was exactly the sum of the last shocking action of the artist. He bequeathed his entire fortune to the Andy Warhol Foundation to help young contemporary artists.
Andy Warhol is an extraordinary and scandalous person. Someone worships him, and someone considers his work to be boring and banal. But we continue to feel its influence on popular culture and art.
