Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol transformed art by collapsing the boundary between fine art and mass culture. Born in Pittsburgh and trained in commercial design, he moved to New York in the early 1950s and worked as an illustrator before pioneering Pop Art in 1961. Using photo-emulsion silkscreen printing, he mass-produced images of consumer products and celebrities—Campbell's Soup cans, Coca-Cola bottles, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley—treating everyday commodities and famous faces with equal intensity. His repeated, mechanically produced images challenged what art could be.