Andy Warhol was one of the greatest pop artists of the twentieth century, and he both created and mimicked hundreds of incredible artistic pieces.  Some of his most known pieces are the “Campbell Soup Can” and his screen prints. Repetition was the key with almost all of Warhol’s work as he painted at least thirty-two soup cans all of varying flavors only because he had it for lunch each day, “…he once showed a close friend two paintings of a Coke bottle, one done with abstract flourishes, the other "just a stark, outlined Coke bottle in black and white." He let his friend decide between the two… Forget the artsy details, go with the commercial art clarity” (Kennicott). A lot of Warhol’s work wasn’t even original, and it is partially due to him that copyright laws are as strict as they are today.  In Warhol’s prints of celebrities, such as Marilyn Monroe, he printed the same image over and over again and each time it came out a little different as every one had a little flaw in some way. The Elvis print series were done over one another repeatedly in a haphazard way along a wall with one to three Elvis prints on each canvas. Warhol was mimicking the idea of mass production in America with his work as he was taking people and multiplying them so everybody could have an artistic piece.

            Warhol’s portrait art is another example of his love for repetition. He would do three paintings of someone and they would take their favorite home and Warhol would keep the others. He was adamant about the sizes though, they all had to be exactly the same because one day he intended to have them lined up in a gallery lining up perfectly.

           For a while Warhol created exceptionally gruesome screen prints by using newspaper stories of car accidents and suicides as a base.  Warhol begin these pictures around the time he was finishing with the Marilyn Monroe series and claimed to have realized he’d been doing death all along. One observer even claimed that he had managed to defuse the electric chair, as in remove the fear factor from America. Warhol took a photograph of an electric chair and did several prints of it all in different colors, which inadvertently removed the anxiety behind this American icon.

            Warhol was obsessed with the idea of stardom; in fact it was he who coined the phrase “In the future, everyone in the world will be famous for fifteen minutes” or better known today as fifteen minutes of fame. (Rodley) While being extremely shy Warhol still strived for his own entrance into stardom, and clearly he managed to achieve it (all things considered). Andy Warhol would have you think he was a fool and yet its almost self evident that he was absolutely brilliant, “…it wasn't Warhol's eccentricities that made him truly fabulous; it was his penchant for paying attention to and learning from everything around him” (Heppermann). Warhol used his brilliance to not only advance his own social standing, but also to use those who were around him. Warhol not only sought stardom for himself but also loved to witness others who were in such a position. When he was younger he would send letters to his favorite stars, and one of his favorite child actors, Shirley Temple, sent him an autographed photo and so thus started his collection of famous faces (Rodley). One week following Marilyn Monroe’s suicide, Warhol began pumping out the Monroe prints like clockwork. 

            Warhol’s films were brought about by a desire to help others gain their fifteen minutes of fame. His films had absolutely no plot and he didn’t even tend to move the camera from its initial position. He did hundreds of films and some of them weren’t even of moving objects  — one several hour video simply of the Empire State Building. This would be played in the background at parties and people would think it was a still image until after six hours the lights would turn on and it would be a still image of that instead. Warhol also liked to sit friends in front of the camera and have them stare endlessly into it until their façade broke and you can see what they were really like when they’re bored, and that’s what he wanted to see, the true face of society.    

The Andy Warhol Foundation. The Warhol:. 2011. Web. 27 Sept. 2011.

<http://www.warhol.org/default.aspx>.

Comenas, Gary. "Andy Warhol Soup Cans." Andy Warhol. 2010. Web. 27 Sept. 2011.

<http://www.warholstars.org/art/warhol/soup.html>.

Heppermann, Christine M. "Fabulous!: A Portrait of Andy Warhol." The Horn Book

Magazine 87.4 (2011): 169,169-170. ProQuest Central. Web. 2 Oct. 2011.

Kennicott, Philip. "ANDY WARHOL P Op & P a r a d Ox." The Washington Post: E.1.

ProQuest Central. Sep 25 2011. Web. 8 Oct. 2011

<http://search.proquest.com/docview/893914678?accountid=40892>. RIEGELNEGG, CURT. "Andy Warhol's Relationship with Celebrity Gets a Fuller

Airing in Warhol Live. - Arts - Art Reviews & Features - Pittsburgh City Paper." Pittsburgh City Paper - News, Music, Restaurants, Events, Arts and Entertainment Newspaper. 13 Aug. 2009. Web. 27 Sept. 2011. <http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid:67150>.

Rodley, Chris, dir. Andy Warhol: The Complete Picture. Prod. World of Wonder. 2 May

2002. Television.