58 Fun Facts About Andy Warhol

In which US city was Andy Warhol born in 1928?

Warhol was born Andrew Warhola in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on August 6, 1928, the fourth child of working-class Rusyn immigrants from Austria-Hungary.

Warhol's parents came from Miková, a village in what is now which country?

They were Ruthenian Catholics; a funeral liturgy in English and Church Slavonic was said for him in 1987.

Which nervous-system disorder kept young Warhol bedridden for stretches in third grade?

Warhol had Sydenham's chorea in third grade, a complication of streptococcal infection that causes involuntary jerking movements; confined to bed, he drew and collected film-star pictures.

From which high school did Warhol graduate in 1945?

Warhol graduated from Schenley High School, in his home city's Oakland district, in 1945 and entered the Carnegie Institute of Technology that autumn.

Warhol's prize-winning Carnegie Tech drawings satirised customers from which summer job?

Warhol spent summers as a produce huckster, selling fruit and vegetables from his brother Paul's truck; his sketches of the customers won a Carnegie Tech student prize.

Warhol earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1949 in which subject?

Warhol graduated from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1949 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in pictorial design and moved to New York that summer.

Which feature did Warhol have altered by cosmetic surgery in the 1950s?

Warhol had a rhinoplasty in 1957 to narrow his nose; his 1961 painting Before and After, copied from a plastic surgeon's advertisement, shows a nose job in profile.

Warhol's first solo exhibition in 1952 consisted of drawings based on the writings of which author?

Fifteen Drawings Based on the Writings of Truman Capote opened at the Hugo Gallery in June 1952, staged by gallerist Alexander Iolas, who is often credited with discovering Warhol.

Warhol's 1950s drawing technique, combining printmaking and pencil work on paper, was known as what?

Warhol's blotted line technique traced a pencil drawing in ink and pressed it onto absorbent paper while wet, leaving the broken, dotted line he used throughout the 1950s.

Which shoe manufacturer's advertisements made Warhol famous as a fashion illustrator from 1955?

Warhol drew Israel Miller's weekly shoe advertisements in the New York Times from 1955, work that made him one of the best-known fashion illustrators in the city.

In 1956 MoMA politely declined Warhol's gift of a drawing called Shoe, citing what?

Director Alfred Barr's 1956 letter declined the drawing Shoe, citing MoMA's limited storage space and gallery space; that year a Warhol shoe drawing did appear in MoMA's Recent Drawings U.S.A.

Whose calligraphy did Warhol often use alongside his drawings in his self-published 1950s books?

The calligraphy was his mother's: Julia Warhola, who lived with him in New York from 1952, lettered the text of books such as 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy in her ornate script.

Warhol's first Pop paintings were shown in April 1961 as a backdrop in which store's window?

Five early Pop canvases, including Saturday's Popeye, Superman and Before and After, hung behind mannequins in Bonwit Teller's Fifth Avenue windows in April 1961.

What did Muriel Latow, for a $50 fee, suggest Warhol paint because he loved it most?

Latow told Warhol to paint money, the thing he loved most, and he began painting dollar bills in 1962, the works that first led him to silkscreen printing.

How many canvases did Warhol send to the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles for his July 1962 show?

The 32 Campbell's Soup Cans, one canvas per variety the company then sold, hung at the Ferus Gallery in July 1962; Warhol said he had eaten the soup for lunch for 20 years.

Which dealer gave Warhol his first solo New York Pop show in 1962, in exchange for a painting of a $2 bill?

Eleanor Ward's Stable Gallery show, which opened in November 1962 and was Warhol's New York Pop debut, included Marilyn Diptych, Gold Marilyn Monroe and 100 Cans.

Warhol's 1962 Marilyn silkscreens were based on a publicity still from which film?

Warhol cropped a 1953 publicity photograph of Marilyn Monroe for the film Niagara, taken by Gene Korman, and used it for the Marilyn silkscreens he began soon after her death in August 1962.

Who fired a gun through four of Warhol's Marilyn canvases in 1964, creating the Shot Marilyns?

Dorothy Podber, a performance artist visiting the Factory in 1964, asked if she could 'shoot' the stacked Marilyns, then fired a pistol through the canvases; once repaired they became the Shot Marilyns.

Who covered the Factory in aluminium foil and silver paint in 1964?

Billy Name (Billy Linich) lined the fifth-floor loft at 231 East 47th Street with foil and silver paint, creating the Silver Factory, where he also lived and photographed the scene.

Warhol's mural for the 1964 New York State Pavilion, Thirteen Most Wanted Men, met what fate?

Objections from state officials led to the mural being painted over in silver within days, before the fair opened in April 1964; Warhol's proposed replacement, portraits of fair president Robert Moses, was refused.

Warhol's 1964 Stable Gallery show featured sculptures of what, sold for $200 to $400 each?

Also Del Monte, Heinz, Kellogg's and Mott's; the original Brillo design was by commercial artist James Harvey.

Warhol's Cow wallpaper of 1966 came from a suggestion by which art dealer?

Ivan Karp, then director of the Castelli gallery, suggested cows as a wonderfully pastoral subject; the resulting Cow wallpaper lined Warhol's 1966 Castelli show and the Whitney retrospective of 1971.

Warhol's Empire (1965) is a static shot of the Empire State Building lasting how long?

Empire runs eight hours and five minutes: silent footage shot from the Time-Life Building on the night of July 25–26, 1964, and projected at 16 frames per second.

Warhol's 1965 film Vinyl was a loose adaptation of which novel?

Vinyl, shot in 1965 with Gerard Malanga as the delinquent Victor, was Warhol's loose adaptation of Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange, six years before Kubrick's film.

Which band did Warhol manage, financing and providing the cover for their 1967 debut album?

The Velvet Underground became Warhol's house band in 1966; he is credited as producer of The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967) and designed its peelable banana cover.

Warhol's 1966 multimedia shows with his house band at the Dom were called what?

The Exploding Plastic Inevitable combined Warhol's films, strobe lights, Gerard Malanga's whip dance and live rock at the Dom on St Mark's Place from April 1966, then toured the US and Canada.

How was Warhol's 1966 film Chelsea Girls designed to be projected?

Chelsea Girls was shown as two reels projected side by side on a split screen, the soundtrack switching between them; its 12 reels run over three hours.

Whom did Warhol send to impersonate him on a West Coast college lecture tour in October 1967?

Actor Allen Midgette, a veteran of Warhol's films, posed as the artist on a four-college tour in October 1967 with his hair sprayed silver; the hoax was exposed months later and Warhol refunded the fees.

Who shot Warhol at the Factory on June 3, 1968?

Valerie Solanas, author of the SCUM Manifesto, fired three shots at Warhol; one passed through his lungs, spleen, stomach, liver and oesophagus, and he spent nearly two months in hospital.

What lasting effect did the shooting's complications have on Warhol?

A second operation left his abdominal muscles improperly repaired; the Factory became a 'regular office' afterwards.

Which magazine did Warhol found in 1969 with British journalist John Wilcock?

Interview was launched in late 1969 as inter/VIEW: A Monthly Film Journal by Warhol and John Wilcock; copies of the magazine were tossed into his grave in 1987.

Warhol's cover for the Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers (1971) featured what working element?

The Sticky Fingers sleeve showed a jeans-clad crotch with a real zipper that worked, pulling down to reveal cotton briefs; Warhol conceived it and Craig Braun's firm produced it.

Warhol's political poster of 1972 supported which presidential candidate?

Warhol's 1972 print Vote McGovern, a green-faced portrait of Richard Nixon, was sold to raise funds for George McGovern's Democratic campaign against Nixon.

What breed were Warhol's beloved dogs Archie and Amos?

Archie, acquired in 1973, and Amos were dachshunds; Warhol took Archie everywhere, from parties to trips to Europe, and painted portraits of both dogs.

Warhol travelled to which country in 1976 to paint a portrait of its empress?

Warhol flew to Tehran, Iran, in 1976 to photograph Empress Farah Pahlavi for a commissioned portrait; the Shah's court was a client of his portrait business.

Warhol's Oxidation paintings of 1977-78 were made by exposing metallic paint to what?

Warhol and assistants urinated on canvases primed with copper-based metallic paint; the urine oxidised the copper into green and brown blooms, hence the Oxidation or 'piss paintings'.

How long did Warhol reportedly take to paint his 1979 BMW M1 Art Car?

Warhol painted the M1 directly onto the bodywork in under half an hour, unlike earlier Art Car artists who worked on scale models; the car finished sixth at Le Mans in 1979.

Warhol's 1980 series Ten Portraits depicted what group?

Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century, published by dealer Ronald Feldman in 1980, included Einstein, Freud, Kafka, Gershwin, Golda Meir and the Marx Brothers; reviews were sharply divided.

After his relationship with Jed Johnson ended, Warhol signed with the Zoli Agency to do what?

Warhol took up modelling, signing with the Zoli Agency and later with Ford Models; he also appeared in television commercials, including a Japanese spot for TDK cassette tapes.

Warhol's poorly reviewed 1985 joint show Paintings at the Shafrazi Gallery was with whom?

Jean-Michel Basquiat and Warhol made well over 100 collaborative canvases in 1984–85; Warhol hand-painted corporate logos and headlines that Basquiat painted over, and the Shafrazi show's reviews stung both.

At the 1985 launch of which computer did Warhol digitally paint a portrait of Debbie Harry?

At the Commodore Amiga 1000's launch at New York's Lincoln Center in July 1985, Warhol filled in a digitised photo of Debbie Harry on screen; his Amiga floppy disks yielded recovered images in 2014.

Warhol played himself in the 200th episode of which TV series in 1985?

Warhol played himself in the 200th episode of The Love Boat, broadcast in October 1985; in the story a passenger played by Marion Ross hides her Factory past from her husband.

Which computer company's logo appeared in Warhol's 1985 Ads print portfolio?

Warhol's 1985 Ads portfolio of ten screenprints reproduced Apple's rainbow logo from a Macintosh advertisement, alongside Chanel No. 5, Volkswagen, Mobil and Paramount images.

Warhol died in February 1987 the morning after surgery to remove what?

Warhol died on February 22, 1987, at New York Hospital, the morning after routine gallbladder surgery; his estate later settled a malpractice suit over his post-operative care.

What was Warhol wearing on his head in his open casket?

At the open-casket wake, Warhol lay in a platinum wig and sunglasses, a black cashmere suit and paisley tie, holding a small prayer book and a red rose.

Who gave eulogies at Warhol's memorial at St. Patrick's Cathedral in April 1987?

Art historian John Richardson and Yoko Ono were among the speakers at the April 1, 1987 memorial mass at St. Patrick's, attended by more than 2,000 people, with a lunch afterwards at the Diamond Horseshoe.

Warhol's Time Capsules, begun in 1974, eventually numbered how many containers?

Warhol filled 610 standard cardboard boxes with mail, photographs, receipts and ephemera between 1974 and his death; the Andy Warhol Museum holds and catalogues all of them.

Which Warhol work fetched a then-record $195 million for American art at auction in 2022?

Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, one of the 1964 Marilyns pierced by a visitor's bullet and repaired, sold at Christie's New York in May 2022 for $195 million to dealer Larry Gagosian.

Which writer called Warhol 'the only genius I've ever known with an IQ of 60'?

Gore Vidal, the novelist of Myra Breckinridge and Burr, delivered the line 'the only genius I've ever known with an IQ of 60', one of the most repeated put-downs of Warhol.

Which musician played Warhol in Julian Schnabel's 1996 biopic of a fellow painter?

David Bowie played Warhol in Schnabel's 1996 film, wearing one of the artist's own wigs; other screen Warhols include Crispin Glover in The Doors and Guy Pearce in Factory Girl.

In which year did the Andy Warhol Museum open in the artist's home city?

The Andy Warhol Museum opened in May 1994 in a converted seven-storey warehouse on the North Side of his home city; it is the largest museum in North America devoted to a single artist.

In 2012 the International Astronomical Union named a crater after Warhol on which planet?

Craters on Mercury are named for artists, writers and composers; the International Astronomical Union approved the name Warhol for a crater there in 2012, joining Picasso, Matisse and Beethoven.

Warhol's oceanfront estate Eothen, bought in 1971 with Paul Morrissey, was in which Long Island town?

Eothen, a cluster of cottages on the cliffs at Montauk, at Long Island's eastern tip, cost Warhol and Morrissey about $225,000 in 1971; the Rolling Stones rehearsed there in 1975.

Which 1963 Warhol diptych sold for $105.4 million in 2013, then a record for the artist?

Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster), a 1963 diptych pairing a silkscreened wreck with a blank silver panel, fetched $105.4 million at Sotheby's New York in November 2013.

At which Manhattan church did Warhol regularly attend Mass, sitting at the back?

Warhol went to Mass at the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer on Lexington Avenue several times a week, sitting in the back pews to avoid notice, and in later years helped serve meals to the homeless at holiday times.

Warhol's 1986 Last Supper paintings were shown in January 1987 in which Italian city?

Dealer Alexander Iolas commissioned the Last Supper series for a show at Milan's Palazzo delle Stelline, across the street from Leonardo's original; it opened in January 1987, weeks before Warhol died.

How much did Warhol charge for a commissioned portrait in the 1970s?

Warhol charged $25,000 for a 40-by-40-inch commissioned portrait in the 1970s, with extra panels of the same sitter offered at a discount; the commissions became his most reliable income.

What image appeared on the 2002 US postage stamp honouring Warhol?

The 37-cent Andy Warhol stamp, issued on August 9, 2002, reproduced his 1964 Self-Portrait, one of the silkscreened self-images he began making that year from photo-booth strips.