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American Civil War | End of the war | End of the war
Lee did not intend to surrender, but planned to regroup at Appomattox Station, where supplies were to be waiting, and then continue the war. Grant chased Lee and got in front of him, so that when Lee's army reached the village of Appomattox Court House, they were surrounded. After an initial battle, Lee decided the fight was hopeless, and surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Grant on April 9, 1865, during a conference at the McLean House.William Marvel (2002) Lee's Last Retreat: The Flight to Appomattox, pp. 158–181. In an untraditional gesture and as a sign of Grant's respect and anticipation of peacefully restoring Confederate states to the Union, Lee was permitted to keep his sword and horse, Traveller. His men were paroled, and a chain of Confederate surrenders began.
On April 14, 1865, Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer. Lincoln died early the next morning. Lincoln's vice president, Andrew Johnson, was unharmed, because his would-be assassin, George Atzerodt, lost his nerve, so Johnson was immediately sworn in as president.
Meanwhile, Confederate forces across the South surrendered, as news of Lee's surrender reached them.Unaware of the surrender of Lee, on April 16 the last major battles of the war were fought at the Battle of Columbus, Georgia, and the Battle of West Point. On April 26, the same day Sergeant Boston Corbett killed Booth at a tobacco barn, Johnston surrendered nearly 90,000 troops of the Army of Tennessee to Sherman at Bennett Place, near present-day Durham, North Carolina. It proved to be the largest surrender of Confederate forces. On May 4, all remaining Confederate forces in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana east of the Mississippi, under the command of Lt. General Richard Taylor, surrendered. Confederate president Davis was captured in retreat at Irwinville, Georgia on May 10.
The final land battle was fought on May 13, 1865, at the Battle of Palmito Ranch in Texas. On May 26, 1865, Confederate Lt. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, acting for Edmund Smith, signed a military convention surrendering Confederate forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department. This date is often cited by contemporaries and historians as the effective end date of the war. On June 2, with most of his troops having already gone home, a reluctant Kirby Smith had little choice but to sign the official surrender document. On June 23, Cherokee leader and Brig. General Stand Watie became the last Confederate general to surrender his forces.. "The 58-year-old Cherokee chieftain was the last Confederate general to lay down his arms. The last Confederate-affiliated tribe to surrender was the Chickasaw nation, which capitulated on 14 July."
On June 19, 1865, Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger announced General Order No. 3, bringing the Emancipation Proclamation into effect in Texas and freeing the last slaves of the Confederacy.Conner, Robert C. General Gordon Granger: The Savior of Chickamauga and the Man Behind "Juneteenth". Havertown, PA: Casemate Publishers, 2013. . p. 177. The anniversary of this date is now celebrated as Juneteenth.
The naval part of the war ended more slowly. It had begun on April 11, two days after Lee's surrender, when Lincoln proclaimed that foreign nations had no further "claim or pretense" to deny equality of maritime rights and hospitalities to U.S. warships and, in effect, that rights extended to Confederate ships to use neutral ports as safe havens from U.S. warships should end. Having no response to Lincoln's proclamation, President Johnson issued a similar proclamation dated May 10, more directly stating that the war was almost at an end and insurgent cruisers still at sea, and prepared to attack U.S. ships, should not have rights to do so through use of safe foreign ports or waters. Britain finally responded on June 6, by transmitting a letter from Foreign Secretary John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, to the Lords of the Admiralty withdrawing rights to Confederate warships to enter British ports and waters. U.S. Secretary of State Seward welcomed the withdrawal of concessions to the Confederates. Finally, on October 18, Russell advised the Admiralty that the time specified in his June message had elapsed and "all measures of a restrictive nature on vessels of war of the United States in British ports, harbors, and waters, are now to be considered as at an end". Nonetheless, the final Confederate surrender was in Liverpool, England where James Iredell Waddell, the captain of CSS Shenandoah, surrendered the cruiser to British authorities on November 6.
Legally, the war did not end until August 20, 1866, when President Johnson issued a proclamation that declared "that the said insurrection is at an end and that peace, order, tranquillity, and civil authority now exist in and throughout the whole of the United States of America". |
American Civil War | Union victory | Union victory
thumb|upright=1.35|Map of Confederate territory losses year by year|alt=A map of the U.S. South showing shrinking territory under rebel control
The causes of the war, reasons for its outcome, and even its name are subjects of lingering contention. The North and West grew wealthy while the once-rich South became poor for a century. The national political power of the slaveowners and rich Southerners ended. Historians are less sure about the results of postwar Reconstruction, especially regarding the second-class citizenship of the freedmen and their poverty.
Historians have debated whether the Confederacy could have won the war. Most scholars, including James M. McPherson, argue Confederate victory was possible. McPherson argues that the North's advantage in population and resources made Northern victory likely, but not guaranteed. He argues that if the Confederacy had fought using unconventional tactics, it would have more easily been able to hold out long enough to exhaust the Union. Confederates did not need to invade and hold enemy territory to win, but only to fight a defensive war to convince the North the cost of winning was too high. The North needed to conquer and hold vast stretches of enemy territory and defeat Confederate armies to win. Lincoln was not a military dictator and could fight only as long as the American public supported the war. The Confederacy sought to win independence by outlasting Lincoln; however, after Atlanta fell and Lincoln defeated McClellan in the election of 1864, hope for a political victory for the South ended. Lincoln had secured the support of the Republicans, War Democrats, border states, emancipated slaves, and the neutrality of Britain and France. By defeating the Democrats and McClellan, he defeated the Copperheads, who had wanted a negotiated peace with the Confederacy.
+ Comparison of Union and Confederacy, 1860–1864 Year Union ConfederacyPopulation1860 22,100,000 (71%) 9,100,000 (29%)1864 28,800,000 (90%) 3,000,000 (10%) At the beginning of 1865, the Confederacy controlled one third of its congressional districts, which were apportioned by population. The major slave populations found in Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Alabama were effectively under Union control by the end of 1864. Free1860 21,700,000 (98%) 5,600,000 (62%) Slave1860 490,000 (2%) 3,550,000 (38%)1864 negligible 1,900,000 Soldiers 1860–64 2,100,000 (67%) 1,064,000 (33%) Railroad miles1860 21,800 (71%) 8,800 (29%)1864 29,100 (98%) negligible Manufactures1860 90% 10%1864 98% 2% Arms production1860 97% 3%1864 98% 2% Cotton bales1860 negligible 4,500,0001864 300,000 negligible Exports1860 30% 70%1864 98% 2%
Some scholars argue the Union held an insurmountable long-term advantage over the Confederacy in industrial strength and population. Confederate actions, they argue, only delayed defeat. Historian Shelby Foote expressed this view succinctly:
A minority view among historians is that the Confederacy lost because, as E. Merton Coulter put it, "people did not will hard enough and long enough to win". However, most historians reject the argument. McPherson, after reading thousands of letters written by Confederate soldiers, found strong patriotism that continued to the end; they truly believed they were fighting for freedom and liberty. Even as the Confederacy was visibly collapsing in 1864–65, most Confederate soldiers were fighting hard. Historian Gary Gallagher cites General Sherman, who in early 1864 commented, "The devils seem to have a determination that cannot but be admired." Despite their loss of slaves and wealth, with starvation looming, Sherman continued, "yet I see no sign of let-up—some few deserters—plenty tired of war, but the masses determined to fight it out".
Also important were Lincoln's eloquence in articulating the national purpose and his skill in keeping the border states committed to the Union cause. The Emancipation Proclamation was an effective use of the president's war powers. The Confederate government failed to get Europe involved militarily. Southern leaders needed to get European powers to help break the blockade the Union had created around Southern ports. Lincoln's naval blockade was 95 percent effective at stopping trade goods; as a result, imports and exports to the South declined significantly. The abundance of European cotton and Britain's hostility to slavery, along with Lincoln's naval blockades, severely decreased any chance that Britain or France would enter the war.
Historian Don H. Doyle has argued that the Union victory had a major impact on world history. The Union victory energized popular democratic forces. A Confederate victory, on the other hand, would have meant a new birth of slavery, not of freedom. Historian Fergus Bordewich, following Doyle, argues:
Scholars have debated what the effects of the war were on political and economic power in the South. The prevailing view is that the southern planter elite retained its powerful position in the South. However, a 2017 study challenges this, noting that while some Southern elites retained their economic status, the turmoil of the 1860s created greater opportunities for economic mobility in the South, than in the North. |
American Civil War | Casualties | Casualties
+ Casualties according to the US National Park Service Category Union Confederate Killed in action 110,100 94,000 Disease 224,580 164,000 Wounded in action 275,154 194,026 Captured (inc those who died as POWs) 211,411 (30,192) 462,634 (31,000) Total 821,245 914,660
Exact casualty figures were collected for the Union, but Confederate records were poorly kept, or lost in the chaos of defeat. Thus, the casualty figures are imprecise and based on statistical extrapolation. Neither side kept a tally of civilian deaths due to the war. In the 19th century, the death toll had been estimated at a lower 620,000. In 2011, the death toll was recalculated based on a 1% sample of census data, yielding approximately 750,000 soldier deaths, 20 percent higher than traditionally estimated, and possibly as high as 850,000. The figure was recalculated to 698,000 soldier deaths in 2024 after examining newly available full census records. Mortality rates among men were as high as 19 percent in Louisiana, and 16.6–16.7 percent in Georgia and South Carolina respectively.
The war resulted in at least 1,030,000 casualties (3 percent of the population), including an estimated 698,000 soldier deaths—two-thirds by disease. Based on 1860 census figures, 8 percent of all white men aged 13–43 died in the war, including 6 percent in the North and 18 percent in the South. About 56,000 soldiers died in prison camps during the War. An estimated 60,000 soldiers lost limbs. As McPherson notes, the war's "cost in American lives was as great as in all of the nation's other wars combined through Vietnam".
Of the 359,528 Union Army dead, amounting to 15 percent of the over two million who served:
110,070 were killed in action (67,000) or died of wounds (43,000).
199,790 died of disease (75 percent was due to the war, the remainder would have occurred in civilian life anyway)
24,866 died in Confederate prison camps
9,058 were killed by accidents or drowning
15,741 other/unknown deaths
In addition, there were 4,523 deaths in the Navy (2,112 in battle) and 460 in the Marines (148 in battle).
After the Emancipation Proclamation authorized freed slaves to "be received into the armed service of the United States", former slaves who escaped from plantations or were liberated by the Union Army were recruited into the United States Colored Troops regiments of the Union Army, as were black men who had not been slaves. The U.S. Colored Troops made up 10 percent of the Union death toll—15 percent of Union deaths from disease and less than 3 percent of those killed in battle. Losses among African Americans were high. In the last year and a half and from all reported casualties, approximately 20 percent of all African Americans enrolled in the military died during the war. Their mortality rate was significantly higher than white soldiers. While 15 percent of U.S. Volunteers and just 9 percent of white Regular Army troops died, 21 percent of U.S. Colored Troops died.
thumb|An illustration of the war dead following the Battle of Antietam battlefield in 1862
While the figures of 360,000 army deaths for the Union and 260,000 for the Confederacy remained commonly cited, they are incomplete. In addition to many Confederate records being missing, partly as a result of Confederate widows not reporting deaths due to being ineligible for benefits, both armies only counted troops who died during their service and not the tens of thousands who died of wounds or diseases after being discharged. This often happened only days or weeks later. Francis Amasa Walker, superintendent of the 1870 census, used census and surgeon general data to estimate a minimum of 500,000 Union military deaths and 350,000 Confederate military deaths, a total of 850,000 soldiers. While Walker's estimates were originally dismissed because of the 1870 census's undercounting, it was later found that the census was only off by 6.5 percent and that the data Walker used would be roughly accurate.
Losses were far higher than during the war with Mexico, which saw roughly 13,000 American deaths, including fewer than two thousand killed in battle, between 1846 and 1848. One reason for the high number of battle deaths in the civil war was the continued use of tactics similar to those of the Napoleonic Wars, such as charging. With the advent of more accurate rifled barrels, Minié balls, and (near the end of the war for the Union) repeating firearms such as the Spencer repeating rifle and the Henry repeating rifle, soldiers were mowed down when standing in lines in the open. This led to the adoption of trench warfare, a style of fighting that defined much of World War I.
Deaths among former slaves has proven hard to estimate, due to the lack of reliable census data, though they were known to be considerable, as former slaves were set free or escaped in massive numbers in areas where the Union army did not have sufficient shelter, doctors, or food for them. Professor Jim Downs states that tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of slaves died during the war from disease, starvation, or exposure, and that if these deaths are counted in the war's total, the death toll would exceed 1 million.Jim Downs, Sick from Freedom: African-American Illness and Suffering during the Civil War and Reconstruction, Oxford University Press, 2012.
It is estimated that during the war, of the equines killed, including horses, mules, donkeys and even confiscated children's ponies, over 32,600 of them belonged to the Union and 45,800 the Confederacy. However, other estimates place the total at 1,000,000.
It is estimated that 544 Confederate flags were captured during the war by the Union. The flags were sent to the War Department in Washington. The Union flags captured by the Confederates were sent to Richmond. |
American Civil War | Emancipation | Emancipation
thumb|upright=2|Abolition of slavery in the various states over time:
Abolishing slavery was not a Union war goal from the outset, but quickly became one. Lincoln's initial claims were that preserving the Union was the central goal. In contrast, the South fought to preserve slavery. While not all Southerners saw themselves as fighting for slavery, most officers and over a third of the rank and file in Lee's army had close family ties to slavery. To Northerners, the motivation was primarily to preserve the Union, not to abolish slavery. However, as the war dragged on, and it became clear slavery was central to the conflict, and that emancipation was (to quote the Emancipation Proclamation) "a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing [the] rebellion," Lincoln and his cabinet made ending slavery a war goal, culminating in the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln's decision to issue the Proclamation angered Peace Democrats ("Copperheads") and War Democrats, but energized most Republicans. By warning that free blacks would flood the North, Democrats made gains in the 1862 elections, but they did not gain control of Congress. The Republicans' counterargument that slavery was the mainstay of the enemy steadily gained support, with the Democrats losing decisively in the 1863 elections in the Northern state of Ohio, when they tried to resurrect anti-black sentiment. |
American Civil War | Emancipation Proclamation | Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation legally freed the slaves in states "in rebellion," but, as a practical matter, slavery for the 3.5 million black people in the South effectively ended in each area when Union armies arrived. The last Confederate slaves were freed on June 19, 1865, celebrated as the modern holiday of Juneteenth. Slaves in the border states and those in some former Confederate territory occupied before the Emancipation Proclamation were freed by state action or (on December 6, 1865) by the Thirteenth Amendment.Claudia Goldin, "The economics of emancipation." The Journal of Economic History 33#1 (1973): 66–85. The Emancipation Proclamation enabled African Americans, both free blacks and escaped slaves, to join the Union Army. About 190,000 volunteered, further enhancing the numerical advantage the Union armies enjoyed over the Confederates, who did not dare emulate the equivalent manpower source for fear of undermining the legitimacy of slavery.
During the war, sentiment concerning slaves, enslavement, and emancipation in the United States was divided. Lincoln's fears of making slavery a war issue were based on a harsh reality: abolition did not enjoy wide support in the west, the territories, and the border states. In 1861, Lincoln worried that premature attempts at emancipation would mean the loss of the border states, and that "to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game". Copperheads and some War Democrats opposed emancipation, although the latter eventually accepted it as part of the total war needed to save the Union.
At first, Lincoln reversed attempts at emancipation by Secretary of War Simon Cameron and Generals John C. Frémont and David Hunter, to keep the loyalty of the border states and the War Democrats. Lincoln warned the border states that a more radical type of emancipation would happen if his plan of gradual compensated emancipation and voluntary colonization was rejected.McPherson, James M., "Lincoln and the Strategy of Unconditional Surrender", in Boritt, Gabor S. (ed.). Lincoln, the War President, pp. 52–54; also in McPherson, James M., Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution, pp. 83–85. But compensated emancipation occurred only in the District of Columbia, where Congress had the power to enact it. When Lincoln told his cabinet about his proposed emancipation proclamation, which would apply to the states still in rebellion on January 1, 1863, Seward advised Lincoln to wait for a Union military victory before issuing it, as to do otherwise would seem like "our last shriek on the retreat".Oates, Stephen B., Abraham Lincoln: The Man Behind the Myths, p. 106. Walter Stahr, however, writes, "There are contemporary sources, however, that suggest others were involved in the decision to delay", and Stahr quotes them.Stahr, Walter, Stanton: Lincoln's War Secretary, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017, p. 226.
Lincoln laid the groundwork for public support in an open letter published in response to Horace Greeley's "The Prayer of Twenty Millions"; the letter stated that Lincoln's goal was to save the Union, and that, if he freed the slaves, it would be as a means to that end.Lincoln's letter was published first in the Washington National Intelligencer on August 23, 1862. Holzer, Harold, Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014, p. 401. He also had a meeting at the White House with five African American representatives on August 14, 1862. Arranging for a reporter to be present, he urged his visitors to agree to the voluntary colonization of black people. Lincoln's motive for both his letter to Greeley and his statement to the black visitors was apparently to make his forthcoming Emancipation Proclamation more palatable to racist white people.White, Jonathan W., A House Built by Slaves: African American Visitors to the Lincoln White House, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2022, ch. 3. A Union victory in the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862, provided Lincoln with an opportunity to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, and the War Governors' Conference added support for the proclamation.Pulling, Sr. Anne Frances, Altoona: Images of America, Arcadia Publishing, 2001, 10.
Lincoln issued his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862. It stated that slaves in all states in rebellion on January 1, 1863, would be free. He issued his final Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, keeping his promise. In his letter to Albert G. Hodges, Lincoln explained his belief that "If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong .... And yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling ... I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me."Lincoln's Letter to A. G. Hodges, April 4, 1864.
Lincoln's moderate approach succeeded in inducing the border states to remain in the Union and War Democrats to support the Union. The border states, which included Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, Delaware, and Union-controlled regions around New Orleans, Norfolk, Virginia, and elsewhere, were not covered by the Emancipation Proclamation. Nor was Tennessee, which had come under Union control. Missouri and Maryland abolished slavery on their own; Kentucky and Delaware did not. Still, the proclamation did not enjoy universal support. It caused much unrest in what were then considered western states, where racist sentiments led to a great fear of abolition. There was some concern that the proclamation would lead to the secession of western states, and its issuance prompted the stationing of Union troops in Illinois in case of rebellion.
Since the Emancipation Proclamation was based on the president's war powers, it applied only in territory held by Confederates at the time it was issued. However, the Proclamation became a symbol of the Union's growing commitment to add emancipation to the Union's definition of liberty. The Emancipation Proclamation greatly reduced the Confederacy's hope of being recognized or otherwise aided by Britain or France. By late 1864, Lincoln was playing a leading role in getting the House of Representatives to vote for the Thirteenth Amendment, which mandated the ending of chattel slavery. |
American Civil War | Reconstruction | Reconstruction
thumb|Through the supervision of the Freedmen's Bureau, Northern teachers traveled into the South to provide education and training for the newly freed population.
The war devastated the South and posed serious questions of how it would be reintegrated into the Union. The war destroyed much of the South's wealth, in part because wealth held in enslaved people (at least $1,000 each for a healthy adult prior to the war) was wiped off the books. All accumulated investment in Confederate bonds was forfeited; most banks and railroads were bankrupt. The income per person dropped to less than 40 percent of that of the North, and that lasted into the 20th century. Southern influence in the federal government, previously considerable, was greatly diminished until the second half of the 20th century. Reconstruction began during the war, with the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1863, and it continued until 1877.Hans L. Trefousse, Historical Dictionary of Reconstruction (Greenwood, 1991) covers all the main events and leaders. It comprised multiple complex methods to resolve the outstanding issues of the aftermath, the most important of which were the three "Reconstruction Amendments" to the Constitution: the 13th outlawing slavery (1865), the 14th guaranteeing citizenship to former slaves (1868), and the 15th prohibiting the denial of voting rights "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude" (1870). From the Union perspective, the goals of Reconstruction were to consolidate victory by reuniting the Union, to guarantee a "republican form of government" for the ex-Confederate states, and to permanently end slavery—and prevent semi-slavery status.Eric Foner's A Short History of Reconstruction (1990) is a brief survey—an abridgement of his Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (1988).
President Johnson, who took office in April 1865, took a lenient approach and saw the achievement of the main war goals as realized in 1865, when each ex-rebel state repudiated secession and ratified the Thirteenth Amendment. Radical Republicans demanded proof that Confederate nationalism was dead and that the slaves were truly free. They overrode Johnson's vetoes of civil rights legislation, and the House impeached him, although the Senate did not convict him. In 1868 and 1872, the Republican candidate Grant won the presidency. In 1872, the "Liberal Republicans" argued that the war goals had been achieved and Reconstruction should end. They chose Horace Greeley to head a presidential ticket in 1872 but were decisively defeated. In 1874, Democrats, primarily Southern, took control of Congress and opposed further reconstruction. The Compromise of 1877 closed with a national consensus, except on the part of former slaves, that the war had finally ended.C. Vann Woodward, Reunion and Reaction: The Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction (2nd ed. 1991). With the withdrawal of federal troops, however, whites retook control of every Southern legislature, and the Jim Crow era of disenfranchisement and legal segregation was ushered in.
The war had a demonstrable impact on American politics. Many veterans on both sides were elected to political office, including five U.S. Presidents: Ulysses Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, and William McKinley. |
American Civil War | Memory and historiography | Memory and historiography
The war is a central event in American collective memory. There are innumerable statues, commemorations, books, and archival collections. The memory includes the home front, military affairs, the treatment of soldiers, both living and dead, in the war's aftermath, depictions of the war in literature and art, evaluations of heroes and villains, and considerations of the moral and political lessons of the war. The last theme includes moral evaluations of racism and slavery, heroism in combat and behind the lines, and issues of democracy and minority rights, as well as the notion of an "Empire of Liberty" influencing the world.
Historians have paid more attention to the causes of the war than to the war itself. Military history has largely developed outside academia, leading to a proliferation of studies by non-scholars who nevertheless are familiar with the primary sources and pay close attention to battles and campaigns and who write for the general public. Practically every major figure in the war, both North and South, has had a serious biographical study.
Even the name used for the conflict has been controversial, with many names used for it. During and immediately after the war, Northern historians often used a term like "War of the Rebellion". Writers in rebel states often referred to the "War for Southern Independence". Some Southerners have described it as the "War of Northern Aggression". |
American Civil War | Lost Cause | Lost Cause
The memory of the war in the white South crystallized in the myth of the "Lost Cause": that the Confederate cause was just and heroic. The myth shaped regional identity and race relations for generations. Alan T. Nolan notes that the Lost Cause was expressly a rationalization, a cover-up to vindicate the name and fame of those in rebellion. Some claims revolve around the insignificance of slavery as a cause; some appeals highlight cultural differences between North and South; the military conflict by Confederate actors is idealized; in any case, secession was said to be lawful. Nolan argues that the adoption of the Lost Cause perspective facilitated the reunification of the North and the South while excusing the "virulent racism" of the 19th century, sacrificing black American progress to white man's reunification. He also deems the Lost Cause "a caricature of the truth. This caricature wholly misrepresents and distorts the facts of the matter" in every instance. The Lost Cause myth was formalized by Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard, whose The Rise of American Civilization (1927) spawned "Beardian historiography". The Beards downplayed slavery, abolitionism, and issues of morality. Though this interpretation was abandoned by the Beards in the 1940s, and by historians generally by the 1950s, Beardian themes still echo among Lost Cause writers.Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard, The Rise of American Civilization (1927), 2:54.
The United Daughters of the Confederacy
The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is a Southern heritage organization founded in 1894 in Nashville, Tennessee, by a group of women whose stated mission was to honor Confederate veterans and preserve their memory. The organization quickly grew in influence during the late 19th and early 20th centuries and ended up playing a pivotal role in shaping the collective memory of the American Civil War.
The UDC focused on erecting Confederate monuments, funding the education of Confederate descendants, and promoting Confederate history through textbooks and public ceremonies. The group emphasized the valor of Confederate soldiers and the righteousness of the Southern cause, often omitting or downplaying the central role of slavery in the conflict.
The UDC became a major proponent of the Lost Cause ideology, a narrative that romanticized the Confederacy as a noble, states'-rights-driven effort rather than a rebellion to preserve slavery. Through speeches, publications, and curriculum influence, the UDC worked to recast the Confederacy in a sympathetic light, framing the Civil War as a struggle against Northern aggression.
This effort contributed to the widespread proliferation of Confederate symbols and a sanitized portrayal of Southern history in public spaces and schools. Critics argue that the UDC's activities perpetuated racist ideologies by fostering nostalgia for the antebellum South and minimizing the horrors of slavery.
In recent years, the role of the UDC and the Lost Cause myth has come under scrutiny amid debates over Confederate monuments and systemic racism in the United States. Many of the monuments and historical markers the UDC sponsored have been reevaluated and removed, sparking ongoing discussions about memory, heritage, and justice. |
American Civil War | Battlefield preservation | Battlefield preservation
thumb|Beginning in 1961, the U.S. Post Office released commemorative stamps for five famous battles, each issued on the 100th anniversary of the respective battle.
The first efforts at Civil War battlefield preservation and memorialization came during the war, with the establishment of National Cemeteries at Gettysburg, Mill Springs and Chattanooga. Soldiers began erecting markers on battlefields beginning with the First Battle of Bull Run in 1861. The oldest surviving monument is the Hazen Brigade Monument near Murfreesboro in Central Tennessee, built in the summer of 1863 by soldiers in Union Col. William B. Hazen's brigade to mark the spot where they buried their dead, following the Battle of Stones River.
In the 1890s, the government established five Civil War battlefield parks under the jurisdiction of the War Department, beginning with the creation of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, and the Antietam National Battlefield in Sharpsburg, Maryland, in 1890. The Shiloh National Military Park was established in 1894 in Shiloh, Tennessee, followed by the Gettysburg National Military Park in 1895, and Vicksburg National Military Park in 1899. In 1933, these five parks and other national monuments were transferred to the National Park Service.Timothy B. Smith, "The Golden Age of Battlefield Preservation" (2008; The University of Tennessee Press). Chief among modern efforts to preserve Civil War sites has been the American Battlefield Trust, with more than 130 battlefields in 24 states.Bob Zeller, "Fighting the Second Civil War: A History of Battlefield Preservation and the Emergence of the Civil War Trust", (2017: Knox Press) The five major battlefield parks operated by the National Park Service had a combined 3 million visitors in 2018, down 70% from 10 million in 1970. |
American Civil War | Commemoration | Commemoration
The Civil War has been commemorated in many capacities, ranging from the reenactment of battles to statues and memorial halls erected, films, stamps and coins with Civil War themes being issued, all of which helped to shape public memory. These commemorations occurred in greater numbers on the 100th and 150th anniversaries of the war.
Hollywood's take on the war has been especially influential in shaping public memory, as in such film classics as The Birth of a Nation (1915), Gone with the Wind (1939), and Lincoln (2012). Ken Burns's PBS television series The Civil War (1990) is well-remembered, though criticized for its historical inaccuracy. |
American Civil War | Technological significance | Technological significance
Technological innovations during the war had a great impact on 19th-century science. The war was an early example of an "industrial war", in which technological might is used to achieve military supremacy. New inventions, such as the train and telegraph, delivered soldiers, supplies and messages at a time when horses had been the fastest way to travel.William Rattle Plum, The Military Telegraph During the Civil War in the United States, Christopher H. Sterling (ed.) (New York: Arno Press, 1974) vol. 1 p. 63. It was also in this war that aerial warfare, in the form of reconnaissance balloons, was first used. It saw the first action involving steam-powered ironclad warships in naval warfare history.Sondhaus, Naval Warfare 1815–1914 p. 77. Repeating firearms such as the Henry rifle, Spencer rifle, Colt revolving rifle, Triplett & Scott carbine and others, first appeared during the Civil War; they were a revolutionary invention that would soon replace muzzle-loading and single-shot firearms. The war saw the first appearances of rapid-firing weapons and machine guns such as the Agar gun and Gatling gun. |
American Civil War | In works of culture and art | In works of culture and art
thumb|The Peacemakers by George Peter Alexander Healy portrays, from left to right, Sherman, Grant, Lincoln, and Porter discussing plans for the last weeks of the Civil War aboard the steamer River Queen in March 1865. It currently hangs in the Oval Office dining room.|alt=Painting of four men conferring in a ship's cabin, entitled "The Peacemakers".
The Civil War is one of the most studied events in American history, and the collection of cultural works around it is enormous. This section gives an abbreviated overview of the most notable works. |
American Civil War | Literature | Literature
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd and O Captain! My Captain! (1865) by Walt Whitman, famous eulogies to Lincoln
Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866) poetry by Herman Melville
The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (1881) by Jefferson Davis
The Private History of a Campaign That Failed (1885) by Mark Twain
Texar's Revenge, or, North Against South (1887) by Jules Verne
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1890) by Ambrose Bierce
The Red Badge of Courage (1895) by Stephen Crane
The Challenge to Sirius (1917) by Sheila Kaye-Smith
Gone with the Wind (1936) by Margaret Mitchell
North and South (1982) by John Jakes
The March: A Novel (2005) by E. L. Doctorow, fictionalized account of Sherman's March to the Sea |
American Civil War | Film | Film
The Birth of a Nation (1915, U.S.)
The General (1926, U.S.)
Operator 13 (1934, U.S.)
Gone with the Wind (1939, U.S.)
The Red Badge of Courage (1951, U.S.)
The Horse Soldiers (1959, U.S.)
Shenandoah (1965, U.S.)
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966, Italy-Spain-FRG)
The Beguiled (1971, U.S.)
The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976, U.S.)
North and South (miniseries; 1985–1994, U.S.)
Glory (1989, U.S.)
The Civil War (1990, U.S.)
Gettysburg (1993, U.S.)
The Last Outlaw (1993, U.S.)
Cold Mountain (2003, U.S.)
Gods and Generals (2003, U.S.)
Lincoln (2012, U.S.)
Free State of Jones (2016, U.S.) |
American Civil War | Music | Music
"Dixie"
"Battle Cry of Freedom"
"Battle Hymn of the Republic"
"The Bonnie Blue Flag"
"John Brown's Body"
"When Johnny Comes Marching Home"
"Marching Through Georgia"
"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" |
American Civil War | Video games | Video games
North & South (1989, France)
Sid Meier's Gettysburg! (1997, U.S.)
Sid Meier's Antietam! (1999, U.S.)
American Conquest: Divided Nation (2006, U.S.)
Forge of Freedom: The American Civil War (2006, U.S.)
The History Channel: Civil War – A Nation Divided (2006, U.S.)
AGEOD's American Civil War (2007, U.S./France)
History Civil War: Secret Missions (2008, U.S.)
Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood (2009, U.S.)
Darkest of Days (2009, U.S.)
Victoria II: A House Divided (2011, U.S.)
AGEOD's American Civil War II (2013, U.S./France)
Ultimate General: Gettysburg (2014, Ukraine)
Ultimate General: Civil War (2016, Ukraine)
War of Rights (TBD, U.S.) |
American Civil War | See also | See also
American Civil War by state
Foreign enlistment in the American Civil War
African Americans in the American Civil War
German Americans in the American Civil War
Hispanics in the American Civil War
Irish Americans in the American Civil War
Italian Americans in the Civil War
Native Americans in the American Civil War
Cherokee
Choctaw
Outline of the American Civil War
Removal of Confederate monuments and memorials |
American Civil War | Notes | Notes |
American Civil War | References | References |
American Civil War | Bibliography | Bibliography |
American Civil War | Sources referenced | Sources referenced
|
American Civil War | Web sources | Web sources
|
American Civil War | Further reading | Further reading
Influential analysis of factors; an abridged version is
(originally published in Civil War History, Vol. 10, No. 3, September 1964, pp. 229–240).
Nevins, Allan. Ordeal of the Union, an 8-volume set (1947–1971). the most detailed political, economic and military narrative; by Pulitzer Prize-winner.
Ordeal of the Union: Fruits of Manifest Destiny, 1847–1852; online;
Ordeal of the Union: A House Dividing, 1852–1857;
The Emergence of Lincoln: Douglas, Buchanan, and Party Chaos, 1857–1859;
The Emergence of Lincoln: Prologue to Civil War, 1859–1861;
War for the Union: The Improvised War, 1861–1862;
War for the Union: War Becomes Revolution, 1862–1863; online;
War for the Union: The Organized War, 1863–1864;
War for the Union: The Organized War to Victory, 1864–1865
Provides short biographies and historiographical summaries.
1232 pp; 64 Topical chapters by scholars and experts; emphasis on historiography.
|
American Civil War | Soldier life: North and South | Soldier life: North and South
Uses letters, diaries, and regimental newspapers to probe the world view of soldiers—black and white, Yankee and Rebel.
Interview with author
Two standard scholarly histories combined, originals:
|
American Civil War | External links | External links
West Point Atlas of Civil War Battles
Civil War photos at the National Archives
View images from the Civil War Photographs Collection at the Library of Congress
"American Civil World" maps at the Persuasive Cartography, The PJ Mode Collection, Cornell University Library
Statements of each state as to why they were seceding, battlefields.org
National Park Service Civil War Places
Civil War Battlefield Places from the National Park Service
American Battlefield Trust – A non-profit land preservation and educational organization with two divisions, the Civil War Trust and the Revolutionary War Trust, dedicated to preserving America's battlefields through land acquisitions.
Civil War Era Digital Collection at Gettysburg College – This collection contains digital images of political cartoons, personal papers, pamphlets, maps, paintings and photographs from the Civil War Era held in Special Collections at Gettysburg College.
The Civil War – site with 7,000 pages, including the complete run of Harper's Weekly newspapers from the Civil War
Category:Abraham Lincoln
Category:Jefferson Davis
Category:Ulysses S. Grant
Category:Robert E. Lee
Category:Civil wars in the United States
Category:Conflicts in 1861
Category:Conflicts in 1862
Category:Conflicts in 1863
Category:Conflicts in 1864
Category:Conflicts in 1865
Category:1860s in the United States
Category:1860s conflicts
Category:Presidency of Abraham Lincoln
Category:Rebellions against the United States
Category:Separatist rebellion-based civil wars
Civil War
Category:Wars of independence
Category:Andrew Johnson |
American Civil War | Table of Content | Short description, Origins, Lincoln's election, Outbreak of the war, Secession crisis, Battle of Fort Sumter, Attitude of the border states, War, Mobilization, Southern Unionists, Prisoners, Women, Union Navy, Union blockade, Blockade runners, Economic impact, Diplomacy, Eastern theater, Background, Army of the Potomac, Army of Northern Virginia, Battles, Western theater, Background, Army of the Cumberland and Army of the Tennessee, Battles, Trans-Mississippi theater, Background, Battles, Lower seaboard theater, Background, Battles, Pacific coast theater, Conquest of Virginia, Grant's Overland Campaign, Sheridan's Valley Campaign, Sherman's March to the Sea, The Waterloo of the Confederacy, End of the war, Union victory, Casualties, Emancipation, Emancipation Proclamation, Reconstruction, Memory and historiography, Lost Cause, Battlefield preservation, Commemoration, Technological significance, In works of culture and art, Literature, Film, Music, Video games, See also, Notes, References, Bibliography, Sources referenced, Web sources, Further reading, Soldier life: North and South, External links |
Andy Warhol | Short description | Andy Warhol (;Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary: "Warhol" born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol is considered the most important artist of the second half 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), the multimedia events known as the Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1966–67), and the erotic film Blue Movie (1969) that started the "Golden Age of Porn".
Born and raised in Pittsburgh in a family of Rusyn immigrants, Warhol initially pursued a successful career as a commercial illustrator in the 1950s. After exhibiting his work in art galleries, he began to receive recognition as an influential and controversial artist in the 1960s. His New York studio, The Factory, became a well-known gathering place that brought together distinguished intellectuals, drag queens, playwrights, bohemian street people, Hollywood celebrities and wealthy patrons. He directed and produced several underground films starring a collection of personalities known as Warhol superstars, and is credited with inspiring the widely used expression "15 minutes of fame." Warhol managed and produced the experimental rock band the Velvet Underground. Warhol expressed his queer identity through many of his works at a time when homosexuality was actively suppressed in the United States.
After surviving an assassination attempt by radical feminist Valerie Solanas in June 1968, Warhol focused on transforming The Factory into a business enterprise. He founded Interview magazine and authored numerous books, including The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975) and Popism: The Warhol Sixties (1980). He also hosted the television series Fashion (1979–80), Andy Warhol's TV (1980–83), and Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes (1985–87). Warhol died of cardiac arrhythmia, aged 58, after gallbladder surgery in February 1987.
Warhol has been described as the "bellwether of the art market", with several of his works ranking among the most expensive paintings ever sold. In 2013, Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) (1963) sold for $105 million, setting a record for the artist. In 2022, Shot Sage Blue Marilyn (1964) sold for $195 million, which is the highest price paid at auction for a work by an American artist. Warhol has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions, books, and documentary films. The Andy Warhol Museum in his native city of Pittsburgh, which holds an extensive permanent collection of art and archives, is the largest museum in the United States dedicated to a single artist. |
Andy Warhol | Early life and education | Early life and education
thumb|Warhol's childhood home at 3252 Dawson Street in the South Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh
Warhol was born on August 6, 1928, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was the fourth child of Ondrej Warhola (Americanized as Andrew Warhola Sr.; 1889–1942) and Julia Warhola (, 1891–1972). His parents were working-class Rusyn emigrants from Mikó, Czechoslovakia (now Miková in northeast Slovakia).
In 1912, Warhol's father emigrated to the United States and found work in a coal mine. His wife joined him nine years later in 1921. The family lived at 55 Beelen Street and later at 3252 Dawson Street in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh. They were Ruthenian Catholic and attended St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church. Warhol had two older brothers, Paul (1922–2014) and John (1925–2010), as well as an older sister, Maria (1912; died in infancy). Warhol's nephew James Warhola, became a successful children's book illustrator.
At the age of eight, Warhol had a streptococcal infection that led to scarlet fever. Because there were no antibiotics to treat the illness it progressed to rheumatic fever and ultimately the neurological condition Sydenham's chorea, sometimes referred to as St. Vitus' Dance. At times he was confined to bed and made to remain home from school. He would spend these days drawing, creating scrapbooks from Hollywood magazines, and cutting out images from comic books that his mother bought him. He also enjoyed using the family's Kodak Baby Brownie Special camera, and after noticing his passion for photography, his father and brothers built a darkroom in the basement for him.
thumb|A toddler Warhol (right) with his mother, Julia, and his brother, John, 1930When Warhol started art classes at Holmes School in 1937, his art teacher saw his potential and got him admitted to Saturday drawing lessons at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh. In 1942, his father died after drinking contaminated water from a coal mine in West Virginia.
Warhol excelled in school and won a Scholastic Art and Writing Award. After graduating from Schenley High School in 1945, he enrolled at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, where he studied commercial art. During his time there, Warhol joined the campus Modern Dance Club and Beaux Arts Society. He also served as art director of the student art magazine, Cano, illustrating a cover in 1948 and a full-page interior illustration in 1949. These are believed to be his first two published artworks. Warhol earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in pictorial design in 1949. |
Andy Warhol | Career | Career |
Andy Warhol | 1940s | 1940s
Warhol moved to New York City with $200 a week after graduating from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in June 1949. He was accompanied by his classmate Philip Pearlstein. They lived in a six-floor walk-up tenement apartment on St. Mark's Place near Tompkins Square Park.
Warhol went to see Tina Fredericks, the art director of Glamour magazine, on his second day in New York. He had met Fredericks on his brief visit to New York the year prior. His career as a commercial artist began when she commissioned him to draw shoes for an advertisement after purchasing a small $10 drawing of an orchestra for herself.Benstock, Shari and Suzanne Ferriss (editors). Footnotes: On Shoes; Rutgers University Press; February 1, 2001; ; pp. 44–48. |
Andy Warhol | 1950s | 1950s
In 1952, Alexander Iolas is credited as discovering Warhol, and he organized his first solo show at the Hugo Gallery in New York.
In 1955, Warhol began designing advertisements for shoe manufacturer Israel Miller. He developed his "blotted line" technique, applying ink to paper and then blotting the ink while still wet, which was akin to a printmaking process on the most rudimentary scale. His use of tracing paper and ink allowed him to repeat the basic image and also to create endless variations on the theme.Benstock, Shari and Suzanne Ferriss (editors). Footnotes: On Shoes; Rutgers University Press; February 1, 2001; ; pp. 44–48. American photographer John Coplans recalled that "nobody drew shoes the way Andy did. He somehow gave each shoe a temperament of its own, a sort of sly, Toulouse-Lautrec kind of sophistication, but the shape and the style came through accurately and the buckle was always in the right place. The kids in the apartment [which Andy shared in New York – note by Coplans] noticed that the vamps on Andy's shoe drawings kept getting longer and longer but [Israel] Miller didn't mind. Miller loved them."
In 1956, Warhol was included in his first group exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. That year, he traveled around the world with his friend, production designer Charles Lisanby, studying art and culture in several countries.
In 1956, Warhol began to sketch ornate footwear as a hobby. He designed whimsical shoes that were embellished with gold leaf, and each represented a famous figure such as Truman Capote, Kate Smith, James Dean, Julie Andrews, Elvis Presley, and Zsa Zsa Gabor. They sold for $50 to $225 apiece when they were exhibited at the Bodley Gallery in New York in 1957.
To attract attention to himself as an artist, Warhol printed books of his illustrations such as 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy (1957), which he would distribute to people, in an attempt to generate work. He would often use his mother Julia Warhol's calligraphy to accompany his illustrations.
Warhol habitually used the expedient of tracing photographs projected with an epidiascope. Using prints by Edward Wallowitch, who Warhol later called his "first boyfriend", the photographs would undergo a subtle transformation during Warhol's often cursory tracing of contours and hatching of shadows. Warhol used Wallowitch's photograph Young Man Smoking a Cigarette () for a 1958 design for a book cover he submitted to Simon and Schuster for the Walter Ross pulp novel The Immortal, and later used others for his series of paintings.Three one-dollar bills mounted on cardboard (1962). Photograph by Edward Wallowitch. The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.Printz, N. (2014). Making Money/Printing Painting: Warhol's Dollar Bill Paintings. Criticism, 56(3), 535–557.
With the rapid expansion of the record industry, RCA Records hired Warhol, along with another freelance artist, Sid Maurer, to design album covers and promotional materials. Warhol was also working with high-end advertising clients such as Tiffany & Co. by the late 1950's. |
Andy Warhol | 1960s | 1960s
thumb|Warhol and Tennessee Williams with Rod La Rod (left) and Paul Morrissey (background) aboard the SS France in New York, 1967.
At a time when traditional artists did not buy the work of other artists, Warhol collected them. In order to survive, gallery artists typically did commercial work, such as window displays, and avoided using their real names because it was frowned upon. In contrast, Warhol gained recognition as a commercial artist, which caused tension with other artists.
This period was a key moment in the development of his persona. Some have suggested that his frequent refusal to comment on his work, to speak about himself (confining himself in interviews to responses like "Um, no" and "Um, yes", and often allowing others to speak for him)—and even the evolution of his pop style—can be traced to the years when Warhol was first dismissed by the inner circles of the New York art world.
In 1960, Warhol purchased a townhouse at 1342 Lexington Avenue in the Carnegie Hill neighborhood of Manhattan, which he also used as his art studio.
In April 1961, Warhol's pop paintings were exhibited for the first time in the window display of the Bonwit Teller department store on Fifth Avenue. Five paintings based on comic strips and newspaper ads served as the backdrop for mannequins wearing spring dresses: Saturday's Popeye, Little King, Superman, Before and After, and Advertisement.
In 1962, Warhol was taught silkscreen printmaking techniques by Max Arthur Cohn at his graphic arts business in Manhattan."Max Arthur Cohn" at SAAM. Warhol is often considered to be a pioneer in silkscreen printmaking and his techniques became more elaborate throughout his career. In his book Popism: The Warhol Sixties, Warhol writes: "When you do something exactly wrong, you always turn up something".
In May 1962, Warhol was featured in an article in Time with his painting Big Campbell's Soup Can with Can Opener (Vegetable) (1962), which initiated his most sustained motif, the Campbell's soup can. That painting became Warhol's first to be shown in a museum when it was exhibited at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford in July 1962. On July 9, 1962, Warhol's exhibition opened at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles with Campbell's Soup Cans, marking his West Coast debut of pop art.
In November 1962, Warhol had an exhibition at Eleanor Ward's Stable Gallery in New York. The exhibit included the works Gold Marilyn, eight of the classic Marilyn series also named Flavor Marilyns, Marilyn Diptych, 100 Soup Cans, 100 Coke Bottles, and 100 Dollar Bills. Gold Marilyn was bought by the architect Philip Johnson and donated to the Museum of Modern Art.
thumb|upright|Campbell's Soup I (1968)
In December 1962, New York City's Museum of Modern Art hosted a symposium on pop art, during which artists such as Warhol were attacked for "capitulating" to consumerism. Critics were appalled by Warhol's open acceptance of market culture, which set the tone for his reception.
In 1963, Warhol formed The Druds, a short-lived avant-garde noise band that included notable figures from the New York minimal art and proto-conceptual art scenes, including Larry Poons, La Monte Young, Walter De Maria, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenberg, and Lucas Samaras.
In January 1963, Warhol rented his first studio—an old firehouse at 159 East 87th Street—where he created his Elvis series, which included Eight Elvises (1963) and Triple Elvis (1963). These portraits, along with a series of Elizabeth Taylor portraits, were shown at his second exhibition at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. Later that year, Warhol relocated his studio to East 47th Street, which would turn into The Factory. The Factory became a popular gathering spot for a wide range of artists, writers, musicians and underground celebrities.
Warhol had his second exhibition at the Stable Gallery in the spring of 1964, which featured sculptures of commercial boxes stacked and scattered throughout the space to resemble a warehouse. For the exhibition, Warhol custom ordered wooden boxes and silkscreened graphics onto them. The sculptures—Brillo Box, Del Monte Peach Box, Heinz Tomato Ketchup Box, Kellogg's Cornflakes Box, Campbell's Tomato Juice Box and Mott's Apple Juice Box—sold for $200 to $400 depending on the size of the box.
A pivotal event was The American Supermarket exhibition at Paul Bianchini's Upper East Side gallery in late 1964. The show was presented as a typical small supermarket environment, except that everything in it—from the produce, canned goods, meat, posters on the wall, etc.—was created by prominent pop artists of the time, among them sculptor Claes Oldenburg, Mary Inman and Bob Watts. Warhol designed a $12 paper shopping bag—plain white with a red Campbell's soup can. His painting of a can of a Campbell's soup cost $1,500 while each autographed can sold for three for $18, $6.50 each. The exhibit was one of the first mass events that directly confronted the general public with both pop art and the perennial question of what art is.Wendy Weitman, Pop Impressions Europe/USA: Prints and Multiples from the Museum of Modern Art (NY: Museum of Modern Art, 1999).
Warhol used assistants to increase his productivity and these collaborations would remain a defining and controversial aspect of his working methods throughout his career. One of Warhol's most important collaborators during this period was Gerard Malanga who assisted him with the production of silkscreens and films at The Factory, Warhol's studio that was covered in aluminium foil and painted silver by Billy Name.
In November 1964, Warhol's first Flowers series exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York. In May 1965, his second Flowers series, which had more sizes and color variation that the previous, was shown at Galerie Ileana Sonnabend in Paris. During this trip Warhol announced that he was retiring from painting to focus on film.thumb|Warhol amid his Brillo Box (1964) sculptures at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, 1968
From the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, Warhol also groomed a retinue of bohemian and counterculture eccentrics upon whom he bestowed the designation "superstars", including Baby Jane Holzer, Brigid Berlin, Ondine, Edie Sedgwick, Ingrid Superstar, Nico, International Velvet, Mary Woronov, Viva, Ultra Violet, Joe Dallesandro, Candy Darling, Holly Woodlawn, Jackie Curtis and Jane Forth. These people participated in the Factory films, and some—like Berlin—remained friends with Warhol until his death. Important figures in the New York underground art/cinema world, such as writer John Giorno and filmmaker Jack Smith, also appear in Warhol films of the 1960s, revealing Warhol's connections to a diverse range of artistic scenes during this time. Less well known was his support and collaboration with several teenagers during this era, who would achieve prominence later in life, including writer David Dalton, photographer Stephen Shore, and artist Bibbe Hansen (mother of pop musician Beck).
The experimental rock group The Velvet Underground was taken on by Warhol around the end of 1965. In his capacity as their manager, he included them as a key component of his Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia performances in 1966 and 1967, and he funded their debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967).
Warhol made a conscious decision to oppose conventional painting, stating that he no longer believed in painting. In response to art dealer Ivan Karp's suggestion to paint cows, Warhol produced Cow Wallpaper, which covered the walls of the Leo Castelli Gallery during his April 1966 exhibition.
In 1967, Warhol established Factory Additions for his printmaking and publishing enterprise. To duplicate prints for a wide audience, Factory Additions published multiple portfolios of ten images each in editions of 250. These were then printed using professional screen printers.
Warhol intended to present the film Chelsea Girls (1966) at the 1967 Cannes Film Festival, but it wasn't shown because "the festival authorities explained that the film was too long, there were technical problems."
To finance his film productions Warhol began going on college lecture tours, where he screened some of his underground films and answered audience questions. Actor Allen Midgette was sent by Warhol to impersonate him during a West Coast college tour in October 1967. Warhol reimbursed the four institutions where he did not appear and returned to the campuses in 1968.
In February 1968, Warhol's first solo museum exhibition was mounted at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm.
1968 assassination attempt
On June 3, 1968, radical feminist writer Valerie Solanas shot Warhol and Mario Amaya, art critic and curator, at The Factory. Solanas had been a marginal figure in the Factory scene before the shooting. She authored the SCUM Manifesto, a separatist feminist tract that advocated the elimination of men; and appeared in the Warhol film I, a Man (1967).Jobey, Liz, "Solanas and Son," The Guardian (Manchester, England), August 24, 1996, p, T10 and following. Amaya received only minor injuries and was released from the hospital later the same day. Warhol was seriously wounded by the attack and barely survived: he remained in hospital for nearly two months. Solanas turned herself in to the police a few hours after the attack and said that Warhol "had too much control over my life." She was subsequently diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and eventually sentenced to three years in prison.
Jed Johnson, an assistant who was at the Factory during the shooting, visited Warhol daily during his hospitalization, and the two developed an intimate relationship. Johnson moved in with Warhol shortly after he was discharged from the hospital to help him recuperate and take care of his ailing mother, Julia Warhola.
The assassination attempt had a profound effect on Warhol's life and art. He had physical effects for the rest of his life, including being required to wear a surgical corset. The Factory became more regulated, and Warhol focused on making it a business enterprise. He credited his collaborator Paul Morrissey with transforming the Factory into a "regular office."
Post-shooting
In August 1968, Warhol made an appearance in court after Phillip "Fufu" Van Scoy Smith, an investor in a canceled film adaptation of the Charlotte Brontë novel Jane Eyre, sued him for $80,000. A legal battle ensued for 2 years, ending after the backer failed to show up in court.
In September 1968, Warhol and Ultra Violet attended a party to celebrate the completion of the film Midnight Cowboy. In the film, there is a party scene featuring members of the Factory that was filmed during Warhol's hospitalization.
Warhol hosted a party at the Factory for Nico's album The Marble Index in September 1968. Warhol, Viva and Ultra Violet appeared on the cover of the November 10, 1968, issue of The New York Times Magazine.
In 1969, Warhol and his entourage traveled to Los Angeles to discuss a prospective movie deal with Columbia Pictures. Warhol, who has always had an interest in photography, used a Polaroid camera to document his recuperation after the shooting. In 1969, some of his photographs were published in Esquire magazine. He would become well known for always carrying his Polaroid camera to chronicle his encounters. Eventually, he used instant photography as the basis for his silkscreen portraits when he resumed painting in the 1970s.
Warhol and British journalist John Wilcock founded Interview magazine in the fall of 1969. The magazine was initially published as inter/VIEW: A Monthly Film Journal. It was revamped a few years later and came to represent Warhol's social life and fascination with celebrity.
In 1969, Warhol received an invitation to curate an exhibition using items from the permanent collection of the RISD Museum in Providence. In October 1969, the exhibition Raid the Icebox opened at Rice University's Institute for the Arts in Houston. In 1970, the show traveled to the Isaac Delgado Museum in New Orleans before arriving at the RISD Museum. |
Andy Warhol | 1970s | 1970s
thumb|Warhol photographed by Jack Mitchell with his dachshund Archie, 1973Compared to the success and scandal of Warhol's work in the 1960s, the early 1970s were much quieter years, as he became more entrepreneurial. He was generally regarded as quiet, shy and a meticulous observer. Art critic Robert Hughes called him "the white mole of Union Square". His fashion evolved from what Warhol called his "leather look" to his "Brooks Brothers look," which included a Brooks Brothers shirt and tie, DeNoyer blazer, and Levi jeans.
As Warhol continued to forge into filmmaking, he had established himself as "one of the most celebrated and well-known pop art figures to emerge from the sixties." The Pasadena Art Museum in Pasadena organized a major retrospective of his work in 1970. The show traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands; Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Tate Gallery, London; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. The Whitney exhibition in 1971 distinctly featured Warhol's Cow Wallpaper (1966) as the backdrop for his paintings.
In May 1971, Warhol's theater production, Andy Warhol's Pork, opened at the La MaMa Experimental Theatre in New York. In August 1971, it was brought to the Roundhouse in London.
In late 1971, Warhol and his business partner Paul Morrissey purchased Eothen, an oceanfront estate in Montauk, New York on Long Island. They began renting the main house on the property in 1972. Lee Radziwill, Jackie Kennedy, The Rolling Stones, Elizabeth Taylor, Truman Capote, and Halston were among the estate's notable guests.
thumb|upright|From 1974 to 1987, Warhol lived at 57 E 66th St in the Lenox Hill neighborhood of Manhattan. In 1998, the townhouse was designated a cultural landmark.Warhol is credited with both the cover concept and photography for The Rolling Stones' albums Sticky Fingers (1971). He received a Grammy nomination for Best Album Cover at the 14th Annual Grammy Awards in 1972. Although Warhol was considered to be apolitical, he participated in an exhibition with the poster Vote McGovern (1972) in effort to raise funds for George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign.
Warhol and his partner Jed Johnson got a dachshund puppy, Archie Warhol, in November 1972. Warhol doted on Archie and took him everywhere: to the studio, parties, restaurants, and on trips to Europe. He created portraits of Johnson, Archie, and Amos—a second dachshund they got a few years later.
Warhol began traveling to Europe more frequently and developed a fondness for Paris. Warhol had an apartment that he shared with his business manager Fred Hughes on the Left Bank of Paris on Rue du Cherche-Midi.
In October 1972, Warhol's work was included in the inaugural show at the Art Museum of South Texas in Corpus Christi, Texas.Between 1972 and 1973, Warhol created a series of portraits of Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong with funding from two New York galleries, Knoedler & Co. and the Leo Castelli Gallery, as well as art collector Peter Brant. In February 1974, some of the Mao portraits were installed at the Musée Galliera in Paris.
In 1974, Warhol and Johnson moved from his home on Lexington Avenue to a townhouse at 57 East 66th Street in Manhattan's Lenox Hill neighborhood. By this time, Warhol's public presence had increased significantly due to his attendance at parties. In 1974, he said, "I try to go around so often so much and try to go to every party so that they'll be bored with me and stop writing about me."
thumb|left|Andy Warhol at his exhibition at the Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara, 1975Warhol designed the sets for the Broadway musical Man on the Moon by John Philips of the Mamas & the Papas, which opened in January 1975 at the Little Theatre in New York. In May 1975, Warhol attended President Gerald Ford's state dinner in honor of the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, at the White House. In September 1975, he went on an eight-city U.S. book tour for his book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B & Back Again), followed by stops in Italy, France, and England.
In 1976, Warhol and painter Jamie Wyeth were commissioned to paint each other's portraits by the Coe Kerr Gallery in Manhattan. In January 1977, Warhol traveled to Kuwait for the opening of his exhibition at the Dhaiat Abdulla Al Salem Gallery. In June 1977, Warhol was invited to a special reception honoring the "Inaugural Artists" who had contributed prints to the Jimmy Carter presidential campaign. In 1977, Warhol was commissioned by art collector Richard Weisman to create Athletes, ten portraits consisting of the leading athletes of the day.
The opening of Studio 54 in 1977 ushered in a new era in New York City nightlife. Warhol would often socialize at Studio 54 and take note of the drug-fueled activities that his friends engaged in at parties. In 1977, Warhol began taking nude photographs of men in various poses and performing sexual acts—referred to as "landscapes"—for what became known as the Torsos and Sex Parts series. Most of the men were street hustlers and male prostitutes brought to the Factory by Halston's lover Victor Hugo. This caused tension in Warhol's relationship with Johnson who did not approve of his friendship with Hugo. "When Studio 54 opened things changed with Andy. That was New York when it was at the height of its most decadent period, and I didn't take part. I never liked that scene, I was never comfortable. ... Andy was just wasting his time, and it was really upsetting. ... He just spent his time with the most ridiculous people," said Johnson.thumb|President Jimmy Carter and Warhol at the White House, 1977
In 1979, Warhol formed a publishing company, Andy Warhol Books, and released the book Exposures, which contained his photographs of famous friends and acquaintances. In November 1979, he embarked on a three-week book tour in the US.
According to former Interview editor Bob Colacello, Warhol devoted much of his time to rounding up new, rich patrons for portrait commissions—including Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, his wife Empress Farah Pahlavi, his sister Princess Ashraf Pahlavi, Mick Jagger, Liza Minnelli, John Lennon, Diana Ross and Brigitte Bardot. In November 1979, the Whitney Museum of American Art mounted the exhibition Andy Warhol: Portraits of the '70s to celebrate the "very commercial celebrity of the '70s, the decade of People magazine and designer jeans." Some critics disliked his exhibits of portraits of personalities and celebrities, calling them superficial, facile and commercial, with no depth or indication of the significance of the subjects. |
Andy Warhol | 1980s | 1980s
Warhol had a re-emergence of critical and financial success in the 1980s, partially due to his affiliation and friendships with a number of prolific younger artists, who were dominating the "bull market" of 1980s New York art: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, David Salle and other so-called Neo-Expressionists, as well as members of the Transavantgarde movement in Europe, including Francesco Clemente and Enzo Cucchi. Warhol also earned street credibility and graffiti artist Fab Five Freddy paid homage to him by painting an entire train with Campbell soup cans.thumb|Warhol at the Jewish Museum in New York, 1980His 1980 exhibition Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century at the Jewish Museum in Manhattan was panned by critics. Warhol—who was uninterested in Judaism and Jews—had described in his diary as "They're going to sell."
The New York Academy of Art was founded in part by Warhol. First established in 1980, the institute's mission was to "revive traditional methods of training artists." According to fellow co-founder Stuart Pivar, "What happened was that Modernism got boring [for Warhol] ... But his overall game plan, what he really believed, was that the modern age was going away and that we were entering a neoclassical period."
In 1981, Warhol worked on a project with Peter Sellars and Lewis Allen that would create a traveling stage show called, A No Man Show, with a life-sized animatronic robot in the exact image of Warhol. The Andy Warhol Robot would then be able to read Warhol's diaries as a theatrical production. Warhol was quoted as saying, "I'd like to be a machine, wouldn't you?"
Warhol also had an appreciation for intense Hollywood glamour. He once said: "I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They're so beautiful. Everything's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic." Warhol occasionally walked the fashion runways and did product endorsements, represented by Zoli Agency and later Ford Models.
In 1983, Warhol was commissioned to create a poster for the centennial of the Brooklyn Bridge. The poster was his contribution to the 1983 New York Art Expo.
Warhol created a series of endangered species silkscreen prints for his exhibition Warhol's Animals: Species at Risk at New York City's American Museum of Natural History in April 1983. Warhol donated 10 of the 150 sets he made to wildlife organizations "so they could sell them to raise money."
Prior to the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics, he teamed with 15 other artists, including David Hockney and Cy Twombly, and contributed a Speed Skater print to the Art and Sport collection. The Speed Skater was used for the official Sarajevo Winter Olympics poster.
In 1984, Vanity Fair commissioned Warhol to produce a portrait of Prince, to accompany an article that celebrated the success of Purple Rain and its accompanying movie. Referencing the many celebrity portraits produced by Warhol across his career, Orange Prince (1984) was created using a similar composition to the Marilyn "Flavors" series from 1962, among some of Warhol's first celebrity portraits. Prince is depicted in a pop color palette commonly used by Warhol, in bright orange with highlights of bright green and blue. The facial features and hair are screen-printed in black over the orange background.
In September 1985, Warhol's joint exhibition with Basquiat, Paintings, opened to negative reviews at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery. That month, despite apprehension from Warhol, his silkscreen series Reigning Queens was shown at the Leo Castelli Gallery. In the Andy Warhol Diaries, Warhol noted: "They were supposed to be only for Europe—nobody here cares about royalty and it'll be another bad review."
In January 1987, Warhol traveled to Milan for the opening of his last exhibition, Last Supper, at the Palazzo delle Stelline. The next month, Warhol modeled with jazz musician Miles Davis for Koshin Satoh's fashion show at the Tunnel in New York City on February 17, 1987. |
Andy Warhol | Death | Death
Warhol was initially diagnosed with a gallstone in 1973, but he adamantly rejected surgery because he feared hospitals. When he was insistent about avoiding surgery, his internist Dr. Denton Cox attempted to obtain an experimental medication from Japan. The artist also sought guidance from a chiropractor and nutritionist, who suggested that he wear a small crystal. Dehydrated and unable to eat, Warhol was in excruciating pain by February 1987.
Warhol was admitted to New York Hospital in Manhattan on February 20, and he underwent gallbladder surgery on February 21. His surgeon Dr. Bjorn Thorbjarnarson found his gallbladder "on the verge of perforating" and in danger of "spilling the infection into (Warhol's) belly." Warhol was awake and able to walk about, make phone calls, and watch television when both of his doctors visited him following the four-hour operation. His private nurse, Min Cho, saw his growing pallor at 4:30 the following morning, but she didn't call the hospital's cardiac-arrest team until 5:45 a.m., when he was "unresponsive" and turning blue. He was pronounced dead at 6:31 a.m. from sudden cardiac arrhythmia.
thumb|Warhol's grave at St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania
Warhol's brothers took his body back to Pittsburgh, where an open-casket wake was held at the Thomas P. Kunsak Funeral Home. The solid bronze casket had gold-plated rails and white upholstery. Warhol was dressed in a black cashmere suit, a paisley tie, and a platinum wig. He was laid out holding a small prayer book and a red rose. The funeral liturgy was held at the Holy Ghost Byzantine Catholic Church on Pittsburgh's North Side on February 26, 1987. Monsignor Peter Tay delivered the eulogy. After the liturgy, the casket, covered with white roses and asparagus ferns, was driven to St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery in Bethel Park, a south suburb of Pittsburgh, where Warhol was buried near his parents. The priest said a brief prayer at the graveside and sprinkled holy water on the casket. Before the casket was lowered, Warhol's close friend and Interview staffer Paige Powell placed copies of the February and March issues and a bottle of Beautiful Eau de Parfum by Estée Lauder into his grave.
A memorial service for Warhol was held at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan on April 1, 1987. It was attended by over 2,000 people, including Warhol collaborators and numerous celebrities such as Raquel Welch, Debbie Harry, Liza Minnelli, Claus von Bülow, and Calvin Klein, among others. Eulogies were given by John Richardson and Yoko Ono. Following the memorial, there was a luncheon at the Diamond Horseshoe nightclub beneath the Paramount Hotel. |
Andy Warhol | Wrongful death lawsuit | Wrongful death lawsuit
In April 1987, the New York State Health Department released a report that Warhol was given inadequate care by New York Hospital from the time he was admitted until the hours before his death. These included not performing the appropriate work-up tests prior to surgery, giving Warhol antibiotics to which he may have experienced an allergic response, causing him to become overhydrated, and repeatedly failing to take accurate notes on his chart. There were no issues with the procedure itself, according to the report. In response, the hospital dismissed the private nurse who had been employed to care for Warhol and penalized the staff nurse who had been tasked with overseeing her. However, the hospital claimed that the nursing deficiencies were not significant enough to cause Warhol's death.
In December 1991, Warhol's family sued the hospital in the New York Supreme Court for inadequate care, before judge Ira Gammerman, saying that the arrhythmia was caused by improper care and water intoxication. The malpractice case was quickly settled out of court; Warhol's family received an undisclosed sum of money.
Prior to his surgery, doctors expected Warhol to survive, though a re-evaluation of the case about thirty years after his death showed many indications that Warhol's surgery was in fact riskier than originally thought. It was widely reported at the time that Warhol had died of a "routine" surgery, though when considering factors such as his age, a family history of gallbladder problems, his previous gunshot wound, and his medical state in the weeks leading up to the procedure, the potential risk of death following the surgery appeared to have been significant. |
Andy Warhol | Art works | Art works |
Andy Warhol | Paintings | Paintings
By the beginning of the 1960s, pop art was an experimental form that several artists were independently adopting; some of these pioneers, such as Roy Lichtenstein, would later become synonymous with the movement. Warhol, who would become famous as the "Pope of Pop", turned to this new style, where popular subjects could be part of the artist's palette. His early paintings show images taken from cartoons and advertisements, hand-painted with paint drips. Those drips emulated the style of successful abstract expressionists such as Willem de Kooning.
From these beginnings, he developed his later style and subjects. Instead of working on a signature subject matter, as he started out to do, he worked more and more on a signature style, slowly eliminating the handmade from the artistic process. Warhol was an early adopter of the silkscreen printmaking process as a technique for making paintings. His later drawings were traced from slide projections. Warhol had several assistants through the years, including Gerard Malanga, Ronnie Cutrone, and George Condo, who produced his silkscreen multiples, following his directions to make different versions and variations.
Warhol's first pop art paintings were displayed in April 1961, serving as the backdrop for New York Department Store Bonwit Teller's window display.Smith, Patrick S (1986). Andy Warhol's Art and Films; UMI Research Press; p.98; For his first major exhibition in 1962, Warhol painted his famous cans of Campbell's soup, which he claimed to have had for lunch for 20 years. Warhol began to make paintings of iconic American objects such as dollar bills, mushroom clouds, electric chairs, cans, Coca-Cola bottles, and celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and Elizabeth Taylor, as well as newspaper headlines. His work became popular and controversial. Warhol had this to say about Coca-Cola:
In 1962, Warhol created his famous Marilyn series. The Flavor Marilyns were selected from a group of fourteen canvases in the sub-series, each measuring 20" x 16". Some of the canvases were named after various candy Life Savers flavors, including Cherry Marilyn, Lemon Marilyn and Licorice Marilyn. The others are identified by their background colors.
Warhol produced both comic and serious works; his subject could be a soup can or an electric chair. Warhol used the same techniques—silkscreens, reproduced serially, and often painted with bright colors—whether he painted celebrities, everyday objects, or images of suicide, car crashes and disasters, as in the 1962–63 Death and Disaster series.
In the 1970s, Warhol evolved into a commercial artist, painting mostly commissioned portraits of celebrities. In 1979, Warhol was commissioned to paint a BMW M1 Group 4 racing version for the fourth installment of the BMW Art Car project. He was initially asked to paint a BMW 320i in 1978, but the car model was changed and it didn't qualify for the race that year. Warhol was the first artist to paint directly onto the automobile himself instead of letting technicians transfer a scale-model design to the car. Reportedly, it took him only 23 minutes to paint the entire car. Racecar drivers Hervé Poulain, Manfred Winkelhock and Marcel Mignot drove the car at the 1979 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Some of Warhol's work, as well as his own personality, has been described as being Keatonesque. Warhol revelled in the role of "monosyllabic oddity," playing dumb to the media. He sometimes refused to explain his work. He suggested that all one needs to know about his work is "already there 'on the surface.'" Interior designer Jed Johnson, Warhol's partner who decorated his home, stated that Warhol objected to hanging his own artwork on his walls because it was "too corny" to put up your own work. "He felt an artist should keep neutral expression on his face when he showed his work to other people, that to betray pleasure or displeasure was, again 'corny.' I'd watch him at many museum and gallery openings of his shows, and he followed that policy consistently," said Johnson.
His Rorschach inkblots are intended as pop comments on art and what art could be. His cow wallpaper (wallpaper with a cow motif) and oxidation paintings (canvases prepared with copper paint that was then oxidized with urine) are also noteworthy in this context. Equally noteworthy is the way these works—and their means of production—mirrored the atmosphere at Andy's New York "Factory". Former Interview editor Bob Colacello provides some details on Andy's "piss paintings":
thumb|Warhol with Jean-Michel Basquiat, Bruno Bischofberger, and Francesco Clemente in 1984
Warhol's 1982 portrait of Basquiat, Jean-Michel Basquiat, is a silkscreen over an oxidized copper "piss painting". After many years of silkscreen, oxidation, photography, etc., Warhol returned to painting with a brush in hand. In 1983, Warhol began collaborating with Basquiat and Francesco Clemente. Warhol and Basquiat created a series of more than 50 large collaborative works between 1984 and 1985. Despite criticism when these were first shown, Warhol called some of them "masterpieces", and they were influential for his later work.Fretz, Eric, Jean-Michel Basquiat: A Biography. Greenwood Press, 2010. .
In 1984, Warhol was commissioned by collector and gallerist Alexander Iolas to produce work based on Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper for an exhibition at the old refectory of the Palazzo delle Stelline in Milan, opposite from the Santa Maria delle Grazie where Leonardo da Vinci's mural can be seen.Claudia Schmuckli, "Andy Warhol: The Last Supper" (June 1999 – December 2001) Guggenheim Museum SoHo. Retrieved September 21, 2014. Warhol exceeded the demands of the commission and produced nearly 100 variations on the theme, mostly silkscreens and paintings, and among them a collaborative sculpture with Basquiat, the Ten Punching Bags (Last Supper).Collaboration with Andy Warhol: Jean Michel Basquiat , The Andy Warhol Museum. Retrieved September 21, 2014. The Milan exhibition that opened in January 1987 with a set of 22 silk-screens, was the last exhibition for both the artist and the gallerist.Court dispute over Alexander Iolas' estate: "Anagnostou vs. Stifel Case – Supreme Court of the State of New York" , Leagle, Inc., December 6, 1990. Retrieved September 21, 2014. The series of The Last Supper was seen by some as "arguably his greatest", but by others as "wishy-washy, religiose" and "spiritless".Anthony Haden-Guest, "Warhol's Last Supper" , ArtNet, 1999. It is the largest series of religious-themed works by any American artist.
Artist Maurizio Cattelan describes that it is difficult to separate daily encounters from the art of Andy Warhol: "That's probably the greatest thing about Warhol: the way he penetrated and summarized our world, to the point that distinguishing between him and our everyday life is basically impossible, and in any case useless." Warhol was an inspiration for Cattelan's magazine and photography compilations, such as Permanent Food, Charley, and Toilet Paper.Spector, Nancy. Maurizio Cattelan: All. New York, NY: Guggenheim Museum Publications, 2011
In the period just before his death, Warhol was working on Cars, a series of paintings for Mercedes-Benz. |
Andy Warhol | Drawings | Drawings
Despite being most known for his work in printmaking, particularly silkscreen, Warhol was also a very skilled illustrator and draughtsman. His early drawings on paper provide a feeling of ease and immediacy since they have similarities to both blind contour and continuous line drawing techniques. Warhol pioneered the blotted line technique, which combined aspects of printmaking and graphite drawing on paper, while he was working in commercial advertising. The drawings from his last years demonstrate the skill and technique that have been refined over the course of his illustrious career. |
Andy Warhol | Art market | Art market
In 1970, screens and film matrixes that had been used to produce original Warhol works in the 1960s were taken to Europe for the production of Warhol screenprints under the name "Sunday B Morning". Warhol signed and numbered one edition of 250 before subsequent unauthorized unsigned versions were produced. The unauthorized works were the result of a falling out between Warhol and some of his New York City studio employees who went to Brussels where they produced work stamped with "Sunday B Morning" and "Add Your Own Signature Here". Since the works began as a collaboration, Warhol facilitated exact duplication by providing the photo negatives and precise color codes. Some of the unauthorized productions bore the markings "This is not by me, Andy Warhol". The most famous unauthorized reproductions are 1967 Marilyn Monroe portfolio screenprints. These "Sunday B Morning" Marilyn Monroe prints were among those still under production as of 2013. Art galleries and dealers also market Sunday B Morning reprint versions of several other screenprint works including Flowers, Campbell's Soup I, Campbell's Soup Cans II,Gold Marilyn Monroe Mao and Dollare bill prints. Although the original Sunday B Morning versions had black stamps on the back, by the 1980s, they switched to blue.
In 1970, Warhol's painting Campbell's Soup Can With Peeling Label (1962) sold for $60,000 at an auction by Parke-Bernet Galleries. At the time it was the high price ever paid at a public auction for a work by a living American artist.
In the 1970s, the price of a commissioned portrait by Warhol was $25,000, two for $40,000. The value of Andy Warhol's work has been on an endless upward trajectory since his death in 1987. In 2014, his works accumulated $569 million at auction, which accounted for more than a sixth of the global art market. However, there have been some dips. According to art dealer Dominique Lévy: "The Warhol trade moves something like a seesaw being pulled uphill: it rises and falls, but each new high and low is above the last one." She attributes this to the consistent influx of new collectors intrigued by Warhol. "At different moments, you've had different groups of collectors entering the Warhol market, and that resulted in peaks in demand, then satisfaction and a slow down," before the process repeats another demographic or the next generation.
In 1998, Orange Marilyn (1964), a depiction of Marilyn Monroe, sold for $17.3 million, which at the time set a new record as the highest price paid for a Warhol artwork. In 2007, one of Warhol's 1963 paintings of Elizabeth Taylor, Liz (Colored Liz), which was owned by actor Hugh Grant, sold for $23.7 million at Christie's.
In 2007, Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson sold Warhol's Turquoise Marilyn (1964) to financier Steven A. Cohen for $80 million. In May 2007, Green Car Crash (1963) sold for $71.1 million and Lemon Marilyn (1962) sold for $28 million at Christie's post-war and contemporary art auction. In 2007, Large Campbell's Soup Can (1964) was sold at a Sotheby's auction to a South American collector for 7.4 million."Early Lucian Freud Painting Leads Sotheby's $100 Million Contemporary Art Evening Sale " by Colin Gleadell, Artnet, February 10, 2016 In November 2009, 200 One Dollar Bills (1962) at Sotheby's for $43.8 million.
In 2008, Eight Elvises (1963) was sold by Annibale Berlingieri for $100 million to a private buyer. The work depicts Elvis Presley in a gunslinger pose. It was first exhibited in 1963 at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. Warhol made 22 versions of the Elvis portraits, eleven of which are held in museums. In May 2012, Double Elvis (Ferus Type) sold at auction at Sotheby's for $37 million. In November 2014, Triple Elvis (Ferus Type) sold for $81.9 million at Christie's.
In May 2010, a purple self-portrait of Warhol from 1986 that was owned by fashion designer Tom Ford sold for $32.6 million at Sotheby's. In November 2010, Men in Her Life (1962), based on Elizabeth Taylor, sold for $63.4 million at Phillips de Pury and Coca-Cola (4) (1962) sold for $35.3 million at Sotheby's. In May 2011, Warhol's first self-portrait from 1963 to 1964 sold for $38.4 million and a red self-portrait from 1986 sold for $27.5 million at Christie's. In May 2011, Liz No. 5 (Early Colored Liz) sold for $26.9 million at Phillips.
In November 2013, Warhol's rarely seen 1963 diptych, Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster), sold at Sotheby's for $105.4 million, a new record for the artist. In November 2013, Coca-Cola (3) (1962) sold for $57.3 million at Christie's. In May 2014, White Marilyn (1962) sold for $41 million at Christie's. In November 2014, Four Marlons (1964), which depicts Marlon Brando, sold for $69.6 million at Christie's. In May 2015, Silver Liz (diptych), painted in 1963, sold for $28 million and Colored Mona Lisa (1963) sold for $56.2 million at Christie's. In May 2017, Warhol's 1962 painting Big Campbell's Soup Can With Can Opener (Vegetable) sold for $27.5 million at Christie's. In 2017, billionaire hedge-fund manager Ken Griffin purchased Orange Marilyn privately for around $200 million. In March 2022, Silver Liz (Ferus Type) sold for 2.3 billion yen ($18.9 million) at Shinwa Auction, which set a new record for the highest bid ever at auction in Japan. In May 2022, Shot Sage Blue Marilyn (1964) sold for $195 million at Christie's, becoming the most expensive American artwork sold at auction. |
Andy Warhol | Collectors | Collectors
Emily and Burton Tremaine were among Warhol's early collectors and influential supporters. Among the over 15 artworks purchased,(n. d.). Tremaine Collection / Miller Company: Artworks and designs . artdesigncafe. Retrieved April 1, 2020. Marilyn Diptych (now at Tate Modern, London)Tate Modern, London. (n. d.). Andy Warhol. Marilyn diptych, (1962) . Retrieved April 1, 2020. and A boy for Meg (now at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC),National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. (n. d.). Andy Warhol. A boy for Meg, (1962) . Retrieved April 1, 2020. were purchased directly out of Warhol's studio in 1962. One Christmas, Warhol left a small Head of Marilyn Monroe by the Tremaine's door at their New York apartment in gratitude for their support and encouragement.Housley, Kathleen L. (2001). Emily Hall Tremaine: Collector on the cusp, (p. 160). Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation: Meriden, CT. Retrieved April 1, 2020.
Robert Scull and Ethel Scull were among the first people to support Warhol's artwork. Ethel Scull 36 Times (1963), which is presently housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection, was Warhol's first commissioned portrait. |
Andy Warhol | Works | Works
Warhol was a fan of "Business Art", as he stated in his book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol from A to B and Back Again. "I went into business art. I wanted to be an art business man or a business artist. Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art," he said. His transformation into a mere business artist was a point of criticism. In hindsight, however, some critics have come to view Warhol's superficiality and commerciality as "the most brilliant mirror of our times", contending that "Warhol had captured something irresistible about the zeitgeist of American culture in the 1970s."
In addition to his paintings and drawings, Warhol directed and produced films, managed the Velvet Underground, and authored numerous books, as well as producing works in such diverse media as audio, photography, sculpture, theater, fashion and performance art. His ability to blur the lines between art, commerce, and everyday life was central to his creative philosophy. |
Andy Warhol | Filmography | Filmography
thumb|Screenshot from the 1965 film Empire|alt= Grainy, black-and-white still frame of the illuminated Empire State Building against the night sky
Warhol attended the 1962 premiere of the static composition by La Monte Young called Trio for Strings and subsequently created his famous series of static films. Filmmaker Jonas Mekas, who accompanied Warhol to the premiere, claims Warhol's static films were directly inspired by that performance. Between 1963 and 1968, Warhol made more than 600 underground films, including short black-and-white "screen test" portraits of Factory visitors.Schaffner (1999), p. 73. Many of his films premiered at the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre in Greenwich Village and 55th Street Playhouse in Midtown Manhattan.
His early experimental films were silent observations of very typical daily life. Sleep (1964) monitors poet John Giorno sleeping for six hours. Kiss (1964) shows couples kissing. The film Eat (1964) consists of an artist Robert Indiana eating a mushroom for 45 minutes. The 35-minute film Blow Job (1964) is one continuous shot of the face of DeVeren Bookwalter supposedly receiving oral sex from poet Willard Maas, although the camera never tilts down to prove this.
For these efforts, Mekas presented Warhol with the Independent Film Award of 1964, "the underground's answer to Oscar." Newsday's Mike McGrady hailed Warhol as "the Cecil B. DeMille of the Off-Hollywood movie makers."
Batman Dracula is a 1964 film that was produced and directed by Warhol, without the permission of DC Comics. It was screened only at his art exhibits. A fan of the Batman series, Warhol's movie was an "homage" and is considered the first appearance of a blatantly campy Batman. The film was until recently thought to have been lost, until scenes from the picture were shown at some length in the 2006 documentary Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis.
Warhol's 1965 film Empire is an eight-hour view of the Empire State Building, and shortly after he released Vinyl (1965), an adaptation of Anthony Burgess' popular dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange. Other films record improvised encounters between Factory regulars such as Brigid Berlin, Viva, Edie Sedgwick, Candy Darling, Holly Woodlawn, Ondine, Nico and Jackie Curtis. The underground artist Jack Smith appears in the film Camp.
Warhol's most popular and critically successful film was Chelsea Girls (1966). It was the first underground film of the 1960s to reach widespread popularity and capture the attention of notable film critics. The film was highly innovative in that it consisted of two 16 mm-films being projected simultaneously, with two different stories being shown in tandem. From the projection booth, the sound would be raised for one film to elucidate that "story" while it was lowered for the other. The multiplication of images evoked Warhol's seminal silkscreen works of the early 1960s.
The 1969 film Blue Movie—in which Warhol superstars Viva and Louis Waldon make love in bed—was Warhol's last film as director. It is a seminal film in the Golden Age of Porn, and at the time it was controversial for its frank approach to a sexual encounter. Blue Movie was publicly screened in New York City in 2005, for the first time in more than 30 years.
thumb|Joe Dallesandro in Flesh (1968), directed by Paul Morrissey
In the wake of the 1968 shooting, Warhol's assistant director, Paul Morrissey, took over most of the film-making chores for the Factory collective, steering Warhol-branded cinema towards more mainstream, narrative-based, B-movie exploitation fare with Flesh (1968), Trash (1970) and Heat (1972). All of these films, including the later Andy Warhol's Dracula (1973) and Andy Warhol's Frankenstein (1974), were far more mainstream than anything Warhol as a director had attempted. Joe Dallesandro starred in these latter films, which are now considered cult classics. The last Warhol-produced film, Bad, starred Carroll Baker and was made without either Morrissey or Dallesandro. It was directed by Warhol's boyfriend Jed Johnson, who had assisted Morrissey on several films.
Most of the films directed by Warhol were pulled out of circulation by Warhol and the people around him who ran his business. With assistance from Warhol in 1984, the Whitney Museum and the Museum of Modern Art began to restore his films, which are occasionally shown at museums and film festivals. In 2022, the Andy Warhol Museum announced the launch of The Warhol TV, a streaming platform that allows users to watch free museum content and to rent a selection of Warhol's films from its collection. |
Andy Warhol | Music | Music
In 1965, Warhol adopted the band the Velvet Underground, making them a crucial element of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia performance art show. Warhol, with Paul Morrissey, acted as the band's manager, introducing them to Nico (who would perform with the band at Warhol's request). While managing The Velvet Underground, Andy would have them dressed in all black to perform in front of movies that he was also presenting. In 1966, he "produced" their first album The Velvet Underground & Nico, as well as providing its album art. His actual participation in the album's production amounted to simply paying for the studio time.
After the band's first album, Warhol and band leader Lou Reed started to disagree more about the direction the band should take, and Warhol was fired in 1967. In 1989, Reed and John Cale reunited for the first time since 1972 to write, perform, record and release the concept album Songs for Drella, as a tribute to Warhol. In October 2019, an audio tape of publicly unknown music by Reed, based on Warhol's 1975 book, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again, was reported to have been discovered in an archive at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.
Warhol designed many album covers for various artists beginning during his days as an illustrator in the 1950s. The album covers he designed include for I'm Still Swinging (1955) by The Joe Newman Octet, Blue Lights, Vols. 1 & 2 (1958) by Kenny Burrell, This Is John Wallowitch!!! (1964) by John Wallowitch, Sticky Fingers (1971) and Love You Live (1977) by The Rolling Stones, The Academy in Peril (1972) by John Cale, Silk Electric (1982) by Diana Ross, and Aretha (1986) by Aretha Franklin.
In 1984, Warhol co-directed the music video "Hello Again" by the Cars, and he appeared in the video as a bartender. In 1986, Warhol co-directed the music video "Misfit" by Curiosity Killed the Cat and he made a cameo in video. |
Andy Warhol | Books and print | Books and print
thumb|upright|right|Warhol drawing and signature
Beginning in the 1950s, Warhol produced several unbound portfolios of his work. In 1957, his bound book 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy was printed by Seymour Berlin. Berlin also printed some of Warhol's other self-published books, including Gold Book and Wild Raspberries. Warhol's book A La Recherche du Shoe Perdu marked his "transition from commercial to gallery artist".Smith, John W., Pamela Allara, and Andy Warhol. Possession Obsession: Andy Warhol and Collecting. Pittsburgh, PA: Andy Warhol Museum, 2002, p. 46. . (The title is a play on words by Warhol on the title of French author Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu.) In an effort to generate work, the majority of these books were printed in order to be given out to people to draw attention to his illustrations.
After gaining fame, Warhol "wrote" several books that were commercially published:
A, a novel (1968, ) is a literal transcription—containing spelling errors and phonetically written background noise and mumbling—of audio recordings of Ondine and several of Andy Warhol's friends hanging out at the Factory, talking, going out.
The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B & Back Again) (1975, )—according to Pat Hackett's introduction to The Andy Warhol Diaries, Pat Hackett did the transcriptions and text for the book based on daily phone conversations, sometimes (when Warhol was traveling) using audio cassettes that Andy Warhol gave her. The cassettes contained conversations with Brigid Berlin and former Interview magazine editor Bob Colacello.
Exposures (1979, ), authored by Warhol and Bob Colacello, is a book of Warhol's photographs of his famous friends with anecdotes.
Popism: The Warhol Sixties (1980, ), authored by Warhol and Pat Hackett, is a retrospective view of the 1960s and the role of pop art.
The Andy Warhol Diaries (1989, ), edited by Pat Hackett, is a diary dictated by Warhol to Hackett in daily phone conversations. Warhol started the diary to keep track of his expenses after being audited, although it soon evolved to include his personal and cultural observations.
Warhol created the fashion magazine Interview that is still published. The loopy title script on the cover is thought to be either his own handwriting or that of his mother, Julia Warhola, who would often do text work for his early commercial pieces.
Warhol created covers for a number of magazines, including Time and Vogue. |
Andy Warhol | Other media | Other media
Although Andy Warhol is most known for his paintings and films, he authored works in many different media.
thumb|upright|Silver Clouds reproduction at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, December 2015, Warhol Unlimited Exposition
Drawing: Warhol started his career as a commercial illustrator, producing drawings in "blotted-ink" style for advertisements and magazine articles. Best known of these early works are his drawings of shoes. Some of his personal drawings were self-published in small booklets, such as Yum, Yum, Yum (about food), Ho, Ho, Ho (about Christmas) and Shoes, Shoes, Shoes. His most artistically acclaimed book of drawings is probably A Gold Book, compiled of sensitive drawings of young men. A Gold Book is so named because of the gold leaf that decorates its pages. In April 2012 a sketch of 1930s singer Rudy Vallee claimed to have been drawn by Andy Warhol was found at a Las Vegas garage sale. The image was said to have been drawn when Andy was nine or 10. Various authorities have challenged the image's authenticity.
Sculpture: Warhol's most well-known sculptures are his Brillo boxes—silkscreened ink on wood replicas of the large branded cardboard boxes used to hold 24 packages of Brillo soap pads. The original Brillo design was by commercial artist James Harvey. Warhol's Brillo boxes were part of a series of "grocery carton" works that also included Heinz ketchup and Campbell's tomato juice boxes. Other famous works include the Silver Clouds—helium filled, silver mylar, pillow-shaped balloons. A Silver Cloud was included in the traveling exhibition Air Art (1968–1969) curated by Willoughby Sharp. Clouds was also adapted by Warhol for avant-garde choreographer Merce Cunningham's dance piece RainForest (1968).
Audio: At one point Warhol carried a portable recorder with him wherever he went, taping everything everybody said and did. He referred to this device as his "wife". Some of these tapes were the basis for his literary work. Another audio-work of Warhol's was his Invisible Sculpture, a presentation in which burglar alarms would go off when entering the room. Warhol's cooperation with the musicians of The Velvet Underground was driven by an expressed desire to become a music producer.
Time Capsules: In 1973, Warhol began saving ephemera from his daily life—correspondence, newspapers, souvenirs, childhood objects, even used plane tickets and food—which was sealed in plain cardboard boxes dubbed Time Capsules. By the time of his death, the collection grew to include 600, individually dated "capsules". The boxes are now housed at the Andy Warhol Museum.
Television: In 1968, Warhol produced a TV commercial for Schrafft's Restaurants in New York City, for an ice cream dessert appropriately titled the "Underground Sundae". Warhol dreamed of a television special about a favorite subject of hisNothingthat he would call Nothing Special. Later in his career he created three television shows: Fashion (1979–80), Andy Warhol's TV (1980–1983), and the MTV series Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes (1985–87).
Fashion: Warhol is quoted for having said: "I'd rather buy a dress and put it up on the wall, than put a painting, wouldn't you?" Warhol himself has been described as a modern dandy, whose authority "rested more on presence than on words".George Walden, Who's a Dandy?—Dandyism and Beau Brummell, London: Gibson Square, 2002. . Reviewed by Frances Wilson in "Uncommon People" , The Guardian, October 12, 2006. His work in fashion includes department store window displays, illustrations for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, and a career as a model. He was friends with prominent figures in the fashion industry, including former Vogue editor-in-chief Diana Vreeland, fashion designers Yves Saint Laurent, Halston, and Calvin Klein. In 1997, the Whitney Museum in New York mounted the exhibition The Warhol Look: Glamour, Style, Fashion, organized by the Andy Warhol Museum.
Performance Art: Warhol and his friends staged theatrical multimedia happenings at parties and public venues, combining music, film, slide projections and even Gerard Malanga in an S&M outfit cracking a whip. The Exploding Plastic Inevitable in 1966 was the culmination of this area of his work.
thumb|Photograph of Christopher Makos Debbie Harry by Andy Warhol, taken at the Factory during the photoshoot for her silkscreen portraits in 1980Theater: Warhol's play Andy Warhol's Pork, which opened at New York's La MaMa theater in May 1971 for a two-week run. It was brought to the Roundhouse in London for a longer run in August 1971. Pork was based on tape-recorded conversations between Brigid Berlin and And. Berlin would play Warhol tapes she had made of phone conversations between herself and her mother, socialite Honey Berlin. In 1974, Andy Warhol designed the sets for the musical Man on the Moon.
Photography: To produce his silkscreens, Warhol made photographs or had them made by his friends and assistants. These pictures were mostly taken with a specific model of Polaroid camera, The Big Shot, that Polaroid kept in production especially for Warhol. This photographic approach to painting and his snapshot method of taking pictures has had a great effect on artistic photography. Warhol was an avid photographer and also used the Polaroid SX-70 as a portable camera. He took an enormous number of photographs of Factory visitors, friends, and celebrities; many of these have been acquired by Stanford University.
Music: In 1963, Warhol founded The Druds, a short-lived avant-garde noise music band that featured prominent members of the New York proto-conceptual art and minimal art community.
Computer: Warhol used Amiga computers to generate digital art, including You Are the One, which he helped design and build with Amiga, Inc. He also displayed the difference between slow fill and fast fill on live TV with Debbie Harry as a model. |
Andy Warhol | Personal life | Personal life |
Andy Warhol | Sexuality | Sexuality
Warhol lived as a gay man before the gay liberation movement, but he often veiled his personal life in the press. In 1980, Warhol proclaimed that he was still a virgin. Former Interview editor Bob Colacello felt it was probably true and that what little sex he had was probably "a mixture of voyeurism and masturbation—to use [Andy's] word abstract." However, Warhol's assertion of virginity is contradicted by his hospital treatment in 1960 for condylomata, a sexually transmitted disease. His friend Charles Lisanby, whom Warhol had unrequited romantic feelings for, said Warhol told him sex was "messy and distasteful." "He told me he'd had sex a few times, he had tried it and didn't really like it," said Lisanby. Furthermore, some of Warhol's friends from his early career claimed to have either witnessed Warhol having sex or heard him boasting about his sexual relations.
Due to Warhol's own admission that he was asexual, it has been assumed that all his relationships were platonic. Warhol superstar Jay Johnson, whose twin brother was Warhol's longtime partner, stated, "He enjoyed the idea that he was considered a voyeur and that he was considered asexual. That was his mystique." The Factory photographer Billy Name was briefly Warhol's lover. He said Warhol was "the essence of sexuality. It permeated everything. Andy exuded it, along with his great artistic creativity. Sexuality was part of the glamour—we expressed it like teenagers." "But his personality was so vulnerable that it became a defense to put up the blank front," said Name. Warhol's other lovers included aspiring filmmaker Danny Williams and artist John Giorno. His most enduring romantic relationship was with Jed Johnson, who nursed him back to health after he was shot. Johnson collaborated with Warhol on films and went on to achieve fame as an interior designer. They "functioned as husband and husband, sharing a bed and a domestic life" for 12 years. Warhol's close friend Stuart Pivar said he "had no sex life after Jed." Paramount Pictures executive Jon Gould, Interview advertising director Paige Powell, and Factory assistant Sam Bolton were Warhol's last companions.
The impact of Warhol's homosexuality on his work and connection with the art industry has been extensively studied. Throughout his career, Warhol produced erotic photography and drawings of male nudes. Many of his most famous works—portraits of Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland, and Elizabeth Taylor and films such as Blow Job, My Hustler and Lonesome Cowboys—draw from gay underground culture or openly explore the complexity of sexuality and desire. Many of his films premiered in gay porn theaters, including the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre and 55th Street Playhouse, in the 1960s.
Early works that Warhol submitted to a fine art gallery the 1950s, homoerotic drawings of male nudes, were rejected for being too openly gay. In his book Popism, the artist recalls a conversation with the filmmaker Emile de Antonio about the difficulty he had being accepted socially by the then-more-famous (but closeted) gay artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. De Antonio explained that Warhol was "too swish and that upsets them. ... major painters try to look straight; you play up the swish—it's like an armour with you." In response, Warhol said: "I'd always had a lot of fun with that—just watching the expressions on people's faces. You'd have to have seen the way all the Abstract Expressionist painters carried themselves and the kinds of images they cultivated, to understand how shocked people were to see a painter coming on swish. I certainly wasn't a butch kind of guy by nature, but I must admit, I went out of my way to play up the other extreme." |
Andy Warhol | Religion | Religion
thumb|upright=1.5|Images of Jesus from The Last Supper (1986)
Warhol was a practicing Ruthenian Catholic. He regularly volunteered at homeless shelters in New York City, particularly during the busier times of the year, and described himself as a religious person. In 1966, his mother Julia Warhola told Esquire magazine that he was a "good religious boy" and he attended one o'clock Mass at St. Paul's every Sunday. The priest at Warhol's church, Saint Vincent Ferrer, said that the artist went there almost daily, and although he was not observed taking Communion or going to Confession, he sat or knelt in the pews at the back. The priest thought he was afraid of being recognized; Warhol said he was self-conscious about being seen in a Latin Catholic church crossing himself "in the Orthodox way" (right to left instead of the reverse). In 1980, Warhol met Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square.
Many of Warhol's later works depicted religious subjects, including two series, Details of Renaissance Paintings (1984) and The Last Supper (1986). Warhol made almost 100 variations on the theme of the Last Supper, which the Guggenheim felt "indicates an almost obsessive investment in the subject matter". In addition, a body of religious-themed works was found posthumously in his estate.
Warhol's art is noticeably influenced by the Eastern Christian tradition which was so evident in his places of worship. Warhol's brother has described the artist as "really religious, but he didn't want people to know about that because [it was] private". Despite the private nature of his faith, in Warhol's eulogy John Richardson depicted it as devout: "To my certain knowledge, he was responsible for at least one conversion. He took considerable pride in financing his nephew's studies for priesthood".
From November 2021 to June 2022, the Brooklyn Museum displayed the Andy Warhol: Revelation exhibition. The exhibition delved at the artist's enduring connection to his faith, which was often reflected in his artwork. |
Andy Warhol | Collections | Collections
Warhol was an avid collector and a "pack rat" who'd save everything. As he was relocating his Manhattan studio in 1974, Warhol began assembling Time Capsules, a modular sculpture consisting of 610 containers, each holding an average of 800 items. The majority of the containers are standard cardboard boxes, with a large trunk and forty filing cabinet drawers. This also includes the Time Capsules that Warhol created at home, which hold a plethora of personal memorabilia like letters, telephone messages, photographs, and his mother's possessions. The Time Capsules were later transferred to the Andy Warhol Museum.
His collection of American items, Andy Warhol's Folk and Funk, were exhibited at the Museum of American Folk Art in 1977, but few people knew the true extent of his collections until after his death. "Andy had the peasant's wisdom that if people (either the very rich or the very poor) knew that you had anything good, they'd probably try to take it away from you. So he hid what he had. It was inconspicuous consumption," said Warhol's partner Jed Johnson. Warhol would wear a diamond necklace under a black turtleneck, conceal his jewelry in Famous Amos cookie tins atop the canopy of his bed, and keep wads of money in his mattress. Although Warhol did not drive, he owned a Mercedes and later a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow. When he purchased the Rolls-Royce, Johnson was under strict orders to say he traded it for art.
Johnson organized his collections, and when Warhol realized he needed more room, Johnson found a townhouse on East 66th Street in 1974. Johnson decorated the four-story townhouse, creating several ornate neoclassical period rooms. While residing with Johnson, Warhol kept his promise to keep his shopping bags in the closets and top-floor storage rooms. However, once Johnson moved out in December 1980, the townhouse was overrun by Warhol's acquisitions. Warhol occupied a second-floor bedroom and basement kitchen when he died in February 1987; all other rooms, with the exception of the quarters for his Filipino servants, Nena and Aurora, were used for storage.
During the last few years of his life, Warhol was accompanied by chemist and art collector Stuart Pivar on daily shopping excursions. Pivar said they wanted "to see if we could come across a couple a masterpieces or some amusing junk." According to Pivar, Warhol envisioned "Warhol Hall" on Madison Avenue, a massive gift shop with a museum where he would display a collection of sculptures he was assembling. Pivar regarded Warhol as the quintessential connoisseur who navigated society through flea markets, antique stores, and Christie's and Sotheby's salerooms. Fred Hughes, Warhol's business manager and estate executor, also affirmed Warhol's idea for "Warhol Hall," adding that they had been thinking of setting up a flea market booth.
Warhol's enormous collection was auctioned at Sotheby's in 1988. Dealers and collectors were drawn to the 3,436 lots that were sold, totaling almost 10,000 items. A total of $25.3 million was accumulated during the 10-day sale. His collections included American shop signs, Coca-Cola memorabilia, antique furniture, carousel horses, Navajo blanket rugs, 175 cookie jars, 313 watches, and 332 pieces of Fiesta Ware.
Warhol enjoyed purchasing artwork and he had a collection of 19th century sculptures by Antoine-Louis Barye, Antonio Canova, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, and Jean-Léon Gérôme. Among the paintings in his collection were George Bellows' Miss Bentham (1906), and Roy Lichtenstein's Laughing Cat (1961), Mirror (1971), and Sailboats (1974), Jasper Johns' Screen Piece (1967), and Jean-Michel Basquiat's All Beef (1983). He also had work by Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Whiting Stock, Cy Twombly.
Warhol collected many books, with more than 1,200 titles in his collection. His collection, which reflects his eclectic taste and interests, included The Two Mrs. Grenvilles: A Novel by Dominick Dunne, Artists in Uniform by Max Eastman, D.V. by Diana Vreeland, Blood of a Poet by Jean Cocteau, Hidden Faces by Salvador Dalí, and The Dinah Shore Cookbook. |
Andy Warhol | Legacy | Legacy
thumb|upright|Statue of Andy Warhol in Bratislava, Slovakia
In 1991, the Warhol Family Museum of Modern Art was established in Medzilaborce, Slovakia by Warhol's family and the Slovak Ministry of Culture. In 1996, it was renamed the Andy Warhol Museum of Modern Art.
In 1992, Warhol's estate donated 15-acres of land on his former property Eothen to The Nature Conservancy. Now called The Andy Warhol Preserve, it is part of a 2,400-acre protected area in Montauk.
In 1994, the Andy Warhol Museum opened in Pittsburgh. It holds the largest collection of the artist's works in the world.
In 1998, Warhol's Upper East Side townhouse at 57 E 66th Street in Manhattan was designated a cultural landmark by the Historical Landmarks Preservation Center to commemorate the 70th anniversary of his birthday.
In 2002, the US Postal Service issued an 18-cent stamp commemorating Warhol. Designed by Richard Sheaff of Scottsdale, Arizona, the stamp was unveiled at a ceremony at The Andy Warhol Museum and features Warhol's painting "Self-Portrait, 1964". In March 2011, a chrome statue of Andy Warhol and his Polaroid camera was revealed at Union Square in New York City.
A crater on Mercury was named after Warhol in 2012.
In 2013, to honor the 85th anniversary of Warhol's birthday, The Andy Warhol Museum and EarthCam launched a collaborative project titled Figment, a live feed of Warhol's gravesite.
In 2024, Warhol was posthumously awarded the Order of the White Double Cross of the Second Class by the Slovak Republic's ambassador to the U.S. on the 37th anniversary of his death, at the behest of Slovakian President Zuzana Čaputová, "for promoting the Slovak Republic's good name abroad." |
Andy Warhol | The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts | The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts
Warhol's will dictated that his entire estate—with the exception of a few modest legacies to family members—would go to create a foundation dedicated to promoting the visual arts. Warhol had so many possessions that it took Sotheby's 10 days to auction his estate after his death; the auction grossed $25.3 million.
In 1987, in accordance with Warhol's will, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts was formed. The foundation serves as the estate of Andy Warhol, but also has a mission "to foster innovative artistic expression and the creative process" and is "focused primarily on supporting work of a challenging and often experimental nature".
The Artists Rights Society is the US copyright representative for the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for all Warhol works with the exception of Warhol film stills. The US copyright representative for Warhol film stills is the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. Additionally, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has agreements in place for its image archive. All digital images of Warhol are exclusively managed by Corbis, while all transparency images of Warhol are managed by Art Resource.
The Andy Warhol Foundation released its 20th Anniversary Annual Report as a three-volume set in 2007: Vol. I, 1987–2007; Vol. II, Grants & Exhibitions; and Vol. III, Legacy Program.
The Foundation is in the process of compiling its catalogue raisonné of paintings and sculptures in volumes covering blocks of years of the artist's career. Volumes IV and V were released in 2019. The subsequent volumes are still in the process of being compiled.
The Foundation remains one of the largest grant-giving organizations for the visual arts in the US.
Many of Warhol's works and possessions are on display at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. The foundation donated more than 3,000 works of art to the museum. |
Andy Warhol | In pop culture | In pop culture
Warhol founded Interview, a stage for celebrities he "endorsed" and a business staffed by his friends. One might even say that he produced people (as in the Warholian "Superstar" and the Warholian portrait). Warhol endorsed products, appeared in commercials, and made frequent celebrity guest appearances on television shows and films. |
Andy Warhol | Films | Films
thumb|upright=1.25|Warhol (right) with director Ulli Lommel on the set of Cocaine Cowboys (1979) at Eothen, in which Warhol made a cameo
Warhol appeared in the films Dynamite Chicken (1971), The Driver's Seat (1974), Cocaine Cowboys (1979) and Tootsie (1982).
After his death, Warhol was portrayed by Crispin Glover in Oliver Stone's film The Doors (1991), by Jared Harris in Mary Harron's film I Shot Andy Warhol (1996), and by David Bowie in Julian Schnabel's film Basquiat (1996).
Warhol appeared as a character in Michael Daugherty's opera Jackie O (1997). Actor Mark Bringleson makes a brief cameo as Warhol in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997). Many films by avant-garde cineast Jonas Mekas have caught the moments of Warhol's life. Sean Gregory Sullivan depicted Warhol in the film 54 (1998). Guy Pearce portrayed Warhol in the film Factory Girl (2007) about Edie Sedgwick's life. Actor Greg Travis portrays Warhol in a brief scene from the film Watchmen (2009). Comedian Conan O'Brien portrayed Warhol in the film Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022).
In the movie Highway to Hell a group of Andy Warhols are part of the Good Intentions Paving Company where good-intentioned souls are ground into pavement. In the film Men in Black 3 (2012) Andy Warhol turns out to really be undercover MIB Agent W (played by Bill Hader). Warhol is throwing a party at The Factory in 1969, where he is encountered by MIB Agents K and J.
Andy Warhol (portrayed by Tom Meeten) is one of main characters of the 2012 British television show Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy. The character is portrayed as having robot-like mannerisms. In the 2017 feature The Billionaire Boys Club, Cary Elwes portrays Warhol in a film based on the true story about Ron Levin (portrayed by Kevin Spacey) a friend of Warhol's who was murdered in 1986. In September 2016, it was announced that Jared Leto would portray the title character in Warhol, an upcoming American biographical drama film produced by Michael De Luca and written by Terence Winter, based on the book Warhol: The Biography by Victor Bockris. |
Andy Warhol | Documentaries | Documentaries
Warhol (1973) is an ITV documentary by British photographer David Bailey. Initially banned by British courts for containing "indecent material," the film features candid interviews with the artist and his associates.
Absolut Warhola (2001) was produced by Polish director Stanislaw Mucha, featuring Warhol's parents' family and hometown in Slovakia.
Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film (2006) is a reverential, four-hour movie by Ric Burns that won a Peabody Award in 2006.66th Annual Peabody Awards , May 2007.
Andy Warhol: Double Denied (2006) is a 52-minute movie by Ian Yentob about the difficulties authenticating Warhol's work.
Andy Warhol's People Factory (2008), a three-part television documentary directed by Catherine Shorr, features interviews with several of Warhol's associates.
The Andy Warhol Diaries (2022), a six-part docuseries directed by Andrew Rossi, was released on Netflix chronicling Warhol's life from the vantage point of his diaries. |
Andy Warhol | Television | Television
In 1965, Warhol and his muse Edie Sedgwick appeared on The Merv Griffin Show. Warhol doesn't say much save for bashful gestures and whispering "yes" or "no," while Sedgwick mediates a conversation on how Pop Art is art without any sense of emotion.
In 1969, Warhol was commissioned by Braniff International to appear in two television commercials to promote the luxury airline's "When You Got It – Flaunt It" campaign. The campaign was created by the advertising agency Lois Holland Calloway, which was led by George Lois, creator of a famed series of Esquire covers. The first commercial series involved the unlikely paring of Warhol and heavyweight boxing champion Sonny Liston who shared the fact that they both flew Braniff Airways. The odd commercial worked and Warhol was featured in another commercial entering a Braniff jet and being greeted by a Braniff hostess, while espousing their like for flying Braniff. The rights to Warhol's films for Braniff and his signed contracts are owned by a private trust and are administered by Braniff Airways Foundation in Dallas, Texas.
Warhol appeared on the BBC series Arena in a scene with writers William S. Burroughs and Victor Bockris in an episode that aired in January 1981. Warhol filmed a segment for the sketch comedy television show Saturday Night Live, which aired in October 1981. In a 1981 Sony Beta Tapes advertisement, Warhol featured beside a Marilyn image to showcase the tapes' capacity to record "brilliant color and delicate shading." In 1983, he appeared in a commercial for TDK Videotape.
In 1985, Warhol appeared in a Diet Coke commercial. He also had a guest appearance on the 200th episode of the television series The Love Boat wherein a Midwestern wife (Marion Ross) fears Andy Warhol will reveal to her husband (Tom Bosley) her secret past as a Warhol superstar named Marina del Rey.
In 1986, Warhol appeared in an ad for the Drexel Burnham Lambert investment group.
Warhol appeared as a recurring character in TV series Vinyl, played by John Cameron Mitchell. Warhol was portrayed by Evan Peters in the American Horror Story: Cult episode "Valerie Solanas Died for Your Sins: Scumbag". The episode depicts the attempted assassination of Warhol by Valerie Solanas (Lena Dunham). |
Andy Warhol | Music | Music
Warhol strongly influenced the new wave/punk rock band Devo, as well as David Bowie. Bowie recorded a song called "Andy Warhol" for his 1971 album Hunky Dory. Lou Reed wrote the song "Andy's Chest" in response to the attempted assassination of Warhol. The song was originally recorded by the Velvet Underground in 1969, but it wasn't released until a version appeared on Reed's solo album Transformer in 1972. The band Triumph also wrote a song about Andy Warhol, "Stranger In A Strange Land" off their 1984 album Thunder Seven. |
Andy Warhol | Books | Books
Many books have been written about Warhol. Among the most significant books related to Warhol is the authorized biography Warhol (1989) by his friend, art critic David Bourdon. Biographer Victor Bockris released The Life and Death of Andy Warhol (1989). The memoir Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close Up (1990) was written by Bob Colacello, the former executive editor of Warhol's Interview magazine. Culture critic and poet Wayne Koestenbaum published the biography Andy Warhol (2001). Art critic Blake Gopnik, wrote the comprehensive biography Warhol (2020). |
Andy Warhol | Comic books | Comic books
Warhol is featured as a character in the Miracleman series of comics. Nick Bertozzi's book Becoming Andy Warhol, which was illustrated by Pierce Hargan, was released by Abrams ComicArts in 2016. In 2018, SelfMadeHero published the graphic novel Andy: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol by Dutch illustrator Typex. |
Andy Warhol | Video games | Video games
Warhol makes an appearance in the 2003 video game The Sims: Superstar as the photographer in Studio Town. Warhol (played by Jeff Grace) makes a cameo appearance in the 2022 video game Immortality. |
Andy Warhol | See also | See also
Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board
Andy Warhol Bridge, Pittsburgh, PA
Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith, copyright case decided by the US Supreme Court
LGBT culture in New York City
List of LGBT people from New York City
Moon Museum
Painting the Century: 101 Portrait Masterpieces 1900–2000 |
Andy Warhol | References | References |
Andy Warhol | Bibliography | Bibliography
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Andy Warhol | Further reading | Further reading
Doyle, Jennifer, Jonathan Flatley, and José Esteban Muñoz, eds (1996). Pop Out: Queer Warhol. Durham: Duke University Press.
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Andy Warhol | External links | External links
Andy Warhol at the National Gallery of Art
Warhol Foundation in New York City
Andy Warhol Collection in Pittsburgh
The work of Andy Warhol spoken about by David Cronenberg
Warholstars: Andy Warhol Films, Art and Superstars
Warhol & The Computer
Tavi Gevinson and Abbi Jacobson discuss Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans on A Piece of Work
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Andy Warhol | Table of Content | Short description, Early life and education, Career, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, Death, Wrongful death lawsuit, Art works, Paintings, Drawings, Art market, Collectors, Works, Filmography, Music, Books and print, Other media, Personal life, Sexuality, Religion, Collections, Legacy, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, In pop culture, Films, Documentaries, Television, Music, Books, Comic books, Video games, See also, References, Bibliography, Further reading, External links |
Alp Arslan | Short description |
Alp Arslan, born Muhammad Alp Arslan bin Dawud Chaghri, was the second sultan of the Seljuk Empire and great-grandson of Seljuk, the eponymous founder of the dynasty. He greatly expanded Seljuk territories and consolidated his power, defeating rivals to the south, east and northwest. His victory over the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 ushered in the Turkoman settlement of Anatolia. "But the Battle of Manzikert opened Asia Minor to Turkmen conquest" |
Alp Arslan | Early life | Early life
Historical sources differ about Alp Arslan's birth date. Some 12th- and 13th-century sources give 1032/1033 as his birth year, while later sources give 1030. According to İbrahim Kafesoğlu, the most likely date is 20 January 1029 (1 Muharram 420 AH), recorded by the medieval historian Ibn al-Athir. He was the son of Chaghri and nephew of Tughril, the founding sultans of the Seljuk Empire. His grandfather was Mikail, who in turn was the son of the warlord Seljuk. He was the father of numerous children, including Malik-Shah I and Tutush I. It is unclear who the mother or mothers of his children were. He was known to have been married at least twice. His wives included the widow of his uncle Tughril, a Kara-Khanid princess known as Aka or Seferiye Khatun, and the daughter or niece of Bagrat IV of Georgia (who would later marry his vizier, Nizam al-Mulk). One of Seljuk's other sons was the Turkic chieftain Arslan Isra'il, whose son, Kutalmish, contested his nephew's succession to the sultanate. Alp Arslan's younger brothers Suleiman ibn Chaghri and Qavurt were his rivals. Kilij Arslan, the son and successor of Suleiman ibn Kutalmish (Kutalmish's son, who would later become Sultan of Rûm), was a major opponent of the Franks during the First Crusade and the Crusade of 1101.Peacock, A.C,S., Great Seljuk Empire, Edinburgh University Press, 2015, pgs. 179, 183 |
Alp Arslan | Early career | Early career
thumb|right|Coin minted in the name of Alp Arslan with the title Shahanshah
thumb|right|A miniature depicting Alp Arslan. Rashid al-Din, Jami' al-tawarikh, 1654 Ottoman copy, Topkapi Museum.
Alp Arslan accompanied his uncle Tughril on campaigns in the south against the Fatimids while his father Chaghri remained in Khorasan. Upon Alp Arslan's return to Khorasan, he began his work in administration at his father's suggestion. While there, his father introduced him to Nizam al-Mulk, one of the most eminent statesmen in early Muslim history and Alp Arslan's future vizier.
After the death of his father, Alp Arslan succeeded him as governor of Khorasan in 1059. His uncle Tughril died in 1063 and designated his successor as Suleiman, Arslan's infant brother. Arslan and his uncle Kutalmish both contested this succession which was resolved at the battle of Damghan in 1063. Arslan defeated Kutalmish for the throne and succeeded on 27 April 1064 as sultan of the Seljuk Empire, thus becoming the sole monarch of Persia from the river Oxus to the Tigris. In 1064 he led a campaign in Georgia during which he captured the regions between Tbilisi and the Çoruh river, Akhalkalaki and Alaverdi.1018-1071 Yılları Arasında Selçuklu Bizans İlişkileri ve Ermeniler
A Toksoy. Yeni Türkiye S. 60 CI Ermeni Meselesi Özel Sayısı. 2014. Bagrat IV submitted to paying jizya to the Seljuks but the Georgians broke the agreement in 1065.Orta Çağ'da Türk-Gürcü münasebetlerini şekillendiren faktörler. İ Tellioğlu. 2009. Alp Arslan invaded Georgia again in 1068. He captured Tbilisi after a short battle and obtained the submission of Bagrat IV; however, the Georgians freed themselves from Seljuk rule around 1073–1074.Şenol, F. "Ortaçağ Gürcistanının Meşhur Şehri: Tiflis". Oğuz-Türkmen Araştırmaları Dergisi 4 (2020 ): 9-100
In consolidating his empire and subduing contending factions, Arslan was ably assisted by Nizam al-Mulk, and the two are credited with helping to stabilize the empire after the death of Tughril. With peace and security established in his dominions, Arslan convoked an assembly of the states, and in 1066, he declared his son Malik Shah I his heir and successor. With the hope of capturing Caesarea Mazaca, the capital of Cappadocia, he placed himself at the head of the Turkoman"On the other hand, he was aware of the necessity of keeping his influence over the Oğuz Turkic tribes (sometimes called Turkmens), which was essential to his military strength." cavalry, crossed the Euphrates, and entered and invaded the city. Along with Nizam al-Mulk, he then marched into Armenia and Georgia, which he conquered in 1064. After a siege of 25 days, the Seljuks captured Ani, the capital city of Armenia. An account of the sack and massacres in Ani is given by the historian Sibt ibn al-Jawzi, who quotes an eyewitness saying:
|
Alp Arslan | Byzantine struggle | Byzantine struggle
En route to fight the Fatimids in Syria in 1068, Alp Arslan invaded the Byzantine Empire. The Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes, assuming command in person, met the invaders in Cilicia. In three arduous campaigns, the Turks were defeated in detail and driven across the Euphrates in 1070. The first two campaigns were conducted by the emperor himself, while the third was directed by Manuel Komnenos, the brother of future emperor Alexios I Komnenos. During this time, Arslan gained the allegiance of Rashid al-Dawla Mahmud, the Mirdasid emir of Aleppo.
In 1071, Romanos again took the field and advanced into Armenia with possibly 30,000 men, including a contingent of Cuman Turks as well as contingents of Franks and Normans, under Ursel de Baieul. Alp Arslan, who had moved his troops south to fight the Fatimids, quickly reversed to meet the Byzantines. Alp Arslan handed control of his army to his eunuch slave general, Taranges, and commanded him to "Win or be beheaded." Taranges prepared for the battle by setting traps and organizing ambushes. The Seljuk and Byzantine armies met on Friday, 26 August 1071 at Manzikert on the Murat River, north of Lake Van, beginning the Battle of Manzikert. The Cuman mercenaries among the Byzantine forces immediately defected to the Turkic side. Seeing this, the Western mercenaries subsequently abandoned the battlefield as well. To be exact, Romanos was betrayed by general Andronikos Doukas, son of the Caesar (Romanos's stepson), who pronounced him dead and rode off with a large part of the Byzantine forces at a critical moment. The Byzantines were wholly routed.
thumb|right|220px|Alp Arslan humiliating Emperor Romanos IV after the Battle of Manzikert. From a 15th-century illustrated French translation of Boccaccio's De Casibus Virorum IllustriumÇoban, R. V. (2020). The Manzikert Battle and Sultan Alp Arslan with European Perspective in the 15th Century in the Miniatures of Giovanni Boccaccio's "De Casibus Virorum Illustrium"s 226 and 232. French Manuscripts in Bibliothèque Nationale de France. S. Karakaya ve V. Baydar (Ed.), in 2nd International Muş Symposium Articles Book (pp. 48-64). Muş: Muş Alparslan University. Source
Emperor Romanos himself was captured in battle and presented to Alp Arslan. It is reported that upon seeing the Roman emperor, the sultan leaped from his throne, commanded Romanos to kiss the ground, and stepped on his neck. He repeatedly berated the emperor, including for spurning his emissaries and offers of peace. Romanos remained unrepentant, asserting that he had merely done what was "possible for a man, and which kings are bound to do, and I have fallen short in nothing. But God has fulfilled his will. And now, do what you wish and abandon recriminations."Carole Hillenbrand. (2007).Turkish Myth and Muslim Symbol: The Battle of Manzikert Oxford University Press Purportedly declaring Romanos "too trivial... to kill", Arslan then led him about the camp to sell the prisoner to one of his men. The Seljuk soldiers initially refused to spend any money on buying the emperor, until one man traded a dog for him. Next, wishing to test Romanos, Alp Arslan asked Romanos what he would do if their situation were reversed and Arslan was imprisoned by the Byzantines. Romanos bluntly answered "The worst!" His honesty impressed Arslan, who then decided to spare Romanos's life and instead ransom him back to his homeland. After agreeing on a ransom, Alp Arslan sent Romanos to Constantinople with a Turkish escort, carrying a banner above the disgraced emperor that read: "There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger".
The reason Alp Arslan spared Romanos was likely to avoid a two-front war. The Fatimids were launching devastating raids on the Seljuk domains during this period, Arslan may have worried that executing the Roman emperor might escalate his conflict with the Byzantines. Romanos himself had told the sultan that "killing me will not be of any use to you".
After hearing of the death of Byzantine Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes, Sultan Alp Arslan pledged: "The Byzantine nation has no God, so this day the oath of peace and friendship taken by both the Persians and Byzantines is nullified; henceforth I shall consume with the sword all those people who venerate the cross, and all the lands of the Christians shall be enslaved."
Alp Arslan and his successor Malik Shah urged Turkish tribes to invade and settle Anatolia where they would not only cease to be a problem for the Seljuk Sultanate but also extend its territory further. Alp Arslan commanded the Turks as follows:
Alp Arslan's victories changed the balance in western Asia completely in favor of the Seljuq Turks and Sunni Muslims. While the Byzantine Empire was to continue for nearly four more centuries, the victory at Manzikert signalled the beginning of Turkic ascendancy in Anatolia. The victory at Manzikert became so popular among the Turks that later every noble family in Anatolia claimed to have had an ancestor who had fought on that day. "Later, every princely family in Asia Minor was to claim an ancestor who had fought on that prestigious day." |
Alp Arslan | State organization | State organization
Alp Arslan's strength lay in the military realm. Domestic affairs were handled by his able vizier, Nizam al-Mulk, the founder of the administrative organization that characterized and strengthened the sultanate during the reigns of Alp Arslan and his son, Malik Shah. Military iqtas, governed by Seljuq princes, were established to provide support for the soldiery and to accommodate the nomadic Turks to the established Anatolian agricultural scene. This type of military fiefdom enabled the nomadic Turks to draw on the resources of the sedentary Persians, Turks, and other established cultures within the Seljuq realm, and allowed Alp Arslan to field a huge standing army without depending on tribute from conquest to pay his soldiers. He not only had enough food from his subjects to maintain his military, but the taxes collected from traders and merchants added to his coffers sufficiently to fund his continuous wars.
Suleiman ibn Qutalmish was the son of the contender for Arslan's throne; he was appointed governor of the north-western provinces and assigned to complete the invasion of Anatolia. An explanation for this choice can only be conjectured from Ibn al-Athir's account of the battle between Alp-Arslan and Kutalmish, in which he writes that Alp-Arslan wept for the latter's death and greatly mourned the loss of his kinsman. |
Alp Arslan | Physical appearance and personality | Physical appearance and personality
Contemporary descriptions portray Alp Arslan as "very awe-inspiring, dominating," a "great-formed one, elegant of stature. He had long, thin whiskers, which he used to knot up when shooting arrows. And they say his arrow never went astray.... From the top button of his hat to the end of his moustaches it was two yards".
Muslim sources show Alp Arslan as fanatically pious but just. Alp Arslan was so dedicated to the Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence that he always kept a qadi by his side, including in battles. His vizier, Nizam al-Mulk, described the young sultan in his Book of Government:Some authors have doubted whether the Turks, who had adopted Islam recently, completely understood such religious distinctions. Alex Mallett writes, "Whatever the case, the fact that almost all writers have good things to say about him suggests that he treated everyone more or less equally, in religious terms." |
Alp Arslan | Death | Death
After Manzikert, the dominion of Alp Arslan extended over much of western Asia. He soon prepared to march for the conquest of Turkestan, the original seat of his ancestors. With a powerful army, he advanced to the banks of the Oxus. Before he could pass the river safely, however, it was necessary to subdue certain fortresses, one of which was for several days vigorously defended by the rebel, Yusuf al-Kharezmi or Yusuf al-Harani. Perhaps over-eager to press on against his Qarakhanid enemy, Alp Arslan gained the governor's submission by promising the rebel 'perpetual ownership of his lands'. When he was produced a captive in the royal tent, the sultan, instead of praising his valor, severely reproached his obstinate folly: and the insolent replies of the rebel provoked a sentence, that he should be fastened to four stakes, and left to expire in that painful situation. At this command, the desperate Yusuf al-Kharezmi, drawing a dagger, rushed headlong towards the throne: the guards raised their battle-axes; their zeal was checked by Alp Arslan, the most skilful archer of the age: he drew his bow, but his foot slipped, the arrow glanced aside, and he received in his breast the dagger of Yusuf al-Kharezmi, who was instantly cut in pieces.
The wound was mortal; and the Turkish sultan bequeathed a dying admonition to the pride of kings. "In my youth," said Alp Arslan, "I was advised by a sage to humble before God; to distrust my own strength; and never to despise the most contemptible foe. I have neglected these lessons; and my neglect has been deservedly punished. Yesterday, as from an eminence I beheld the numbers, the discipline, and the spirit, of my armies, the earth seemed to tremble under my feet; and I said in my heart, Surely thou art the king of the world, the greatest and most invincible of warriors. These armies are no longer mine; and, in the confidence of my personal strength, I now fall by the hand of an assassin. Four days later on 24 November 1072, Alp Arslan died and was buried at Merv, having designated his 18-year-old son Malik Shah as his successor.David Nicolle, Manzikert 1071: The breaking of Byzantium.
Edward Gibbon, The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. |
Alp Arslan | Family | Family
One of his wives was Safariyya Khatun. She had a daughter, Sifri Khatun, who in 1071–72, married Abbasid Caliph Al-Muqtadi. Safariyya died in Isfahan in 1073–74. Another of his wives was Akka Khatun. She had been formerly the wife of Sultan Tughril. Alp Arslan married her after Tughril's death in 1063. Another of his wives was Shah Khatun. She was the daughter of Qadir Khan Yusuf, and had been formerly married to Ghaznavid Mas'ud I.
Another wife was Ummu Hifchaq also known as Ummu Qipchaq. Another of his wives was the daughter of King of Tashir Kiurike I, who was married to the sister of the Georgian king Bagrat IV. Alp Arslan divorced her, and married her to Nizam al-Mulk. His sons were Malik-Shah I, Tutush I, Arslan Shah, Tekish, Toghan-Shah, Ayaz and Buibars. One of his daughters married the son of Kurd Surkhab, son of Bard in 1068.
Another daughter, Zulaikha Khatun, was married to a Muslim, son of Quraish in 1086–87. Another daughter, Aisha Khatun, married Shams al-Mulk Nasr, son of Ibrahim Khan Tamghach. Another daughter was married to Mas'ud III of Ghazni and was his first wife. Another daughter was Sara Khatun. Son of Alp Arslan's sister, Dev Ali Beg (Devle Beg) was a royal military general who played a key role in the conquest of Kayseri and gave his name to Develi district of Kayseri. His tribal family later became known as "Develioğlu" (meaning "son of Develi"). |
Alp Arslan | Legacy | Legacy
Alp Arslan's conquest of Anatolia from the Byzantines is also seen as one of the pivotal precursors to the launch of the Crusades.
From 2002 to July 2008 under Turkmen calendar reform, the month of August was named after Alp Arslan.
The 2nd Training Motorized Rifle Division of the Turkmen Ground Forces is named in his honor. |
Alp Arslan | Notes | Notes |
Alp Arslan | References | References |
Alp Arslan | Sources | Sources
Çoban, R. V. (2020). The Manzikert Battle and Sultan Alp Arslan with European Perspective in the 15st Century in the Miniatures of Giovanni Boccaccio's "De Casibus Virorum Illustrium"s 226 and 232. French Manuscripts in Bibliothèque Nationale de France. S. Karakaya ve V. Baydar (Ed.), in 2nd International Muş Symposium Articles Book (pp. 48–64). Muş: Muş Alparslan University. Source
Category:11th-century births
Category:Year of birth unknown
Category:11th-century murdered monarchs
Category:1072 deaths
Category:Seljuk rulers
Category:Byzantine–Seljuk wars
Category:Deaths by stabbing
Category:Shahanshahs
Category:11th-century monarchs in Asia |
Alp Arslan | Table of Content | Short description, Early life, Early career, Byzantine struggle, State organization, Physical appearance and personality, Death, Family, Legacy, Notes, References, Sources |
American Film Institute | short description | The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American nonprofit film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private funding and public membership fees. |
American Film Institute | Leadership | Leadership
thumb|left|The historic Spanish Colonial Revival style AFI campus in Los Angeles, in the Los Feliz district of L.A.
The institute is composed of leaders from the film, entertainment, business, and academic communities. The board of trustees is chaired by Kathleen Kennedy and the board of directors chaired by Robert A. Daly guide the organization, which is led by President and CEO, film historian Bob Gazzale. Prior leaders were founding director George Stevens Jr. (from the organization's inception in 1967 until 1980) and Jean Picker Firstenberg (from 1980 to 2007). |
American Film Institute | History | History
The American Film Institute was founded by a 1965 presidential mandate announced in the Rose Garden of the White House by Lyndon B. Johnson—to establish a national arts organization to preserve the legacy of American film heritage, educate the next generation of filmmakers, and honor the artists and their work. Two years later, in 1967, AFI was established, supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Motion Picture Association of America and the Ford Foundation.
The original 22-member Board of Trustees included actor Gregory Peck as chairman and actor Sidney Poitier as vice-chairman, as well as director Francis Ford Coppola, film historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., lobbyist Jack Valenti, and other representatives from the arts and academia.
The institute established a training program for filmmakers known then as the Center for Advanced Film Studies. Also created in the early years were a repertory film exhibition program at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the AFI Catalog of Feature Films — a scholarly source for American film history. The institute moved to its current eight-acre Hollywood campus in 1981. The film training program grew into the AFI Conservatory, an accredited graduate school.
AFI moved its presentation of first-run and auteur films from the Kennedy Center to the historic AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center, which hosts the AFI DOCS film festival, making AFI the largest nonprofit film exhibitor in the world. AFI educates audiences and recognizes artistic excellence through its awards programs and 10 Top 10 Lists.
In 2017, then-aspiring filmmaker Ilana Bar-Din Giannini claimed that the AFI expelled her after she accused Dezso Magyar of sexually harassing her in the early 1980s. |
American Film Institute | List of programs in brief | List of programs in brief
AFI educational and cultural programs include:
American Film Institute Awards – an honor celebrating the creative ensembles of the most outstanding motion picture and television programs of the year
AFI Catalog of Feature Films and AFI Archive – the written history of all feature films during the first 100 years of the art form – accessible free online
AFI Conservatory – a film school led by master filmmakers in a graduate-level program
AFI Directing Workshop for Women – a production-based training program committed to increasing the number of women working professionally in screen directing
AFI Life Achievement Award – a tradition since 1973, a high honor for a career in film
AFI 100 Years... series – television events and movie reference lists
AFI's two film festivals – AFI Fest in Los Angeles and AFI Docs in Washington, D.C., and Silver Spring, Maryland
AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center – a historic theater with year-round art house, first-run and classic film programming in Silver Spring, Maryland
American Film – a magazine launched in October 1975 that explores the art of new and historic film classics, now a blog on AFI.com |
American Film Institute | AFI Conservatory | AFI Conservatory
thumb|AFI Conservatory Fellows filming on the AFI campus.
In 1969, the institute established the AFI Conservatory for Advanced Film Studies at Greystone, the Doheny Mansion in Beverly Hills, California. The first class included filmmakers Terrence Malick, Caleb Deschanel, and Paul Schrader. That program grew into the AFI Conservatory, an accredited graduate film school located in the hills above Hollywood, California, providing training in six filmmaking disciplines: cinematography, directing, editing, producing, production design, and screenwriting. Mirroring a professional production environment, Fellows collaborate to make more films than any other graduate level program. Admission to AFI Conservatory is highly selective, with a maximum of 140 graduates per year.
In 2013, Emmy and Oscar-winning director, producer, and screenwriter James L. Brooks (As Good as It Gets, Broadcast News, Terms of Endearment) joined as the artistic director of the AFI Conservatory where he provides leadership for the film program. Brooks' artistic role at the AFI Conservatory has a rich legacy that includes Daniel Petrie, Jr., Robert Wise, and Frank Pierson. Award-winning director Bob Mandel served as dean of the AFI Conservatory for nine years. Jan Schuette took over as dean in 2014 and served until 2017. Film producer Richard Gladstein was dean from 2017 until 2019, when Susan Ruskin was appointed. |
American Film Institute | Notable alumni | Notable alumni
AFI Conservatory's alumni have careers in film, television and on the web. They have been recognized with all of the major industry awards—Academy Award, Emmy Award, guild awards, and the Tony Award. |
American Film Institute | AFI Film Festivals | AFI Film Festivals
AFI operates two film festivals: in Los Angeles, and AFI Docs (formally known as Silverdocs) in Silver Spring, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. |
American Film Institute | American Film Institute Festival | American Film Institute Festival
Commonly shortened to AFI Fest, it is the American Film Institute’s annual celebration of artistic excellence. It is a showcase for the best festival films of the year as selected by AFI and an opportunity for master filmmakers and emerging artists to come together with audiences. It is the only festival of its stature that is free to the public. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognizes AFI Fest as a qualifying festival for the Short Films category for the annual Academy Awards.
The festival was first announced in January 1987 to take the place of Filmex in March 1987 with Ken Wlaschin, former Filmex artistic director, named as director of the new festival. The first festival was funded with a grant of $200,000 from the Interface Group and was to feature 80 films in a non-competitive format with a mix of independent American and foreign films. Its primary venue was the Los Feliz Theater.
The festival has paid tribute to numerous influential filmmakers and artists over the years, including Agnès Varda, Pedro Almodóvar and David Lynch as guest artistic directors, and has screened scores of films that have gone on to win Oscar nominations and awards.
The movies selected by AFI are assigned to different sections for the festival; these include Galas/Red Carpet Premieres, Special Screenings, Documentaries, Discovery, and Short Film Competition. |
American Film Institute | Red Carpet Premieres | Red Carpet Premieres
Formerly named Galas, it is AFI Fest’s section for the most highly anticipated films at the festival, presenting selected feature-length movies from world-class filmmakers and artisans. Although it is a very restrictive selection, usually presenting between three and seven movies at most, many films selected by AFI for this section eventually also earn an Academy Award Best Picture nomination. Examples include Bradley Cooper's Maestro (2023), Steven Spielberg's The Fabelmans (2022), Will Smith's King Richard (2021), Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog (2021), Anthony Hopkins's The Father (2020), Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story (2019), Peter Farrelly's Green Book (2018), Luca Guadagnino's Call Me by Your Name (2017), Damien Chazelle's La La Land (2016), and Adam McKay's The Big Short (2015). |
American Film Institute | AFI Docs | AFI Docs
Held annually in June, AFI Docs (formerly Silverdocs) is a documentary festival in Washington, D.C. The festival attracts over 27,000 documentary enthusiasts. |
American Film Institute | AFI programs | AFI programs |
American Film Institute | AFI Catalog of Feature Films | AFI Catalog of Feature Films
The AFI Catalog, started in 1968, is a web-based filmographic database. A research tool for film historians, the catalog consists of entries on more than 60,000 feature films and 17,000 short films produced from 1893 to 2011, as well as AFI Awards Outstanding Movies of the Year from 2000 through 2010. Early print copies of this catalog may also be found at local libraries.American Film Institute. (1971). Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States: Feature Films. Berkeley: University of California Press. |
American Film Institute | AFI Life Achievement Award | AFI Life Achievement Award |
American Film Institute | AFI Awards | AFI Awards
Created in 2000, the AFI Awards honor the ten outstanding films ("Movies of the Year") and ten outstanding television programs ("TV Programs of the Year"). The awards are a non-competitive acknowledgment of excellence.
The awards are announced in December, and a private luncheon for award honorees takes place the following January. |
American Film Institute | AFI Maya Deren Award | AFI Maya Deren Award |
American Film Institute | AFI 100 Years... series | AFI 100 Years... series
The AFI 100 Years... series, which ran from 1998 to 2008 and created jury-selected lists of America's best movies in categories such as Musicals, Laughs and Thrills, prompted new generations to experience classic American films. The juries consisted of over 1,500 artists, scholars, critics, and historians. Citizen Kane was voted the greatest American film twice. |
American Film Institute | AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center | AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center
The AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center is a moving image exhibition, education and cultural center located in Silver Spring, Maryland. Anchored by the restoration of noted architect John Eberson's historic 1938 Silver Theatre, it features 32,000 square feet of new construction housing two stadium theatres, office and meeting space, and reception and exhibit areas.
The AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center presents film and video programming, augmented by filmmaker interviews, panels, discussions, and musical performances. |
American Film Institute | The AFI Directing Workshop for Women | The AFI Directing Workshop for Women
The Directing Workshop for Women is a training program committed to educating and mentoring participants in an effort to increase the number of women working professionally in screen directing. In this tuition-free program, each participant is required to complete a short film by the end of the year-long program.
Alumnae of the program include Maya Angelou, Anne Bancroft, Dyan Cannon, Ellen Burstyn, Jennifer Getzinger, Lesli Linka Glatter, Lily Tomlin, Susan Oliver and Nancy Malone. |
American Film Institute | AFI Directors Series | AFI Directors Series
AFI released a set of hour-long programs reviewing the career of acclaimed directors. The Directors Series content was copyrighted in 1997 by Media Entertainment Inc and The American Film Institute, and the VHS and DVDs were released between 1999 and 2001 on Winstar TV and Video.
Directors featured included:
John McTiernan (WHE73067)
Ron Howard (WHE73068)
Sydney Pollack (WHE73071)
Norman Jewison (WHE73076)
Lawrence Kasdan (WHE73088)
Terry Gilliam (WHE73089)
Spike Lee (WHE73090)
Barry Levinson (WHE73093)
Miloš Forman (WHE73094)
Martin Scorsese (WHE73098)
Barbra Streisand (WHE73099)
David Cronenberg (WHE73101)
Robert Zemeckis (WHE73131)
Robert Altman
John Frankenheimer
Adrian Lyne
Garry Marshall
William Friedkin
Clint Eastwood
David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker
Roger Corman
Michael Mann
James Cameron
Rob Reiner
Joel Schumacher
Steven Spielberg
Wes Craven |
American Film Institute | See also | See also
British Film Institute – the British equivalent to AFI |
American Film Institute | References | References |
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