Warhol
by
58/99
Critics
46/99
Readers
n/a
Scholars
18/99
Rating
99/99
Volume
62/99
Rating
30/99
Volume
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About This Book
When critics attacked Andy Warhol's Marilyn paintings as shallow, the Pop artist was happy to present himself as shallower still: He claimed that he silkscreened to avoid the hard work of painting, although he was actually a meticulous workaholic; in interviews he presented himself as a silly naïf when in private he was the canniest of sophisticates. Blake Gopnik's definitive biography digs deep into the contradictions and radical genius that led Andy Warhol to revolutionise our cultural world.Based on years of archival research and on interviews with hundreds of Warhol's surviving friends, lovers and enemies, Warhol traces the artist's path from his origins as the impoverished son of Eastern European immigrants in 1930s Pittsburgh, through his early success as a commercial illustrator and his groundbreaking pivot into fine art, to the society portraiture and popular celebrity of the '70s and '80s, as he reflected and responded to the changing dynamics of commerce and culture.Warhol sought out all the most glamorous figures of his times - Susan Sontag, Mick Jagger, the Barons de Rothschild - despite being burdened with an almost crippling shyness. Behind the public glitter of the artist's Factory, with its superstars, drag queens and socialites, there was a man who lived with his mother for much of his life and guarded the privacy of his home. He overcame the vicious homophobia of his youth to become a symbol of gay achievement, while always seeking the pleasures of traditional romance and coupledom. (Warhol explodes the myth of his asexuality.)Filled with new insights into the artist's work and personality, Warhol asks: Was he a joke or a genius, a radical or a social climber? As Warhol himself would have answered: Yes.
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Reviews
"This lengthy, lively tale is designed to enchant both Warhol fans and those new to his unusual take on visual artistry and life in general ..."
"Admirers of Warhol will rejoice at this book, which does not gloss over the calamities in his personal life – including an attempted murder by Valerie Solanas that brought him close to death in 1968 – and which celebrates the legacy of Warhol's art."
"it would be wrong to imply that Gopnik's book is one that Warhol might have written himself or, indeed, even liked very much."
"thoroughly enjoyable ..."
"Gopnik establishes throughout the biography the ways Warhol blazed a trail for the gay community to recognize and celebrate each other during a time when being out might lead to bodily harm, or worse ..."
"The most impressive thing about this new Warhol biography is not its length—more than 900 pages—but the fact that art is discussed on nearly every one of them ..."
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