Warhol - Blake Gopnik

The definitive biography of one of the most famous and influential artists the world has ever seen

A GUARDIAN, TIMES AND HERALD SCOTLAND BOOK OF THE YEAR

"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 Guardian

When critics attacked Andy Warhol's 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 naf when in private he was the canniest of sophisticates.
Blake Gopnik's 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 Warhol's surviving friends, lovers and enemies, Warhol traces
the artist's 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 artist's Factory, with its superstars, drag queens and
socialites, there was a man who lived with his mother for much of his
life and guarded the privacy of his home. He overcame the vicious
homophobia of his youth to become a symbol of gay achievement, while
always seeking the pleasures of traditional romance and coupledom. (Warhol explodes the myth of his asexuality.)

Filled with new insights into the artist's work and personality, Warhol asks: Was he a joke or a genius, a radical or a social climber? As Warhol himself would have answered: Yes.