Andy Warhol (1928-1987) (after) - Marilyn Monroe

After Andy Warhol & Sunday B. Morning, Marilyn Monroe (turquoise), 1967.

Screenprint in color, 91 x 91 cm. Stamped on the back: Published by Sunday B. Morning" and "fill in your own signature".

Provenance: Acquired from the publisher.

The print is an authorized version by Sunday B. Morning. The rights for these prints were purchased in the 2000s by the Dutch owners and may be officially reproduced and are therefore authorized.

Biography
The American Pop Art artist Andy Warhol was born on August 6, 1928 as Andrew Warhola in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His parents are Czech and Slovak immigrants. He first apprenticed as a window dresser, before studying art history as well as pictorial design, sociology and psychology at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh from 1945 to 1949. He then moved to New York, where he began calling himself Andy Warhol.

Until 1960 Warhol worked as a freelance commercial artist for fashion magazines, as an illustrator, and as a window dresser. The Art Directors Club awarded him medals in 1952 and 1957 for his design of newspaper ads. In 1952, the Hugo Gallery hosted Warhol’s first exhibition, "Fifteen Drawings Based on the Writings of Truman Capote."

In 1962 the first series with "Campbell’s Soup Cans" and "Coca-Cola Bottles" as well as screenprints featuring dollar bills emerges. His studio, where many friends and assistants work, Warhol called the "Factory." His art comes to shape the use of well-known motifs or signs of everyday mass culture, and he employs mechanically serial production methods, such as screenprinting, which had previously been deemed unartistic.

In 1962 Warhol participated in the exhibition "The New Realists" in New York. In the following years Warhol’s subject matter darkens. Series with death and catastrophe images are created. In the screenprinting process and deliberately in the poor image quality of newspaper reproduction, he selects airplane crashes, traffic accidents, crime, and atomic bomb explosions. Even with the cardboard and wooden sculptures that reproduce commercial packaging exactly, Warhol criticizes consumer and mass culture. With his works, Andy Warhol shapes Pop Art.

In the 1960s Warhol also engaged with the medium of film. He developed a special film aesthetic through simple techniques, long, static camera setups, and the absence of cutting and editing. In 1963 the silent films "Sleep," "Kiss" and "Eat" emerge, and in 1964 "Empire." The following sound films are also shown at the Cannes Film Festival, such as 1966’s "Chelsea Girls." From 1966 Warhol also collaborates with the rock band "Velvet Underground" for shows in nightclubs.

In the 1970s the Pop Art artist transfers Polaroid photos of famous personalities into screenprints on canvas, including portraits such as "Elvis Presley" (1964), "Jackie Kennedy" (1965), "Marilyn Monroe" (1967) and "Mao Tse-tung" (1972).

In 1968 Andy Warhol was shot and seriously wounded by Valerie Solanas. In 1984 Warhol collaborates on projects with artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Francesco Clemente.

Andy Warhol died on February 22, 1987, in New York.