Andy Warhol

After a successful career in advertising illustration, Andy Warhol (1928-1987) decided in the early 1960s to work as an independent artist. The world of consumption, of the media and mass industry remained his central interest. This publication focuses on the years between 1961 and 1964, the formative period of Warhol as a painter and graphic artist. During these years, he gradually replaced the individual visual language of painting with imagery that had already been disseminated by media and become collective as well as mechanical pictorial procedures, thus calling into question some of modernity's fundamental categories. This volume ex-amines this process based on numerous examples, such as the famous Campbell's Soup Cans and Dollar Bills, the Elvis and Liz series, the Death & Disaster paintings, and the Flowers cycle. Concentration on the drawings and paintings of the early years demonstrates the far-reaching significance of his oeuvre for art history.