Amazon.com Review
Book Description A major reassessment of the most influential and controversial American artist of the second half of the twentieth century
To his critics, he was the cynical magus of a movement that debased high art and reduced it to a commodity. To his admirers, he was the most important artist since Picasso. Indisputably, Andy Warhol redefined what art could be. As the quintessential Pop artist, he razed the barrier between high and low culture, taking as his subject matter comic books, tabloids, Hollywood publicity photos, and supermarket products. Through his films and the exotic milieu of the Factory, he exhibited an unprecedented talent for publicity and outrage, revealing an underworld of speed freaks, transvestites, and glittering, doomed superstars. Beneath the deceptively simple surface of his silk screens, the old hierarchies of art collapsed. Warhol's x-ray vision exposed the garish, vulgar, and irrepressible new world of 1960s America.
Focusing on that influential decade, Pop disentangles the myths of Warhol--fraught with contradictions--from the man he truly was, and offers a vivid, entertaining, and provocative look at the legendary artist's personal and artistic evolution during his most productive and innovative years. A detailed, insightful chronicle of his rise, as well as a critical examination of Warhol's most important works, this ground-breaking book sheds light on a man who remains an icon of the twentieth century. Drawing on brand-new sources--including extensive original interviews and insight from those who knew him best--Pop offers the most dynamic, comprehensive portrait ever written of the man who changed the way we see the world.
Art from Pop: The Genius of Andy Warhol (Click to See Full Image)  |  |  |  |  |
| Andy Warhol, Gold Marilyn, 1962. Silkscreen ink on synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 83 1⁄4" × 57". Gift of Philip Johnson. Museum of Modern Art, New York. © 2009 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/ARS, New York. Digital image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, New York. | Andy Warhol, Silver Liz, 1963. Synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink on canvas, 40" × 40 1⁄2". Collection of the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh. © 2009 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/ARS, New York. Photo credit: The Andy Warhol Foundation, Inc./Art Resource, New York. | Andy Warhol, “Flowers,” 1964. Screenprint printed on white paper. 23" × 23". © 2009 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo credit: The Andy Warhol Foundation, Inc./Art Resource, New York. | Bob Dylan’s screen test. © Billy Name/Ovoworks. | Andy in front of Serendipity, 1961. Photo by John Ardoin. Courtesy of Serendipity 3. |
*Starred Review* Here is Andy Warhol in full: open to suggestion, voyeuristic, given to “gallows humor,” driven by “revenge, anger, and scorn,” and determined to glorify the commonplace, “infuriate the critics, . . . puzzle the public, and titillate the media.” With unprecedented access to remarkable archival materials, the gleanings of 139 interviews, extraordinary analytic powers, and a mutual gift for compelling prose, distinguished arts writers Scherman and Dalton, who knew Warhol, present the most forthright and nuanced portrait yet of the artist who rejected originality and technical virtuosity as criteria for fine art, and focused instead on manipulating potent commercial images. Scherman and Dalton cover in stinging detail Warhol’s rough Pittsburgh youth and the afflictions that made sexual relationships so fraught. Inlaid with sharp profiles of numerous pivotal figures, including assistants Gerard Malanga and Billy Name, gallery director Ivan Karp, art historian Henry Geldzahler, and “It Girl” Edie Sedgwick, this riveting reconsideration assesses Warhol’s place in New York’s gay society as well as its art world, and chronicles the complex dynamics of Warhol’s amphetamine-fueled art and film studio, the infamous Factory. By comprehensively portraying the ferociously influential artist in his prime, up to his nearly fatal shooting in 1967, Scherman and Dalton reveal the essential Warhol in all his contradictions, torment, calculation, and brilliance. --Donna Seaman
