Andy was the third child of his parents, Ondrej (Andrew) Warhola (the surname was spelled Varchola in Europe, and was modified after immigrating to America) and Julia Warhola, née Ulja (Julia) Justyna Zavacky. His parents were working-class immigrants of Lemkos-Rusyns (Ruthenian) ethnicity from Mezőlaborc, now Medzilaborce, of Austro-Hungarian Empire (now in northeast Slovakia). Warhol's father worked in a coal mine.

In third grade Warhol had St. Vitus' dance, a nervous system disease causing involuntary movements which is believed to be a complication of scarlet fever, and which causes blotchiness in skin pigmentation of his skin. He became somewhat of a hypochondriac, developing a fear of hospitals and doctors. Often bed-ridden as a child, he became an outcast among his school-mates and bonded with his mother very strongly (Guiles, 1989). When in bed he drew, listened to the radio and collected pictures of movie stars around his bed. Warhol later described this period as very important in the development of his personality, skill-set and preferences.

Warhol showed an early artistic talent and studied commercial art at the School of Fine Arts at Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh (now Carnegie Mellon University). In 1949, he moved to New York City and began a successful career in magazine illustration and advertising. During the 1950s, he gained fame for his whimsical ink drawings of shoe advertisements.

These were done in a loose, blotted ink style, and figured in some of his earliest showings in New York at the Bodley Gallery. With the concurrent rapid expansion of the record industry and the introduction of the vinyl record, Hi-Fi, and stereophonic recordings, RCA Records hired Warhol, along with another freelance artist, Sid Maurer, to design album covers and promotional materials.

This album cover was designed by Andy Warhol.
Album: Sticky Fingers by The Rolling Stones (1971)

It was during the 1960s that Warhol began to make paintings of famous American products such as "Campbell's Soup Cans" from the Campbell Soup Company and Coca-Cola, as well as paintings of celebrities like Marilyn Monroe, Troy Donahue, and Elizabeth Taylor. He founded "The Factory", his studio during these years and gathered around himself a wide range of artists, writers, musicians, and underground celebrities. He switched to silkscreen prints which he produced serially, seeking not only to make art of mass-produced items but to mass produce the art itself. By minimizing the role of his own hand in the production of his work and declaring that he wanted to be "a machine", Warhol sparked a revolution in art. His work quickly became very controversial and popular.

Warhol's work from this period revolves around American Pop (Popular) culture. He painted dollar bills, celebrities, brand name products and images from newspaper clippings - many of the latter were iconic images from headline stories of the decade (e.g. photographs of mushroom clouds, and police dogs attacking civil rights protesters). His subjects were instantly recognizable and often had a mass appeal. This aspect interested him most, and it unifies his paintings from this period. Take, for example Warhol's comments on the appeal of Coke:

What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coca Cola, Liz Taylor drinks Coca Cola, and just think, you can drink Coca Cola, too. A coke is a coke and no amount of money can get you a better coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the cokes are the same and all the cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.

– The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: (From A to B and Back Again), 1975

  1962

Shooting

On June 3, 1968, Valerie Solanas shot Warhol and art critic and curator Mario Amaya at Warhol's studio.

Before the shooting, Solanas had been a marginal figure in the Factory scene. She founded a "group" called S.C.U.M. (Society for Cutting up Men) and authored the S.C.U.M. Manifesto, a separatist feminist attack on patriarchy. Solanas appears in the 1968 Warhol film, I, A Man. Earlier on the day of the attack, Solanas had been turned away from the Factory after asking for the return of a script she had given to Warhol. The script, apparently, had been misplaced.

Amaya received only minor injuries and was released from the hospital later the same day. Warhol however, was seriously wounded by the attack and barely survived (doctors opened his chest and massaged his heart to help stimulate its movement again). He suffered physical effects for the rest of his life. The shooting had a profound effect on Warhol's life and art.

Solanas was arrested the day after the assault. By way of explanation, she said that "He had too much control over my life." After the shooting, the Factory scene became much more tightly controlled, and for many this event brought the "Factory 60s" to an end.

The shooting was mostly overshadowed in the media due to the murder of Robert F. Kennedy two days later.

The 1970s

Compared to the success and scandal of Warhol's work in the 1960s, the 1970s would prove a much quieter decade. This period, however, saw Warhol becoming more entrepreneurial. According to Bob Colacello, Warhol devoted much of his time to rounding up new, rich patrons for portrait commissions—including Mick Jagger, Liza Minnelli, John Lennon, Diana Ross, Brigitte Bardot, and Michael Jackson. Warhol's famous portrait of Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong was created in 1973. He also founded, with Gerard Malanga, Interview magazine, and published The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975). In this book, he presents his ideas on the nature of art: "Making money is art, and working is art and good business is the best art."

Andy Warhol (1928-1987)
Brigitte Bardot signed `Andy' (on the overlap)
synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen inks on canvas, 47.1/4 x 47.1/4in. (120 x 120cm.)
Executed in 1974
£1,500,000 - 2,000,000 (Sold for £5,396,000)

Warhol used to socialize at Serendipity 3 and, later in the 70s, Studio 54, nightspots in New York City. He was generally regarded as quiet, shy, and as a meticulous observer. Art critic Robert Hughes called him "the white mole of Union Square".

The 1980s

Warhol had a re-emergence of critical and financial success in the 1980s, partially due to his affiliation and friendships with a number of prolific younger artists, who were dominating the "bull market" of '80s New York art: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, David Salle and the so-called Neo-Expressionists, as well as Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi and members of the Transavantguardia movement, which had become influential.

By this period, Warhol's work had engendered controversy as to whether he had merely become a "business artist". In 1979 unfavorable reviews met his exhibits of portraits of 1970s personalities and celebrities, calling them superficial, facile and commercial, with no depth or indication of the significance of the subjects. This criticism was echoed for his 1980 exhibit of ten portraits at the Jewish Museum in New York, entitled "Jewish Geniuses", which Warhol, who exhibited no interest in Judaism or matters of interest to Jews, had described in his diary as "They're going to sell."

In hindsight, however, some critics have come to the realization that Warhol's superficiality and commerciality was in fact "the most brilliant mirror of our times", and that "Warhol had captured something irresistible about the zeitgeist of American culture in the 1970s."

Warhol also had an appreciation for intense Hollywood glamour. He once said: "I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They're so beautiful. Everything's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic."

Sexuality

The first works that he submitted to a gallery in the pursuit of a career as an artist were homoerotic drawings of male nudes. They were rejected for being too openly gay. In Popism, furthermore, the artist recalls a conversation with the film maker Emile de Antonio about the difficulty Warhol had being accepted socially by the then more famous (but closeted) gay artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. De Antonio explained that Warhol was "too swish and that upsets them." In response to this, Warhol writes, "There was nothing I could say to that. It was all too true. So I decided I just wasn't going to care, because those were all the things that I didn't want to change anyway, that I didn't think I 'should' want to change ... Other people could change their attitudes but not me".
 

Religious beliefs

Warhol was a practicing Byzantine Rite Catholic. He regularly volunteered at homeless shelters in New York, particularly during the busier times of the year, and described himself as a religious person.  Many of his later works contain almost-hidden religious themes or subjects, and a body of religious-themed works was found posthumously in his estate.  Warhol also regularly attended Mass during his life, and the priest at Warhol's church, Saint Vincent's, said that the artist went there almost daily.  His art is noticeably influenced by the eastern Christian iconographic tradition which was so evident in his places of worship.

Warhol's brother has described the artist as "really religious, but he didn't want people to know about that because [it was] private." Despite the private nature of his faith, in Warhol's eulogy John Richardson depicted it as devout: "To my certain knowledge, he was responsible for at least one conversion. He took considerable pride in financing his nephew's studies for the priesthood.

Death

Warhol died in New York City at 6:32 a.m. on February 22, 1987. According to news reports, he had been making good recovery from a routine gallbladder surgery at New York Hospital before dying in his sleep from a sudden heart attack. It was alleged that hospital staff had failed to adequately monitor his condition and overloaded him with fluids after his operation, causing him to suffer from a fatal case of water intoxication, which prompted Warhol's lawyers to sue the hospital for negligence. Prior to his diagnosis and operation, Warhol delayed having his recurring gallbladder problems checked, as he was afraid to enter hospitals and see doctors.

Warhol's body was taken back to Pittsburgh by his brothers for burial. The wake was at Thomas P. Kunsak Funeral Home and was an open-coffin ceremony. The coffin was a solid bronze casket with gold plated rails and white upholstery. Warhol wore a black cashmere suit, a paisley tie, a platinum wig, and sunglasses. He was holding a small prayer book and a red rose.

The funeral liturgy was held at the Holy Ghost Byzantine Catholic Church on Pittsburgh's North Side. The eulogy was given by Monsignor Peter Tay. Fellow artist Yoko Ono also made an appearance. The coffin was covered with white roses and asparagus ferns.

Warhol's grave at St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery.

After the liturgy, the coffin was driven to St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery in Bethel Park, a south suburb of Pittsburgh. At the grave, the priest said a brief prayer and sprinkled holy water on the casket. Before the coffin was lowered, Paige Powell dropped a copy of Interview magazine, an Interview t-shirt, and a bottle of the Estee Lauder perfume "Beautiful" into the grave. Warhol was buried next to his mother and father.

Warhol had so many possessions that it took Sotheby's nine days to auction his estate after his death; the auction grossed more than US$20 million. His total estate was worth considerably more, in no small part due to shrewd investments over the years.