Rhiannon's Blog

Warhol’s promotion of his art and himself allowed him to reach a new level of famous, not common among the Abstract Expressionists before him or among his contemporaries. Warhol understood the importance of networking and self-promotion that drove people to buy his art and made him a star. Unlike the Abstract Expressionists before him who were “oblivious to commerce”, Warhol was an opportunist (Dalton et al. 131). Although some Abstract Expressionists were indeed famous, the most obvious example being Jackson Pollock, they were not known to be personable. Pollock for instance, was known as a drunk and a jerk whom people steered clear from if they saw him at a local bar (Warhol et al. 16-17). Rather than taking on the persona of a lonely, suffering and tortured artist, Warhol preferred to be very public and without internal feelings (Whiting 70). As a result, the combination of his machine-like “identity”, the production taking place in his “factory” and his taking to the business side of art (selling it) made Warhol one of the most famous artists of his time who is still well-known to this day.

 

This following chart was created using Google Ngram Viewer, which is a device that shows the number of books with words of your choosing in them. This chart compares Andy Warhol with Pop art in the American English category:

(Click chart to enlarge)

This chart indicates that the words “Andy Warhol” have been in many more books than “Pop art”. While “Pop art” slowly rises in the 60s, the time period when the style actually started in America, and then plateaus, “Andy Warhol” makes a steeper climb during the 60s and only continues to rise well into the 2000s. In effect, it is clear that Warhol has become more famous and is written about more than the style he was working in. This could be because Warhol also worked in film and also because he made himself a star apart from his art. As described previously, Warhol created a certain persona for himself that was focused on not being an individual, which ironically, separated him for other people and made him interesting to the public. Warhol was not just a Pop art artist, he was also a celebrity famous in his own right.

 

This chart compares the occurrence of Andy Warhol with his contemporary Roy Lichtenstein in the American English category:

(Click chart to enlarge)

Similar to the comparison with “Pop art”, “Roy Lichtenstein” plateaus after the 60s while “Andy Warhol” rises well into the future. Unlike Warhol who started as a commercial artist and then began fine art in the Pop art style, Litchenstein actually started as an Abstract Expressionist and then moved on to Pop art (Dalton et al. 59). This indicates that Litchenstein was an artist who experimented and was trying to find a style that suited him and would give him success. Although Litchenstein is very well-known today, it is mostly just for his Pop art paintings that look like cartoons. As a result, most books that include his name in them are probably art books that discuss at some point the Pop art style. It makes sense then, why the “Roy Litchenstein” analysis parallels the “Pop art” analysis. While Andy Warhol can fit into several book genres such as, art, film, celebrity, history of the 1960s and biography, Litchenstein is confined mostly to books about art and perhaps a few biographies.

 

Andy Warhol is not only written about more than Roy Litchenstein but his artwork is also worth more than his contemporary. This graph shows the highest prices Warhol’s works have been purchased for versus the highest prices Lichtenstein’s works have been purchased for:

Starting from the columns on the left the graph shows the following comparisons:

Eight Elvises  -versus-  Sleeping Girl

Turquoise Marilyn  -versus-  I can see the whole room… and there’s nobody in it!

Green Car Crash  -versus-  Ohhh…Alright…

Men In Her Life  -versus-  In the Car

200 One Dollar Bills  -versus-  Happy Tears

Coca Cola [4] (Large Coca Cola)  -versus-  Kiss II

Self Portrait  -versus-  Torpedo…Los!

By looking at this chart we can see that Warhol’s works are priced significantly higher than Litchenstein’s paintings. In fact, Warhol’s fifth highest priced work is about the same price as Litchenstein’s most expensive work. Despite the fact than Litchenstein had a head start in the art scene of the 1960s, Warhol understood the logistics of not just making art but selling it. Warhol challenged the “egalitarian ideal” prevalent in the New York art scene and instead embraced celebrity culture, admitting his love for beauty and money. In consequence, Warhol was competitive in selling his art and contradicted the progressive notions for equality common throughout the avant-garde art community (Graw 109). Said by the man himself, “no matter how good you are, if you’re not promoted right, you won’t be one of those remembered names” (Warhol et al 26).

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