Biography of Andy Warhol, Icon of Pop Art

Biography of Andy Warhol, Icon of Pop Art Andy Warhol (born Andrew Warhola; Aug. 6, 1928–Feb. 22, 1987) was one of the most important artists of pop art, a genre that became popular in the second half of the 20th century. Though he is best remembered for his mass-produced paintings of Campbells soup cans, he created hundreds of other works ranging from commercial advertisements to films. His best-known work, including the soup cans, reflected his views on the banality that he saw in the commercial culture of America. Fast Facts; Andy Warhol Known For: Pop artAlso Known As: Andrew WarholaBorn: Aug. 6, 1928 in Pittsburgh, PennsylvaniaParents: Andrej and Julia WarholaDied: Feb. 22, 1987 in New York, New YorkEducation: Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University)Published Works: Commercial illustrations, paintings, filmsï » ¿Notable Quote: I just happen to like ordinary things. When I paint them, I dont try to make them extraordinary. I just try to paint them ordinary-ordinary. Early Life and Education Andy Warhol was born on Aug. 6, 1928, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and grew up there with his older brothers, Paul and John, and his parents, Andrej and Julia Warhola, both of whom had emigrated from Czechoslovakia (now called Slovakia). Devout Byzantine Catholics, the family regularly attended Mass and observed their Eastern European heritage. Even as a young boy, Warhol liked to draw, color, and cut and paste pictures. His mother, who was also artistic, encouraged him by giving him a chocolate bar every time he finished a page in his coloring book. Elementary school was traumatic for Warhol, especially once he contracted Sydenhams chorea, also known as St. Vitus dance, a disease that attacks the nervous system and makes the sufferer shake uncontrollably. Warhol missed a lot of school during several month-long periods of bed rest. Additionally, large, pink blotches on Warhols skin, also from the disorder, didnt help his self-esteem or acceptance by other students. This led to nicknames such as â€Å"Spot† and â€Å"Andy the Red-Nosed Warhola† and a lifelong interest in clothing, wigs, cosmetics, and, later, plastic surgery in response to what he perceived as his flaws. During high school, Warhol took art classes there and at the Carnegie Institute (now the Carnegie Museum of Art). He was somewhat of an outcast because he was quiet, could always be found with a sketchbook in his hands, and had shockingly pale skin and white-blond hair. Warhol also loved to go to movies and started a collection of celebrity memorabilia, particularly autographed photos. A number of these pictures appeared in Warhols later artwork. Warhol graduated from high school and then went to the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in 1945, graduating in 1949 with a major in pictorial design. Blotted-Line Technique During college, Warhol developed the blotted-line technique, which involved taping two pieces of blank paper together at an edge and then drawing in ink on one page. Before the ink dried, he pressed the two pieces of paper together. The resulting image was a picture with irregular lines that he could fill in with watercolor. Warhol moved to New York right after college and worked there for a decade as a commercial illustrator. He quickly earned a reputation in the 1950s for using his blotted-line technique in commercial advertisements. Some of Warhols most famous ads were for shoes for I. Miller, but he also drew Christmas cards for Tiffany Co., created book and album covers, and illustrated Amy Vanderbilts Complete Book of Etiquette. Pop Art Around 1960, Warhol decided to make a name for himself in pop art, a new style of art that had begun in England in the mid-1950s and consisted of realistic renditions of popular, everyday items. Warhol had turned away from the blotted-line technique and had decided to use paint and canvas, but he was having trouble deciding what to paint. Warhol began with Coke bottles and comic strips, but his work wasnt getting the attention he wanted. In December 1961, a friend gave Warhol an idea: he should paint what he liked most in the world, perhaps something such as money or a can of soup. Warhol painted both. Warhols first exhibition in an art gallery came in 1962 at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. He displayed his canvases of Campbells soup, one for each of the 32 types of soup made by the company. He sold all the paintings as a set for $1,000. Before long, Warhols work was known all over the world and he was in the vanguard of the new pop art movement. Silk-Screening Unfortunately for Warhol, he found that he couldnt make his paintings fast enough on canvas. In July 1962, he discovered the process of silk screening, which uses a specially prepared section of silk as a stencil, allowing one silk-screen image to create similar patterns multiple times. He immediately began making paintings of political and Hollywood celebrities, most notably a large collection of paintings of Marilyn Monroe. Warhol would use this style for the rest of his life. Mass production not only spread his art; it became his art form. Movies In the 1960s as Warhol continued to paint, he also made films, which were known for creative eroticism, lack of plots, and extreme length- up to 25 hours. From 1963 to 1968, he made nearly 60 movies. One of his movies, Sleep, is a five-and-a-half-hour film of a nude man sleeping. â€Å"We were shooting so many, we never even bothered to give titles to a lot of them,† Warhol later recalled. On July 3, 1968, disgruntled actress Valerie Solanas, one of the hangers-on at Warhols studio known as The Factory, shot him in the chest. Less than 30 minutes later, Warhol was pronounced clinically dead. The doctor then cut Warhols chest open and massaged his heart for a final effort to get it started again. It worked. Though his life was saved, it took a long time for him to recover. Warhol continued to paint during the 1970s and 1980s. He also began publishing a magazine called Interview and several books about himself and pop art. He even dabbled in television, producing two shows- Andy Warhol’s TV  and  Andy Warhol’s Fifteen Minutes,- for MTV and appearing on  The Love Boat  and  Saturday Night Live. Death On Feb. 21, 1987, Warhol underwent routine gallbladder surgery. Though the operation went well, Warhol unexpectedly passed away the following morning from complications. He was 58. Legacy Warhol’s work is featured in an enormous collection at the  Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, which the website describes as one of the most comprehensive single-artist museums in the world and the largest in North America. It includes paintings, drawings, commercial illustrations, sculptures, prints, photographs, wallpapers, sketchbooks, and books covering Warhol’s career, from his student work to pop art paintings and collaborations. In his will, the artist directed that his entire estate be used to create a foundation for the advancement of the visual arts. The  Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts was established in 1987. Sources Andy Warhol: American Artist. Encyclopedia Britannica.Andy Warhols Life. Warhol.org.ï » ¿

The Mousterian Middle Paleolithic Tool Industry

The Mousterian Middle Paleolithic Tool Industry The Mousterian industry is the name archaeologists have given to an ancient Middle Stone Age method of making stone tools. The Mousterian is associated with our hominid relatives the Neanderthals in Europe and Asia and both Early Modern Human and Neanderthals in Africa. Mousterian stone tools were in use between about 200,000 years ago, until roughly 30,000 years ago, after the Acheulean industry, and about the same time as the Fauresmith tradition in South Africa. Stone Tools of the Mousterian The Mousterian stone tool production type is considered a technological step forward consisting of a transition from Lower Paleolithic hand-held Acheulean hand axes to hafted tools. Hafted tools are stone points or blades mounted on wooden shafts and wielded as spears or perhaps bow and arrow. A typical Mousterian stone tool assemblage is primarily defined as a flake-based tool kit made using the Levallois technique, rather than later blade-based tools. In traditional archaeological terminology, flakes are variously shaped thin stone sheets knapped off a core, while blades are flakes which are at least twice as long as their widths.   The Mousterian Toolkit Part of the Mousterian assemblage is made up of Levallois tools such as points and cores. The tool kit varies from place to place and from time to time but in general, includes the following tools: Mousterian point/convergent scraper: short, broad triangular projectile points struck from prepared coresLevallois flakes with retouch: sub-oval, subquadrangular, triangular, or leaf-shaped flakes struck from cores, which may have been retouched, that is to say, a series of small purposeful flakes have been removed from the flake to create an edge which is either sharp for cutting or blunted to make it safe to holdLevallois blades: elongated oval or rectangular blanks removed from cores with basal preparation and correction of the core convexityLevallois cores: include two types, pebble and bipolar. Pebble cores are clasts or angular rock fragments from which a series of flakes have been detached by percussion; bipolar cores are those created by placing the clast on a hard surface and striking it from above with a hard percussor History The Mousterian tool kit was identified in the 20th century to solve chronostratigraphic problems in western European Middle Paleolithic stone tool assemblages. Middle Stone Age tools were first intensively mapped in the  Levant  where British archaeologist Dorothy Garrod identified the Levantine  facies  at the site of Mugharet et-Tabà ¼n or Tabun Cave in what is today Israel. The traditional Levantine process is defined below: Tabun D or Phase 1 Levantine (270 to 170 thousand years ago [ka]), laminar blanks from Levallois and non-Levallois unipolar and  bi-polar  cores, higher frequency of retouched piecesTabun C or Phase 2 Levantine (170 to 90  ka) oval or rectangular blanks from cores, Mousterian points, side  scrapers, notches, and denticulatesTabun B or Phase 3 Levantine (90 to 48  ka), blanks from Levallois cores, Mousterian points, thin flakes and blades Since Garrods day, the Mousterian has been used as a point of departure to compare stone tools from Africa and southwest Asia. Recent Critiques However, United States archaeologist John Shea has suggested that the Mousterian category may have outlived its usefulness and may even be getting in the way of the ability for scholars to effectively study human behaviors. The Mousterian lithic technology was defined as a single entity in the early 20th century, and although during the first half of that century a range of scholars tried to subdivide it, they were largely unsuccessful. Shea (2014) points out that different regions have different percentages of the different tool types and the categories are not based on what scholars are interested in learning. Scholars would like to know, after all, what was the tool making strategy for different groups, and that is not readily available from the Mousterian technology in the way it is currently defined. Shea proposes that moving away from the traditional categories would open up paleolithic archaeology and enable it to address the central issues in paleoanthropology. A Few Mousterian Sites Levant Israel: Qafzeh, Skhul, Kebara, Hayonim, Tabun, Emeireh, Amud, Zuttiyeh, El-WadJordan: Ain DiflaSyria: El Kowm North Africa Morocco: Rhafas Cave, Dar es Soltan Central Asia Turkey: Kalatepe DeresiAfghanistan: Darra-i-KurUzbekistan: Teschik-Tasch Europe Gibraltar: Gorhams CaveFrance: Abric Romani, St. Cesaire, Grotte du NoistierSpain: LArbreda CaveSiberia: Denisova CaveUkraine: Moldova SitesCroatia: Vindija Cave Selected Sources Bar-Yosef O. 2008. ASIA, WEST: Palaeolithic Cultures. In: Pearsall DM, editor. Encyclopedia of Archaeology. New York: Academic Press. p 865-875.Close AE, and Minichillo T. 2007. Archaeological Records: Global Expansion 300,000-8000 years ago, Africa. In: Elias SA, editor. Encyclopedia of Quaternary Science. Oxford: Elsevier. p 99-107.Culley EV, Popescu G, and Clark GA. 2013. An analysis of the compositional integrity of the Levantine Mousterian facies. Quaternary International 300:213-233.Petraglia MD, and Dennell R. 2007. Archaeological Records: Global Expansion 300,000-8000 years ago, Asia. In: Elias SA, editor. Encyclopedia of Quaternary Science. Oxford: Elsevier. p 107-118.Shea JJ. 2013. Lithic Modes A–I: A New Framework for Describing Global-Scale Variation in Stone Tool Technology Illustrated with Evidence from the East Mediterranean Levant. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 20(1):151-186.Shea JJ. 2014. Sink the Mousterian? Named stone tool industries (NASTIES) as obstacles to investigating hominin evolutionary relationships in the Later Middle Paleolithic Levant. Quaternary International 350:169-179.