Author | Blake Gopnik |
---|---|
Audio read by | Graham Halstead |
Working title | Warhol: A Life as Art [2] |
Cover artist | Barton Silverman (photo) Allison Saltzman (design) |
Language | English |
Subject | Andy Warhol |
Publisher | Ecco (US) Allen Lane (UK) |
Publication date | March 5, 2020 (UK) April 28, 2020 (US) |
Publication place | United States United Kingdom |
Media type | Print (hardcover), e-book, audiobook |
Pages | 976 |
ISBN | 978-0-06-229839-3 (US hardcover) 978-0-241-00338-1 (UK hardcover) |
Website | warholiana |
Warhol (or Warhol: A Life as Art) is a 2020 biography of American artist Andy Warhol written by art critic Blake Gopnik. It was published by Allen Lane in the UK and Ecco in the US. At 976 pages in length, it has been marketed as the definitive biography of Warhol. [3] Waldemar Januszczak of The Sunday Times wrote that "it is impossible to imagine anyone finding out much more about Andy than is recorded here. In that sense it's definitive." [4]
The book was first published in the United Kingdom as Warhol: A Life as Art in hardcover and e-book format by Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books, on March 5, 2020. [3] An audiobook narrated by Graham Halstead was first published by Penguin on April 16, 2020. [5]
The book was published unsubtitled as Warhol in the United States in hardcover, e-book and audiobook format by Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins, on April 28, 2020. [6] [7]
The front cover of the book's dust jacket was designed by Allison Saltzman and features a photograph of Andy Warhol sitting in a chair in New York on February 27, 1968, photographed by Barton Silverman. [1]
At the review aggregator website Book Marks, which assigns individual ratings to book reviews from mainstream literary critics, the book received a cumulative "Positive" rating based on 22 reviews: 6 "Rave" reviews, 10 "Positive" reviews, 4 "Mixed" reviews, and 2 "Pan" review. [8]
In its starred review, Kirkus Reviews called it "an immensely enjoyable book that blends snappy writing with careful exegeses of the artist's influences and techniques". [9]
Publishers Weekly gave the book a favorable review, writing, "Gopnik's exhaustive but stylishly written and entertaining account is Warholian in the best sense—raptly engaged, colorful, open-minded, and slyly ironic." [10]
Writing for Harper's Magazine , Gary Indiana panned the book, calling it "elephantine, ill-written, nearly insensible". [11]
The book was also reviewed by Waldemar Januszczak in The Sunday Times , [4] Lucy Sante in The New York Times , [12] Kathryn Hughes in The Guardian , [13] Stephen Metcalf in the Los Angeles Times , [14] Roger Lewis in The Times , [15] Dominic Green in The Wall Street Journal , [16] and Paul Alexander in The Washington Post . [17]
Andy Warhol was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol is considered one of the most important artists of the 20th century. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, advertising, and celebrity culture that flourished by the 1960s, and span a variety of media, including painting, sculpture, photography, and filmmaking. Some of his best-known works include the silkscreen paintings Campbell's Soup Cans (1962) and Marilyn Diptych (1962), the experimental film Chelsea Girls (1966), and the multimedia events known as the Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1966–67).
HarperCollins Publishers LLC is a British-American publishing company that is considered to be one of the "Big Five" English-language publishers, along with Penguin Random House, Hachette, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster. HarperCollins is headquartered in New York City and London and is a subsidiary of News Corp.
Tama Janowitz is an American novelist and a short story writer. She is often referenced as one of the main "brat pack" authors, along with Bret Easton Ellis and Jay McInerney. Her novel-in-stories Slaves of New York (1986) was adapted into the movie of the same name in 1989.
Bob Colacello is an American writer. He began his career writing for TheVillage Voice before becoming editor-in-chief of pop artist Andy Warhol's Interview magazine from 1971 to 1983. As part of Warhol's entourage, they collaborated on the books The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975) and Exposures (1979). Colacello has been a contributing editor for Vanity Fair since 1984 and has been a special correspondent since 1993.
Janet Susan Mary Hoffmann, known professionally as Viva, is an American actress, writer and former Warhol superstar.
Blue Movie is a 1969 American erotic film written, produced and directed by Andy Warhol. It is the first adult erotic film depicting explicit sex to receive wide theatrical release in the United States, and is regarded as a seminal film in the Golden Age of Porn (1969–1984). The film stars Warhol superstars Viva and Louis Waldon.
Campbell's Soup Cans is a work of art produced between November 1961 and June 1962 by the American artist Andy Warhol. It consists of thirty-two canvases, each measuring 20 inches (51 cm) in height × 16 inches (41 cm) in width and each consisting of a painting of a Campbell's Soup can—one of each of the canned soup varieties the company offered at the time. The works were Warhol's hand-painted depictions of printed imagery deriving from commercial products and popular culture and belong to the pop art movement.
Julia Warhola was the mother of the American artist Andy Warhol. She was an artist in her own right and provided the calligraphy to her son's artwork.
The Philosophy of Andy Warhol is a 1975 book by the American artist Andy Warhol. It was first published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Matt Wrbican (1959–2019) was an American archivist and authority on the life of the artist Andy Warhol. He earned his BFA in Painting and MFA in Intermedia/Electronic Art from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), where he studied with Bruce Breland. He began working with the Warhol Archive in 1991 in New York City and became Chief Archivist of The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. He managed the Archive and Warhol's Time Capsules for more than two decades at the Warhol Museum, where he unpacked, processed, preserved, and documented an estimated 500,000 objects. His last book is A is for Archive: Warhol's World from A to Z. He also exhibited his artwork at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts and Galleries. He died on Saturday, June 1, 2019, after a four-year battle with brain cancer.
Jed Johnson was an American interior designer and film director. TheNew York Times hailed Johnson as "one of the most celebrated interior designers of our time."
Johnny Dodd was an off-off-Broadway lighting designer for theater, dance and music concerts in the downtown art scene in Lower Manhattan during the latter half of the 20th century. He designed lighting for Judson Poets Theater, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, the Theater for the New City and the glam rock band New York Dolls. He also acted in underground art films and plays and in 1973 directed the Anthony Clarvoe play City of Light based on the City of Light novel by Lauren Belfer.
Kiss is a 1964 American underground film directed by Andy Warhol. It was one of the first experimental films Warhol made at The Factory in New York City.
Claire Harman is a British literary critic and book reviewer who has written for the Times Literary Supplement, Literary Review, Evening Standard, the Sunday Telegraph and other publications. Harman is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and has taught English at the Universities of Oxford and Manchester. She has taught creative writing at Columbia University, and been Professor of Creative Writing at Durham University since 2016.
The Druds was a short-lived 1963 avant-garde noise music band founded by Andy Warhol, that featured prominent members of the New York proto-conceptual art and minimal art community. The band's noise rock sound has been compared to that of Henry Flynt and/or The Primitives, the band that featured the first collaboration of Lou Reed and John Cale, who would soon form The Velvet Underground.
Blake Gopnik is an American art critic who has lived in New York City since 2011. He previously spent a decade as chief art critic of The Washington Post, prior to which he was an arts editor and critic in Canada. He has a doctorate in art history from Oxford University. He is the author of Warhol, a biography of the American artist Andy Warhol.
Helen "Nell" Louise Zink is an American writer living in Germany. After being a long term penpal of Avner Shats, she came to prominence in her fifties with the help of Jonathan Franzen and her novel, Mislaid, was longlisted for the National Book Award. Her debut The Wallcreeper was released in the United States by the independent press Dorothy and named one of 100 notable books of 2014 by The New York Times, as was Mislaid. Zink then released Nicotine, Private Novelist and Doxology through Ecco Press. In 2022 she published Avalon, again a New York Times notable book, with Alfred A. Knopf.
Sontag: Her Life and Work is a 2019 biography of American writer Susan Sontag written by Benjamin Moser.
The Andy Warhol Robot is an animatronic robot created by Andy Warhol in 1981, as a self-portrait.
Pat Hackett is an American author, screenwriter, and journalist. Hackett was a close friend and collaborator of pop artist Andy Warhol. They co-authored the books POPism: The Warhol Sixties (1980) and Andy Warhol's Party Book (1988). She also edited TheAndy Warhol Diaries (1989). Hackett was an editor for Interview magazine and she co-wrote the screenplay for the film Bad (1977).