Blake Gopnik Warhol Paperback Book

Superb...Gopnik persuasively assembles his case over the course of this mesmerising book, which is as much art history and philosophy as it is biography Kathryn Hughes, The GuardianWhen critics attacked Andy Warhols Marilyn paintings as shallow, the Pop artist was happy to present himself as shallower still He claimed that he silkscreened to avoid the hard work of painting, although he was actually a meticulous workaholic in interviews he presented himself as a silly naif when in private he was the canniest of sophisticates. Blake Gopniks definitive biography digs deep into the contradictions and radical genius that led Andy Warhol to revolutionise our cultural world. Based on years of archival research and on interviews with hundreds of Warhols surviving friends, lovers and enemies, Warhol traces the artists path from his origins as the impoverished son of Eastern European immigrants in 1930s Pittsburgh, through his early success as a commercial illustrator and his groundbreaking pivot into fine art, to the society portraiture and popular celebrity of the 70s and 80s, as he reflected and responded to the changing dynamics of commerce and culture. Warhol sought out all the most glamorous figures of his times Susan Sontag, Mick Jagger, the Barons de Rothschild despite being burdened with an almost crippling shyness. Behind the public glitter of the artists Factory, with its superstars, drag queens and socialites, there was a man who lived with his mother for much of his... | Blake Gopnik Warhol Paperback Book