Life and career
Origins and training
Warhol grew up in Pittsburgh in a family of immigrants from present-day Slovakia. After studying pictorial design, he moved to New York and became a successful commercial illustrator.
Places, turning points and artistic change
In the 1960s, products, celebrities and news photographs became subjects for paintings and screenprints. Later commissioned portraits, collaborations and religious imagery extended his practice well beyond soup cans.
Beyond the studio
Film, music events, television and Interview magazine were central activities. The Factory was a collaborative social and production setting, not simply a private painting studio.
Works across a career
Selected examples, not a complete catalogue. Read date ranges and attributions before inferring a career sequence.
Reading the selected works together
The cans, long film and portraits show repetition working through commodities, time and celebrity.
- 01
1962
1962
Campbell's Soup Cans
- Material / technique
- Acrylic with metallic enamel paint on canvas, 32 panels
- Attribution / role
- Collection / source
- The Museum of Modern Art
Artist-wide context
Repeated products and celebrities make us notice how the same images circulate and become familiar.
- 02
1964
1964
Empire
- Material / technique
- Film
- Attribution / role
- See the museum attribution
- Collection / source
- The Andy Warhol Museum
An extended fixed view turns duration into a central subject.
- 03
1964–66
1964–66
Screen Tests
- Material / technique
- Film portrait series
- Attribution / role
- See the museum attribution
- Collection / source
- The Andy Warhol Museum
Visitors to the Factory become subjects of short, sustained filmed portraits.
Materials, marks and colour
Media and surface
Hand painting and screenprinting coexist; not every repeated image uses the same process.
Marks and structure
Repetition and registration shifts make sameness visibly imperfect.
Palette and light
Flat bright colour can turn a photograph into a familiar, unstable public image.