How to Recognize Work by Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol began his career as a commercial illustrator. It has been said that nobody had ever heard of Warhol until Marilyn Monroe died in 1962 and he began producing his silkscreen prints of Monroe and other celebrities. He went on to immortalize everyday objects in his works including soup cans and Coke bottles. Andy Warhol's goal was to blur the lines between fine art and the commercial arts used for magazine illustrations, comic books and record albums.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Recognize Work by Andy Warhol

1. Look for cats. Warhol had an affinity for felines, and images of them can be found in some of his work. Recognize his love for cats in "Blue Cat" and "Cat Green."

2. Notice the non-representational use of color. Warhol used his garish colors in reference to popular culture. Recognize this aspect of Warhol's work in "Green Marilyn."

3. Search for an assembly-line effect. Warhol's technique of silkscreen printing gave the illusion of mass production and allowed him to use the same photographic image over and over again while achieving a slightly different effect each time.

4. Be aware of the cultural icons. It is easy to recognize icons like Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the Lone Ranger, Mao Tse-Tung, Edward Kennedy and Judy Garland in works by Warhol. Warhol was attempting to point out the transience of fame.

5. Pay attention to the "paint by numbers" effect. Pop artists adopted "paint by number" in the early 1960s as part of their dialogue on pop culture and mass production. Andy Warhol used this technique in "Do It Yourself Flowers" and "Do-It-Yourself."

6. Visit the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania (Warhol's hometown). The museum has an extensive collection of works by Warhol including paintings, prints and drawings as well as film and video.

7. Read "Andy Warhol 365 Takes: The Andy Warhol Museum Collection" by the staff of the Andy Warhol Museum at Amazon (see Resources below). This book not only takes readers on a tour of Warhol's art but also delves into his personal history, friends and lovers and his obsession with shoes, religion and mortality.

8. Rent films about Andy Warhol. There are many available on DVD including "Andy Warhol," "Andy Warhol: The Complete Picture" and "Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol."

Tips & Warnings

• To recognize work by Andy Warhol, look at the works of his predecessors in the Pop Art movement, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. Warhol borrowed the idea of recycling images and exposing modern mass culture from these two artists (who were themselves influenced by Marcel Duchamp).