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Kayla Williams March 18,2011 Art History eReport. Period: 5 ﻿﻿ ~ANDY WARHOL~ Andrew Warhola, also known as Andy Warhol was born in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia on August 6,1928. Andy was the fourth child in his family, and his parents were immigrants from Northeastern, Slovakia. His father migrated to the United States in 1914, he later died in 1942 from a constuction accident. His mother Julia who was born in 1892 also migrated to the United States but in 1921, she died in 1972 from natural causes. However, as a child Andy was a total outcast with very few friends, but he had a very close relationship with his mother. In third grade he developed Chorea, a disease in which his nervous system was not functioning properly and that cause him to have "involuntary movements of the extremities",this is believed to be a complication of scarlet fever that causes skin pigmentation blotchiness. After a while he became a hypochondraic (The fear of visiting doctors and the fear of going to the hospital.) He was often bed-ridden, as he was bed-ridden he liked to listen to the radio, draw pictures,and collect pictures of movie stars and hang them on his wall.

Sadly, on June 3,1968 a woman named Valerie Solanus shot Andy and his art critic Mario Amaya at Warhol's own factory! Solanus shot Andy because she claimed that "he had too much control over my life". But the shooting was overshadowed by the assassination of former President Robert F. Kenndy just two days later. Andy barely survived and he was rushed to the hopsital were surgeons had to open his chest and massage his heart to stimulate movement again. He suffered from physical affects for the rest of his life. That really had a huge impact on his life and on his art. After the shooting, the "Factory" became much more tightly controlled, and for many the "Factory 60s" ended. Also, Solanus recevied three years in prison. When that was all said and done the 1970's was a rather much quieter decade for Andy, he became more of a entreprenur. Another one of Warhol's famous portraits was of Chinese communist Mao Zedong that was created in 1973. As time passed he and Gerald Malanga founded "Interview Magazine". They published "The Philosophy of Andy Warhol" in 1975. Andy stated in the magazine that "Making money is art, and working is art, and good business is the best art". People say Warhol was a quiet, shy and meticulous observer.

Nevertheless, Warhol accomplished a great deal of things over years such as being a painter,sculputor, working in photography,being a record producer and a highly prolific film maker in which he created sixty films from 1963-1968, plus he made over five hundred black and white screen test portraits. One of his famous films was "Eat" and "Chelsea Girls" (1966). More films of his were "Sleep, Empire(1964),Vinyl (1965), Batman and Dracula(1964), Blow Job, Beauty 1, Beauty 2 etc. In the 1960's, Warhol adopted the Velvet Underground. He then produced their first album; The Underground and Nico. Warhol also created album covers for the rolling stones such as "Sticky Fingers (1971), Love You Live (1977). One of his last works was a portrait of Aretha Franklin for the cover of her 1986 Gold Album cover.

Andy Warhol died in New York City at 6:32 am on February 22,1987. New reporters claims that Andy had a routine gallbladder surgery which he was recovering from. He died in the hospital in his sleep from a sudden "post operative cardiac arrhythmia" (that is water poison, or too much water in the body.) Prior from the diagnosis and operation, Warhol delayed having his recurring problems checked. Since he was afraid of going to the doctors and visiting the hospital. His family sued the hospital for inadequate care, saying that arrhythmia is cause by improper care and water intoxication. However, Andy was flown back to Pittsburgh, Philadelphia for his burial. The funeral was at Thomas P. Kunsak Funeral Home, the funeral was a open casket. The casket was bronze and had gold platted rails, there was white upholstery, he was dressed in a black cashmere suit, a paisley tie, a platinum wig, and sunglasses. He held a prayer book and a rose in his hands. He was buried next to his mother and his father.

﻿However, here are some personal and interesting facts that you may not have known about Andy Warhol. Many people believe that he was homosexual, and that he was most likely a virgin. But his family believes that he is not gay but in fact straight, and that he is celibate. People thought that his work influnced the belief of him being gay. Throughout his whole career he always took erotic pictures of nude males, he also drew pictures of naked males. But in this one statement made from Andy Warhol this accusation seemed to have been true. Warhol said, "There was nothing I could say to that. It was all too true. So I decided I just wasn't going to care, because those were all the things that I didn't want to change anyway, that I didn't think I 'should' want to change... Other people could change their attitudes but not me". Andy was also was religious, he practiced Ruthenian Rite Catholic. Andy visited homeless shelters in New York City very frequently, he mainly visited during the busiest times of the year. He described himself as a religious person, but he did not want anyone to know that because he thought it was too personal.

 HERE ARE SOME OF ANDY WARHOL'S FAMOUS CREATIONS.

 PICTURES : [|Chinese Communist Mao Zedong] [|Self portrait]

 FILMS: [|Eat ; by Andy Warhol] [|Sleep: by Andy Warhol] [|The Chelsea Girls by: Andy Wahol]