"Superb...Gopnik persuasively assembles his case over the course of this mesmerising book, which is as much art history and philosophy as it is biography" Kathryn Hughes, The Guardian
When critics attacked Andy Warhol''s Marilyn paintings as shallow, the Pop artist was happy to present himself as shallower still: He claimed that he silkscreened to avoid the hard work of painting, although he was actually a meticulous workaholic; in interviews he presented himself as a silly na-when in private he was the canniest of sophisticates. Blake Gopnik''s definitive biography digs deep into the contradictions and radical genius that led Andy Warhol to revolutionise our cultural world.
Based on years of archival research and on interviews with hundreds of Warhol''s surviving friends, lovers and enemies, Warhol traces the artist''s path from his origins as the impoverished son of Eastern European immigrants in 1930s Pittsburgh, through his early success as a c
