Celebrities Painted By Andy Warhol

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Andy Warhol is a film director, producer, and widely known visual artist. He is also famous for leading pop art, a famous visual art movement. In addition, the artist has used his artistic understanding to yield expression in connection to celebrities and advertisements. Warhol has been a key producer of film, sculptures, and photography and is well remembered for his silkscreen paintings.

The most famous art by Andy Warhol

Early Life

Warhol suffered from Sydenham chorea from a very early age and had to spend a reasonable amount of time at home skimming through Hollywood magazines and comics. He was 8 when his father got him his first camera and gradually had him enrolled in college. Warhol, however, suffered a lot because of his deteriorating health.

He was bullied for the physical flaws he would later camouflage through clothing, cosmetics, and surgeries. This can be seen through the work he created; much of his artworks incorporate wigs and nose jobs. Since he had to exercise and take supplements for his deficiencies, much of his work emphasizes the muscularity of portraits.

Warhol’s Artistic Career

After graduating in pictorial design, Warhol started his career as a commercial artist. His first work had its place in Glamour Magazine, which got him a reputation as an illustrator. Warhol became famous for his ink drawings and excelled at quickly changing the image’s composition per the client’s requirements. Andy Warhol’s drawings represent artists’ excellence and learning. Warhol soon interacted with other artists and scholars and developed a close circle of friends.

It was in the 1960s that Warhol inclined toward pop art. His first pop painting was Coca-Cola, created in 1961. This blend of pop art and hand painting signifies the smooth transition to silkscreen paintings. It was soon that commercial products evolved in the artistic space.

Andy Warhol’s drawings continued to evolve, and he started working on photographic silkscreen painting. The most famous art by Andy Warhol is his first creation of Marilyn Monroe. This marked his inspiration to paint famous celebrities and blend entertainment with art.

Andy Warhol has painted some of the most famous celebrities of all time. The top Andy Warhol portraits are shared below:

Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe - Andy Warhol

Warhol’s experiment with silkscreen reached the pinnacle when after the death of Marilyn Monroe, Warhol got hold of a still from Monroe’s film Niagara and created an icon. You can assess the artist’s fascination with the actor as he used one image to create her ten screen prints, which was among Andy Warhol’s most famous paintings. This was ultimately the largest series of screen prints that established Warhol’s name as one of the great artists.

Elizabeth Taylor

“Elizabeth Taylor is Andy Warhol’s painting of her”- Jerry Saltz

After Elizabeth Taylor’s outstanding performance in Cleopatra, Warhol created the portrait. But, astonishing as it may sound, Elizabeth Taylor never had a copy of her portrait since she never received a reply upon asking for one. Hearing this, Warhol was furious and asked Taylor to create a new version. Yet, the actor did not agree and found an excuse to pass the offer.

John Wayne

Cowboys are an important symbolic icon in American history, best known for their struggle. The cowboys have also been a part of films and postmodern art. Warhol painted John Wayne, creating an image exclusively concentrated on nostalgia and romance.

Warhol represented Wayne in an immaculate cowboy style. You would see him with Smith and Wesson and a bandana having curious eyes narrowing because of suspicion. John Wayne was an amazing portrait created by Warhol, who was known to elevate the status of actors to the level of gods mainly because of his exposure to Orthodox Catholics.

Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali by Andy Warhol

While Warhol started creating screen prints of celebrities in 1962, it took him almost 15 years to incorporate sports celebrities in his artwork. Finally, the collector Richard Weisman commissioned Warhol to paint several sports athletes, including the famous boxer Muhammad Ali. When this sports series was first published in 1978, Muhammad Ali already had a name among the masses and had won the World Boxing Championship for the third time.

Although Warhol was already popular for his works, the work of Muhammad Ali was Andy Warhol’s most famous painting of the 70s. The boxer amazed everybody with his potential and consecutive wins for decades. The difference between the artwork created about Muhammad Ali and other celebrities was the fact that Warhol himself traveled to Ali’s camp to capture his photograph.

Grace Kelly

Andy Warhol’s portraits have a great historical place, mainly because he brought different entertainment mediums into the creative space. For example, the Institute of Contemporary Art commissioned and published the famous portrait of Grace Kelly created by Andy Warhol. Grace Kelly was a classic beauty of the golden era of Hollywood. So naturally, this appealed to Warhol, along with the fact that they both shared their roots.

Warhol paints from a still image of Kelly extracted from her first film, Fourteen Hours. This was the time when the celebrity was climbing the ladder of fame. She was later supposed to be cast for another film Rear Window and subsequently tie the knot with the Prince of Morocco. But, it was just a fairy tale when the star met a fatal car accident, turning into a tragic ending and probably the reason for being chosen by Warhol for his artwork.

Conclusion

The famous visual artist, Andy Warhol, was also an American painter whose screen-print painting and involvement with commercial products in the creative space enjoy a special place in the art world. From Chairman Mao to Muhammad Ali, Warhol has painted some celebrities, transforming their publicly available shots into high-quality art.

Warhol died in 1987 because of complications in his gallbladder surgery. Just before his death, the artist created a series of self-portraits, particularly reminding the world of his works that exist to date.

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