Andy Warhol in Three or Four Blogs.

   Andy Warhol in Three or Four Blogs - Part One



        His friends called him 'Andy' even when he'd become a millionaire and a world-famous artist. Andrej Warhola as he was first known, was an artistic genius. He changed the conversation completely in the fine arts world. Yet was this good or bad? Here people disagree and I can't decide myself.
     Born in Pittsburgh in 1928, Warhol's parents were poor immigrants from the northern part of what was then Czechoslavakia. "They were Ruthenians," someone told me. "And in the world of Eastern Europe at that time, that put them right at the bottom of the social scale."
    Yet with the optimism and ambition that so many immigrants have shown after coming to the U.S. of A. or Canada, the Warholas struggled and reached upward in the rough tough industrial city of Pittsburgh.
     Their son Andrej had his problems. As a child, he was often ill. He had Sydenham's
Chorea and spent a lot of time in bed. He lost most of his hair and pockmarks scarred his face. Warhol's mother Julia protected the frail son of hers from the world and his bullying brothers. His coal mining father realized that Andrej was a gifted artist and saved money to send his son to high school and then to art college.
     Warhol went to the Carnegie Institute of Technology, funded in part by the multimillionaire Carnegie families. He graduated in 1949 and then headed off to New York City. Warhol landed in this city, the economic and cultural capital of the U.S.A. and at that time the world, with about $200 in his pocket. This would be about $2,000 in to-day's currency.
    In the next ten years he became one of the most highly paid commercial artist in the world, earning sometimes over $125,000 a year. His main ticket to riches was creating ads of women's shoes done in a blotted  ink line style. His mother moved to New York City and backstopped her son's efforts. By now he'd changed his name to Andy Warhol.
     Then in the late 1950's Warhol went to Europe and visited its art museums. "There he saw the works of the great artist and saw what real fame was," one of his friends said in effect. Warhol returned to New York City, determined to become famous in the fine art world.
      Warhol had already had exhibitions in small art galleries. He drew fey or cute pictures of animals and human beings. Now in the 1960's Warhol saw that what became known as 'Pop Art' was the new style. Here, young artist drew images from the world of mass culture and turned them into paintings. Warhol followed this trend and soon became on of the art world's shining stars.