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Andy Warhol, just me?

(25 Posts)
hollysteers Sun 28-Jun-26 16:08:09

I draw and paint and like modern art as well as traditional, but for the life of me do not understand why his coloured prints of celebrities are so popular.

That’s what they are, just coloured prints and one of my artist friends finds making them of various well known people sell well.
I find them boring and lacking any insight or skill.
Anyone else?

ginny Sun 28-Jun-26 16:28:00

Totally agree with you. Still, each to their own I suppose.

Judy54 Sun 28-Jun-26 17:19:21

As ginny says each to their own, it is a matter of personal taste. I can understand as an Artist that his work may not appeal to you but it does to many people and certainly gave him more than 15 minutes of fame.

Magenta8 Sun 28-Jun-26 17:30:21

The prints and the soup cans hit the art scene nearly 65 years ago and I think they must have seemed innovative and exciting then. They also chimed with the "Shock of the New."

Now they just seem hackneyed and old hat. I think that they were novel but not particularly artistic ideas that, by some fluke, caught on in a big way.

NotSpaghetti Sun 28-Jun-26 18:16:38

​Before Warhol, fine art was expected to be unique, emotional, and crafted by the hand of the artist.

He took that entire idea and dumped it. He argued that celebrities were just products (just like soup).

He named his studio The Factory and mass screen printed the work - and didn't even do it all himself.

I think he liked it if the screen prints were slightly misaligned- like cheap fliers.

It really shook up the art world. It was
exciting and neon-soaked. American supermarkets and Hollywood tabloids brought into the gallery, larger than life.

I don't think making them of modern "stars" has the same meaning.
It was extraordinary in its day.
I don't remember having really rregistered Warhol myself till the late 60s.

They seemed pretty wild to me - then in yhd early 70s there was a retrospective at The Tate. I think the prints were everywhere then...

This (below) is about Pop art but I think it's relevant to Warhol (I am no kind of art buff!)... I love this quote:

Popular, transient, expendable, low cost, mass-produced, young, witty, sexy, gimmicky, glamorous, and Big Business.’
- Richard Hamilton

DollyRocker Sun 28-Jun-26 18:27:12

Art is subjective. Personally I like his art & would have loved to have met him.

M0nica Sun 28-Jun-26 18:28:25

uick way to make money from cheap popular ingredients.

keepcalmandcavachon Sun 28-Jun-26 21:28:33

The trouble, I think is that a unique idea or concept always gets copied so much that even the original appears jaded!
If only we could experience everything always as we first encountered it.

MayBee70 Sun 28-Jun-26 22:59:37

What he did was something new. Many people can paint well. However can anyone think of something that isn’t actually good technically but something that no one else has done before? Anybody can splash paint onto a canvass but did anyone think of doing it before Pollock? I sometimes make my mind go blank ( easy for me!) and then fill it with something new and innovative but it just remains blank.

butterandjam Sun 28-Jun-26 23:26:17

The Chinese have been making screen prints for a thousand years. For 200 years +, famous European Artists have been using lithograph prints to make and sell multiple copies of their artistic work ( Manet, ​Gericault, Delacroix). All the great Renaissance artists employed multiple assistants in their studios/bottegas so their works are never just the work of one person.

Every famous person/ celebrity of the last thousand years, had their portrait painted multiple times to publicise their fame, wealth, etc to the world.

"*​Before Warhol, fine art was expected to be unique, emotional, and crafted by the hand of the artist.*"

That is absolute nonsense.

NotSpaghetti Mon 29-Jun-26 00:59:34

I don't think the Chinese "hair" screens were thousands of years ago... maybe 750 to 1,000?
And I think really they were considered craft, rather than art. Wasn't it mainly used for patterning textiles?

But you're right of course re having lots of people working under fine artists. I'm aware that this is true of (say) Rubens and Rembrandt but understood that the "master" artist would design the concept, paint the most critical parts (like faces and hands), and leave the rest -landscapes, clothing, architecture, and background -whatever - to their team. (I'm sure this wasn't always the case.)

And I admit I hadn't thought of the lithographs - though should have. My knowledge of them, (though equally limited), comes from theatre history. I'm pretty sure I was taught that the first lithographs were handwritten text. Not artwork.
I don't think lithographs were considered art at first either.

Anyway, I'm probably wrong...
And I'm sorry if my comments are nonsense.

Aveline Mon 29-Jun-26 06:59:50

Art appreciation is subjective.

Magenta8 Mon 29-Jun-26 13:25:00

I suppose Warhol was following the earlier 20th Century 'Avant Garde' movement. Duchamp's "Fountain" is one example of using a found object, embellishing it and putting it into a different context.

Luckygirl3 Mon 29-Jun-26 13:35:33

His art hit the spot fo its time.
I like his digital art.

LaCrepescule Mon 29-Jun-26 14:17:20

His “art” does nothing for me and I know how to look at pictures (I studied art history.) I also think his work overrated and that you shouldn’t be afraid to say so. Emperor’s new clothes and all that. I do however love his really early drawings and can see the merit in them.

Dickens Mon 29-Jun-26 14:37:47

... not a fan - but not hostile to his art, though I find it boring.

As others have said, the appreciation of an artist's work is subjective, and I'm not going to knock him or those that like what he does... just because his art doesn't 'speak' to me.

- happy to live in a country where art isn't censored by an authoritarian government...

Greciangirl Mon 29-Jun-26 15:30:52

I rather like them, actually.

WithNobsOnIt Mon 29-Jun-26 15:41:13

NotSpaghetti

​Before Warhol, fine art was expected to be unique, emotional, and crafted by the hand of the artist.

He took that entire idea and dumped it. He argued that celebrities were just products (just like soup).

He named his studio The Factory and mass screen printed the work - and didn't even do it all himself.

I think he liked it if the screen prints were slightly misaligned- like cheap fliers.

It really shook up the art world. It was
exciting and neon-soaked. American supermarkets and Hollywood tabloids brought into the gallery, larger than life.

I don't think making them of modern "stars" has the same meaning.
It was extraordinary in its day.
I don't remember having really rregistered Warhol myself till the late 60s.

They seemed pretty wild to me - then in yhd early 70s there was a retrospective at The Tate. I think the prints were everywhere then...

This (below) is about Pop art but I think it's relevant to Warhol (I am no kind of art buff!)... I love this quote:

Popular, transient, expendable, low cost, mass-produced, young, witty, sexy, gimmicky, glamorous, and Big Business.’
- Richard Hamilton

Top post from Not Spaghetti.
Warhol was very shrewd, he knew all the right Celebs and people and how to play and own the scene.

The King of self promotion. He more or less invented hype.

He saw through the shallowness of the manufactured star quality of products and Artists. And in many ways democraticised art for the masses.

Really ahead of his time.

butterandjam Mon 29-Jun-26 15:46:58

NotSpaghetti

I don't think the Chinese "hair" screens were thousands of years ago... maybe 750 to 1,000?
And I think really they were considered craft, rather than art. Wasn't it mainly used for patterning textiles?

But you're right of course re having lots of people working under fine artists. I'm aware that this is true of (say) Rubens and Rembrandt but understood that the "master" artist would design the concept, paint the most critical parts (like faces and hands), and leave the rest -landscapes, clothing, architecture, and background -whatever - to their team. (I'm sure this wasn't always the case.)

And I admit I hadn't thought of the lithographs - though should have. My knowledge of them, (though equally limited), comes from theatre history. I'm pretty sure I was taught that the first lithographs were handwritten text. Not artwork.
I don't think lithographs were considered art at first either.

Anyway, I'm probably wrong...
And I'm sorry if my comments are nonsense.

If you make up nonsense like Before Warhol, fine art was expected to be unique, emotional, and crafted by the hand of the artist. expect laughter.

Here's another example

I wrote "the Chinese have been making prints for a thousand years".

I did not say "thousands of years ago"; that your confabulation .

As for lithographs as artwork (I gave famous artists as examples) try these. Note the dates.

www.metmuseum.org/collections/528

Fallingstar Mon 29-Jun-26 17:43:53

Not a fan. Lazy art imho but there are many who would disagree, I think he was considered cool and fashionable by those who first bought his art pieces, obvs that mattered more than if the pieces were actually much good. But art is what people consider to be art so my opinion doesn’t matter much.

FranP Mon 29-Jun-26 18:38:03

The art world is full of pretentions.

He was something new and different at the time, so the "critics" jump on the bandwagon to praise. "Emperor's new clothes" comes to mind.

I worked in a new office with lots of investment art on the walls. One looked like a badly kept lawn with a few dog turds in the corner. Another was pretty and colourful, but the sort of thing the average 3 year-old might splash on paper. They paid over £1,000 for a large terracotta pot with a few squiggles on it (ethnic art???)

Thisismyname1953 Mon 29-Jun-26 20:30:54

I am not in the slightest bit artistic but like lots of different styles. I like Andy Warhol and I love Banksy but I also like The Mona Lisa too.

Nannee49 Mon 29-Jun-26 20:45:40

Steady the bus butterandjam whether you intend to or not you're coming across as very belittling of not spaghetti.

Not pleasant.

MissAdventure Mon 29-Jun-26 22:08:22

I like it.
That's all.

OldFrill Tue 30-Jun-26 00:16:44

I'm holding tight whilst the bus is steadying "ding ding"