Andy Warhol: Biography and Major Works - From High Society to Creative Revival and Legacy

Without the glamour and commercial appeal of his earlier portraits, critics saw Warhol as prostituting his artistic talent and viewed this later period as a decline.

However, Warhol saw financial success as an important goal.

In 1966, Andy made a film called Mrs. Warhol , produced in black and white, lasting 66 minutes.

This  was dedicated entirely to his mother.

Andy followed her with his camera as she performed her daily domestic routines.

By the late 1970s, Warhol returned to painting and produced works that often approached abstraction.

His Painting by Oxidation  series echoed the immediacy of the abstract expressionists and the drip paintings of Jackson Pollock.

With his mother's death in 1972, Andy fell into deep depression and stopped producing for some time.

 In the 1980s, Warhol regained considerable critical notoriety, partly due to his collaboration in launching    Jean-Michel Basquiat and Francesco Clemente , two younger and more avant-garde artists.

The New York art scene of this period is legendary.

Dynamic and creative, it was open to all types of new media and offered young talents a spectacular arena of opportunities.

While Andy Warhol,  focused on the graphic and serial aspects of art, working in a clear and often seemingly detached manner, the young Jean-Michel Basquiat entered the scene with a style that was as furious as it was expressive, a crude mix of symbols, pictograms, and letters rooted in the language of urban graffiti.

The paintings of the Italian-American artist Francesco Clemente, on the other hand, often seem dreamlike, mystical, and almost surreal.

The collaborative works of the three artists humorously refute the concept of individuality.

They reflect the era, the pop star status of the artists, and the new vision they had of themselves, their origin, myths, and fascination with each other.

However, this era was marked by a moment of great tension.

But history holds a bizarre detail:

In the 1980s, Warhol turned to religious themes.

His version of The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, is particularly well-known.

In these works, Warhol merged the sacred and the irreverent by juxtaposing enlarged logos of brands with images of Christ and his apostles.

After suffering complications from a routine procedure for his gallbladder, Warhol died on February 22, 1987, at the age of 58.

He was buried in his hometown of Pittsburgh.

His memorial service was held at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York, and was attended by over 2,000 people.

LEGACY

In his will, the artist left a determination for his desire in a Warhol Foundation for the Advancement of the Visual Arts, which was later created at the end of that year.

Through the joint efforts of the Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh, and the Carnegie Institute, the Warhol Museum was opened in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1994, housing a large collection of his works.

He left an invaluable cultural and artistic legacy.

His success in life was reflected in his works and in some incredible quotes.

This, for example, is the one that most made him worthy of representing him:

“In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. Everyone deserves their 15 minutes of fame.”

To understand the rest of this journey, continue to our next article: Andy Warhol, biography and major works: Gallery Commented on the Most Famous Works.