Untitled Document
 Last
Wednesday, a self-portrait of Andy Warhol
was sold for a whopping amount of money
at an auction in London. After
fierce competition between the bidders to buy the famous artwork, it fetched ￡10.8 million ($17.4
million), a price three times the auction’s expectation! So, who is Andy
Warhol and why do people go crazy about his self-portrait?
Born on August 6, 1928 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Andy Warhol was
an American pop artist. His real name was Andrew Warhola.
His parents were originally from Czechoslovakia.
At first, Andy worked as an illustrator and he was very
successful. Later, he became famous worldwide
for his work as a painter.
The talented artist was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. He is best
known for his mass produced paintings of
brand name items, celebrities, and other images from American pop
culture. He adopted silk screen printing to speed up the process of creating art.
He was also a great printmaker, author, record producer, and filmmaker. His first movie
was called Sleep. It was a 6-hour movie of his friend sleeping. Andy
was fascinated with movie making. So, he created at least 60 more movies,
including Kiss, Eat, Shoulder,
Face, Kitchen, Horse, and Sunset.
 The
great artist passed away on February 22, 1987 in New York City. He
left so many famous masterpieces during his lifetime.
In memory of his life and
artwork, people built the Andy Warhol Museum in his hometown of Pittsburgh.
His recently sold self-portrait was created in 1967. It is one of
a series of 11 large-scale
Warhol self-portraits completed in 1967, five of which are in museums.
The bright red and white paint
attracted many people’s attention because of its mystery of having gone missing
since its sale in New York in 1974. Many bidders competed with each
other to acquire the masterpiece.
The winner was a man named Larry
Gagosian. Let’s hope the lucky man enjoys the famous
artwork a lot! |
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