Warhol is credited with saying, “in the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.”
Q. Why was this prediction correct?
A. From his early career as a fashion illustrator, Warhol understood the power of media-based images, the reach of advertising, and the fleeting attention span of the modern consumer. That’s partly why he painted graphic images taken straight from pop culture. From the success of these signature paintings, made in the early 1960s, Warhol became a celebrity. In turn, his art became a global brand through merchandising and cultivating a celeb persona. Selfies? Warhol practically invented them!
So you think you know Warhol? Let me tell you, there’s more to it than those Marilyns! Andy Warhol introduced the art of brand influencing as we know it. By blending business strategy with art production, he devised the roadmap for some of today’s most successful artists, who operate as brands with multi-channel businesses. AND not only did he create startlingly original art, but he was also a social observer who exploited our celebrity-obsessed culture, anticipating today’s image-heavy reality.
Takeaway: Warhol saw the future—through his camera lens.
ORIGIN STORY: Cue the Campbell’s
In the early 60s, Warhol lifted the Campbell’s brand from the shelves to the canvas, hand-painting 32 in all—one for every soup flavor 🥫
In 1962, Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles exhibited them in a row, on a shelf—the owner of the gallery bought all 32 (selling them two decades later to MoMA in New York, where they remain today)
With this early success, Warhol began to automate production, switching from hand-painted images to using stencils to speed production
He also hired assistants to help produce his paintings and feed demand (no pun intended) and created a studio that he called The Factory
BRANDY ANDY
Warhol was the first Contemporary artist to apply business acumen to art production, using silkscreen, a commercial printing technique, to transfer existing photos of superstars like Marilyn Monroe, Liz Taylor and Jackie O, to canvas
He squeegeed paint through the screens in unique color combinations, making serial images that could easily be repeated and customized
Although they were handmade, the works look printed, a radical concept at the time, which Warhol intentionally cultivated as part of his brand (pssst: scroll up to take a closer peek of Andy in the supermarket aisles, giving new meaning to “marketing” as he documents his artistic alignment with commercial branding like a pro)
“Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.” —Andy Warhol
In 1967, Warhol started Factory Additions: a pun on “edition,” the fine art term for a limited print
He created printed silkscreens on paper—not canvas!—of his most famous images in editions of 100, which were sold to a broad audience who could not afford the paintings, thereby increasing his reach
By the end of the 1960s, Warhol was the most widely recognized Contemporary artist in America
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED ✔️
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THE INTERVIEW MAGAZINE YEARS: 1969 - 1987
After surviving a murder attempt in 1968, Andy pressed pause on painting
Enter Interview: the magazine founded by Warhol, which was published continually until 2018 (but changed ownership after his death)
Nicknamed “the crystal ball of Pop,” Interview profiled the who’s who 🔮
Expanding his media empire, Warhol created two TV shows: Fashion, in 1979, and in 1985, Andy Warhol’s Fifteen Minutes on MTV
A celeb himself, Andy appeared in a Braniff Airlines ad (among others), and had cameos on Saturday Night Live and The Love Boat
THE IMAGE BIZ
Warhol was a one-man Instagram / Twitter / TikTok content producer before it even existed!
He carried a camera wherever he went, frequenting Studio 54 with his squad, relentlessly documenting his scene through Polaroids
He then turned his Polaroids of socialites and celebs into commissioned portrait paintings (what he called “art business”)
These portraits, along with print sales, supported Interview, his socialite lifestyle and his employees, allowing Andy to keep the empire financially afloat
SHOW YOU THE MONEY 💰
Warhol’s auction market only developed in earnest after his death in 1987
In 1988, the first Warhol passed the $1 million mark when 210 Coca-Cola Bottles (1962) sold for $1.4 million
But the market didn’t really take off until 1998, when Orange Marilyn (1964) sold for $17 million, blowing past its pre-sale $4 to $6 million estimate
The current auction record was set in 2013: $106 million for Double Disaster (1963)
The market prioritizes Warhol’s 60s paintings, but there are exceptions: the auction record for an 80s Warhol painting was set in 2017 when Sixty Last Suppers (1986) sold for $61 million
THE WARHOL LEGACY
Countless artists have been influenced by Warhol’s innovations—too numerous to mention in snack form. Here are just a few of “our favorite things”…
1️⃣ Glenn Ligon (b. 1960)
Warhol created a series of Chairman Mao paintings and prints in 1973, following President Nixon’s visit to China. He used the official portrait of Mao to call attention to the power of propaganda, and transgressed that image from a queer perspective by adding makeup to Mao. Similarly, Glenn Ligon, in his painting of Malcolm X, adapted an image of another political figure as depicted originally in a children’s coloring book. By doing so, Ligon highlighted the irony of this powerful black male, rendered on a white page, who is meant to be “colored” in. On top of that, Ligon adds “makeup” à la Marilyn, queering the image in a way made possible by Warhol.
2️⃣ Mickalene Thomas (b. 1971)
Warhol made his Ladies and Gentlemen series, depicting drag queens, in the mid 1970s. Combining his signature silkscreen technique, fascination with glamour, and signature color combinations, the series blazed a new path of beauty, race and gender in art. Fast-forward to Mickalene Thomas’s 40-panel work capturing her model with a fierce amount of black, applying sparkly rhinestones to each individual canvas, creating depth and dimension. Mickalene’s notion of female beauty is radically different from Warhol's, but her style is indebted to his. By quoting Warhol, she claims a feminist stake in the vaunted Pop art tradition.
3️⃣ Richard Prince (b. 1949)
Remember those commissioned portraits we mentioned? Warhol’s paintings were not only a means to sustain his media empire, but allowed patrons to memorialize themselves through the artist’s lens. Fast forward to the selfie age, where one can be famous every 5 minutes, 15 times a day (once again, Andy called it)! Richard Prince, mining social media for the content of his paintings, continues Warhol’s legacy with his Instagram portraits. Culling existing imagery from the social media platform, Prince captures people capturing themselves, adding a flourish with his own nonsensical captions. This body of work, and Prince’s practice at large, owes itself to Warhol’s appropriation of media-based images, blurring perceptions of art and popular culture.