1. art and entertainment

Visiting ‘Andy Warhol’:
A Teachers’ Guide
8 December 2007 – 30 March 2008
© QUEENSLAND ART GALLERY 2007 / ALL ANDY WARHOL ART WORKS © THE ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR THE VISUAL ARTS INC.
THE ‘ANDY WARHOL’ EXHIBITION HAS BEEN ORGANISED BY THE QUEENSLAND ART GALLERY AND THE ANDY WARHOL MUSEUM,
ONE OF THE FOUR CARNEGIE MUSEUMS OF PITTSBURGH. FUNDING FOR INSURANCE HAS BEEN PROVIDED THROUGH THE
QUEENSLAND GOVERNMENT EXHIBITION INDEMNITY SCHEME, ADMINISTERED BY ARTS QUEENSLAND.
PREPARED BY ACCESS, EDUCATION AND REGIONAL SERVICES, QUEENSLAND ART GALLERY / GALLERY OF MODERN ART
This exhibition has been organised by the Queensland Art Gallery and The Andy Warhol Museum, one of the four Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh.
Contents
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‘Andy Warhol’ at the Gallery of Modern Art
Exhibition layout
Facts about Andy Warhol
What is Pop art?
Exploring Andy Warhol’s techniques
Themes in Andy Warhol’s work
Visiting ‘Andy Warhol’
Curriculum information for teachers:
a. Early Years
b. Years 1–10
c. Senior
‘Andy Warhol’ education resources
Timeline: Andy Warhol’s life and art
Further information
Sponsors
‘Andy Warhol’ at the
Gallery of Modern Art
• ‘Andy Warhol’ is Australia’s first major retrospective of Warhol’s works from the
1950s until his death in 1987.
• The Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) is the sole venue for the exhibition.
• Many of Warhol’s iconic works are on display, including his famous portraits of
Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and Mao Zedong.
• Also featured in the exhibition are Warhol’s self-portraits, the Campbell’s soup cans,
paintings from his ‘Death and Disaster’ series, time capsules, episodes from his TV
show, films and videos, and issues of Interview magazine.
Exhibition layout
Facts about
Andy Warhol
Self-Portrait 1966–67
Acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen
55.9 x 55.9cm
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol
Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
© The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Inc.
Andy Warhol:
• is considered one of the most influential artists of the late twentieth century, and a
figurehead of the 1960s Pop art movement
• was born Andrew Warhola in 1928 to immigrant parents from north-eastern Slovakia
• lived in Pittsburgh, United States, until 1949 when he moved to Manhattan,
New York
• was a successful commercial artist and designer in the 1950s with New York’s major
fashion magazines and advertising agencies
• is most well known for his photographic screenprinting method of painting
• worked across popular imagery, commercial illustration, film, painting, video,
television and publishing in his career.
What is Pop art?
Cow wallpaper 1966
Screenprint on paper
Refabricated for The Andy Warhol Museum, 1994
© The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Inc.
‘The Pop artists did images that anybody walking down Broadway could recognize in
a split second — comics, picnic tables, men’s trousers, celebrities, shower curtains,
refrigerators, Coke bottles — all the great modern things that the Abstract
Expressionists tried so hard not to notice at all.’1
‘Once you “got” Pop, you could never see a sign the same way again. And once you
thought Pop, you could never see America the same way again.’2
1 Andy Warhol and Pat Hackett, POPism: The Warhol 60s, London, Hutchinson, 1981, p.39–40.
2 Warhol and Hackett, p.50.
• Pop art (‘popular’ art) was a movement that emerged primarily in Europe and the
United States during the 1950s and 1960s. In their work, many pop artists depicted
everyday life and common objects as a way of commenting on the longstanding
traditions of ‘high art’.
• Pop art emerged in the period following World War Two, when rising consumerism
coincided with the growth of youth and pop music cultures.
• Pop artists drew on popular culture and blurred the boundaries of what art could
and couldn’t be.
• Some aspects of everyday culture that Pop artists used in their imagery included:
• advertisements
• consumer goods
• celebrities
• photographs
• comic strips.
• Warhol used new technologies, processes and ideas about making art, including:
• photographic screenprinting
• repetition
• mass production
• collaboration
• electronic media
Exploring Andy
Warhol’s techniques
Blotting
Lips (Stamped) 1950s
Ink and Dr Martin’s Aniline dye on Strathmore paper
36.8 x 28.6cm
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol
Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
© The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Inc.
What is blotting?
•
•
•
Blotting is a type of line drawing that results in broken and hesitant lines.
Warhol used the technique in his early commercial works.
Warhol often coloured his blotted line drawings with watercolour dyes
or gold leaf.
The process:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Make a pencil line drawing on non-absorbent paper
Hinge the drawing to a second sheet of more absorbent paper
With a fountain pen, ink over the pencil lines on the original drawing
Fold the second sheet of paper along the hinge and transfer the freshly inked
lines by pressing the sheets of paper together.
Screenprinting
Campbell's Soup 1 1968
Colour screenprint
Ten sheets: 91.8 x 61.3cm (each),
ed. 156/250
Kerry Stokes Collection, Perth
© The Andy Warhol Foundation for the
Visual Arts Inc.
What is screenprinting?
• Screenprinting is a technique traditionally used in the mass production of
commercial products.
• Screenprinting with photographic images came to be Warhol’s most well-known
style.
• Warhol began screenprinting in 1962.
• Screenprinting enabled Warhol to appropriate and manipulate photography from a
variety of sources and to apply this imagery over painted surfaces as single or
multiple images.
The process:
1.Black-and-white or high contrast colour photographs are projected onto a screen.
2.The screen is coated with a light-sensitive emulsion that hardens in the areas which
have been exposed to light.
3.Coloured paint can be applied to the canvas surface (known as ‘underpainting’); for
example, swipes of multi-coloured brush strokes or defined shapes are often seen
in Warhol’s works.
Discuss and explore:
• Can you identify the under-painted areas and the printed areas in Warhol’s paintings?
• How does the artist make each of his screenprinted works different?
Reproduction and repetition
‘The reason I’m painting this way is that I want to be
a machine, and I feel that whatever I do and do
machine-like is what I want to do.’
Andy Warhol, Interview with Gene Swenson, ‘What is Pop Art?’, Art
News, November 1963, p.26.
Coca-Cola [2] 1961
Casein and crayon on linen
176.5 x 132.7cm
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
Founding Collection, Contribution Dia Center for the Arts
© The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Inc.
• Many of Warhol’s drawings were copied or traced directly from photographs and
magazine reproductions.
• A projector, or epidioscope, was used to project the images onto canvas, which
were then painted.
Discuss and explore:
• How did Warhol adapt traditional techniques in new and inventive ways and why did he do this?
• What was the result or desired effect?
• In your everyday life (i.e. in your home or local shopping centre), where do you find repeated
images and patterns?
Warhol’s film and television
‘In the future everybody will be
world famous for fifteen
minutes.’
Andy Warhol, Giant Size, Phaidon Press,
New York, 2006, p.456.
Empire (still) 1964
16mm film, black and white, silent, 8 hours and 5 minutes at 16fps
© 2007 The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA, a museum of Carnegie Institute. All
rights reserved.
Film still courtesy of The Andy Warhol Museum
© The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Inc.
• Warhol became well known for his experimental filmmaking, which did not follow
traditional storytelling formats with a beginning, middle and end.
• Warhol’s films often captured events already in progress (for example, Sleep 1963
is a five-and-a-half-hour film of poet John Giorno sleeping).
• Very few of the people who appeared in Warhol’s films were professional actors.
• Warhol used minimal editing — his trademark technique of ‘strobe cutting’ was a
form of in-camera editing in which the camera was rapidly turned off and on again.
• After his near-fatal shooting by Valerie Solanas in 1968, Warhol compared life with
TV. He thought the events on TV were often more real than the events in life.
Andy Warhol's ‘Fifteen Minutes’ television program on MTV (1985–87)
Warhol’s ‘Fifteen Minutes’ was based on his successful Interview magazine, which
included interviews with artists, fashion designers, actors and celebrities, such as
artist Georgia O’Keefe, film director Steven Spielberg and model Jerry Hall.
Discuss and explore:
• How was Warhol’s approach to filmmaking different to Hollywood films of the same era?
• What kinds of events did Warhol depict in his films? How do these relate to the images he
depicted in his paintings?
There are a small number of works featured in the ‘Andy Warhol’ exhibition that contain adult content or mature themes. Parents, teachers
and carers are advised to check for further signage at the exhibition entry and in gallery spaces.
Sculpture
Brillo Soap Pads Box 1964
Silkscreen ink and house paint on plywood
43.2 x 43.2 x 35.6cm
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol
Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
© The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Inc.
From 1963–64, Warhol began making sculptures based on widely available
commodities such as canned peaches, tomato juice and steel wool.
• To create the sculptures, the mechanical reproduction processes of similar objects
produced in factories were imitated.
• Carpenters were commissioned to construct the boxes from plywood, which were
then painted and screenprinted with the logos of various consumer products such as
Brillo, Heinz, Campbell’s and Del Monte.
• The sculptures built on some of Warhol’s early paintings of mass-produced products
such as his Campbell’s Soup Can paintings of the early 1960s.
• When installed, the stacked arrangement and uniform surfaces of Warhol’s sculptures
reflected the work of the American minimalist artists of the time. Warhol’s installations
often mimicked the arrangement of commodities on supermarket shelves, and
therefore offered different ways of thinking about contemporary art.
Discuss and explore:
• Why did Warhol select commonly available objects such as canned food boxes and labels as his
subject matter?
• What influence do you think this had on the understanding of art at the time?
• What products do you think Warhol might have chosen if he created these works today and why?
Themes in
Andy Warhol’s work
Portraits
‘I am a deeply superficial person.’1
‘If you want to know all about Andy Warhol,
just look at the surface of my paintings and
films and me, and there I am. There’s
nothing behind it.’2
1 Andy Warhol, Giant Size, Phaidon Press, New York,
2006, p.260.
2 Andy Warhol, in David Moos, ‘Andy Warhol, Painter’,
Supernova: Stars, Deaths, and Disasters, 1962–1964,
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2005, p.29.
Self-Portrait No.9 1986
Acrylic and screenprint on canvas
203.5 x 203.7cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria with the
assistance of the National Gallery Women's Association,
Governor, 1987
© The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Inc.
Warhol’s self-portraits
• Warhol became a celebrity after spending most of his career in the public eye.
• Few other American artists of Warhol’s era achieved his level of celebrity status.
• From an early age, Warhol was self-conscious about his appearance. It was
rumoured he underwent nose surgery, had collagen injections and wore wigs and
toupees to try to hide his imperfections and attain a desirable ‘look’.
• Warhol’s self-portraits are like masks — they conceal and disguise his appearance.
Discuss and explore:
• Find the self-portraits or photographs in the exhibition where Warhol is playing
the following ‘roles’:
• cool rock star (The Velvet Underground and Nico 1966)
• celebrity (Self-Portrait 1966–67)
• drag queen (Altered Image: Five Photographs of Andy Warhol 1982)
• monster (Tom Savini, Andy Warhol ca.1984)
• What aspects of Warhol’s portraits could be considered ‘real’ or ‘constructed’?
1950s Pop portraits
"Billie Holiday Volume 3" 1950s
Ink, ballpoint ink, gouache and Dr Martin's Aniline dye on paper
collage
26 x 25.7cm
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol
Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
© The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Inc.
• Warhol’s celebrity portraits used common methods of mass production, such as
screenprinting.
• Warhol’s images of famous Hollywood figures such as Elvis Presley and Marilyn
Monroe implied that these film stars were ‘mass produced’, similar to his art works
— through the millions of pictures, album covers, movie screens, newspapers and
magazines that their faces adorned.
• Warhol used clippings and photographs from fan magazines as the source material
for some of his most important celebrity portraits.
Discuss and explore:
• What is the effect of Warhol’s use of repetition in some of his celebrity portraits?
• How are the faces similar to magazine images? How do they compare to the covers of Interview
magazine?
• How are the faces different from magazine images that we see every day?
1970s–80s commissioned portraits
Debbie Harry 1980
Acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen
Two panels: 106.7 x 106.7cm (each)
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy
Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
© The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual
Arts Inc.
‘But being famous isn’t all that important. If I weren’t famous, I wouldn’t have been
shot for being Andy Warhol. Maybe I would have been shot for being in the Army. Or
maybe I would be a fat schoolteacher. How do you ever know?’
Andy Warhol, From A to B and Back Again: The Philosophy of Andy Warhol, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New
York, 1975, p.75.
‘Many of Warhol’s celebrity portraits of the 1970s and 1980s were commissioned.
Major figures such as Truman Capote, Mick Jagger, Sylvester Stallone and Liza
Minnelli commissioned Warhol to create portraits in his signature ‘pop’ style.
The American writer Tom Wolfe called this period the ‘me’ generation, suggesting that
the idea of achieving fame and recognition was accessible to ordinary people at this
time.’
Tom Wolfe, ‘The 'Me' Decade and the Third Great Awakening’, in New York, 23 August 1976, pp.26–40.
Discuss and explore:
• What is the definition of ‘famous’?
• Name someone you think is famous. What makes this person famous?
• How do we judge if one person is more famous than another? For example, you could compare
Britney Spears with Christina Aguilera.
• Name a famous star who is featured regularly in media coverage. How many times have you
seen the star’s picture this year? Are these flattering or unflattering images? Discuss the
statement, ‘any publicity is good publicity’ and how this applies to celebrities today.
Commodities
‘I used to drink [Campbell’s soup]. I used to
have the same lunch every day, for twenty
years, I guess, the same thing over and over
again. Someone said my life has dominated me;
I like the idea.’
Andy Warhol, Giant Size, Phaidon Press, New York, 2006,
p.155.
Dollar Sign 1981
Acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen
228.6 x 177.8cm
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol
Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
© The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Inc.
‘What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest
consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV
and see Coca-Cola, and you can know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor
drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A coke is a coke and no amount
of money can get you a better Coke that the one bum on the corner is drinking.’
Andy Warhol, From A to B and Back Again: The Philosophy of Andy Warhol, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New
York, 1975, p.100.
• In the 1960s Campbell’s soup was one of the most common and easily
recognisable brands — its packaging and price had remained largely unchanged for
over 50 years.
• Through repetition and simplification, Warhol’s Campbell’s soup cans reflect and
satirise the commercialism and standardisation of American culture.
Discuss and explore:
• What does the Campbell’s soup can tell us about life in America in the 1960s?
‘If it’s not about Campbell’s soup, what was Warhol doing that made him reproduce Campbell’s
soup the way he did?’ (Jessica Gogan, The Andy Warhol Museum’s Assistant Director for
Education and Interpretation)
• How do you think painting a soup can, or another everyday object, can become art?
• If you were to make an art work about an everyday object, what would you choose and why?
Electric Chair 1967
Acrylic screenprinted onto canvas
137.2 x 185.1cm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased 1977
© The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts
Inc.
‘I guess it was the big plane crash picture, the front page of a newspaper: 129 DIE. I
was also painting the Marilyns. I realized that everything I was doing must have been
Death. It was Christmas or Labor Day — a holiday — and every time you turned on
the radio they said something like “Four million are going to die.” That started it.’
Andy Warhol, Supernova: Stars, Deaths, and Disasters, 1962–1964, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2005, p.12.
• Warhol’s ‘Death and Disaster’ series, created 1962–64, is considered one of the
most important periods of the artist’s career.
• Art critic Henry Geldzahler first drew Warhol’s attention to a press headline of an
aircraft crash in June 1962, which provided inspiration for the series.
• Warhol began to source imagery from newspaper stories of incidents such as car
crashes, race riots, suicides and state executions, which used the electric chair.
• Warhol presented the images as they appeared in newspapers, abstracting the
images slightly through repetition or colour, and his screenprinting method.
• The ‘Death and Disaster’ series was produced at the same time as Warhol’s
portraits of Marilyn Monroe (shortly after her death in August 1962), and Jackie
Kennedy (following the assassination of her husband, the United States
President John F Kennedy in November 1963).
Discuss and explore:
• Compare the ‘celebrity deaths’ to the images of ordinary people’s demise. Do they have
anything in common?
• Why would Warhol choose to make the deaths of ordinary people’s deaths public?
• What ideas about religion and morality do these images raise?
• Why do you think Warhol chose not to represent a person in the electric chair?
• What images are used by the media to shock people now?
• Are only those events which receive media coverage worthy of our consideration?
• Why are some tragic world events given exposure in the media and not others?
There are a small number of works featured in the ‘Andy Warhol’ exhibition that contain adult content or mature themes. Parents, teachers
and carers are advised to check for further signage at the exhibition entry and in gallery spaces.
Warhol’s Silver Factory
‘. . . it was the perfect time to think
silver. Silver was the future, it was
spacey, — the astronauts, . . . And
silver was also the past — the
Silver Screen . . . And maybe more
than anything else, silver was the
narcissism — mirrors were backed
with silver.’
Andy Warhol, Giant Size, Phaidon
Press, New York, 2006, p.352.
Steve Shapiro
Edie Sedgwick, Andy Warhol and Entourage, New York 1965
Gelatin silver print
35.5 x 28cm
Image courtesy: Fahey/Klein Gallery
• Fascinated by the assembly line production of factories, Warhol created his own
Silver Factory studio space in New York in 1964.
• Warhol created many films in this space, using actors such as Edie Sedgwick. He
also collaborated with his assistants, poets, musicians, dancers and writers, such as
Baby Jane Holzer, Taylor Mead and Ondine (Robert Olivo).
• From 1965 to 1974, American film director Paul Morrissey arranged screen tests
which involved taking still pictures of new faces among the Factory crowd.
Warhol then used the images in his films.
• The Factory became an infamous meeting place for the fashionable social and
artistic scene that surrounded Warhol.
Discuss and explore:
• Describe the Silver Factory — what was the studio like inside?
• What silver items can you find in the exhibition?
• How are each of the screen tests different? How are they the same? Do the people in these
films seem comfortable?
• Can you identify some of the people who frequented the Factory:
Edie Sedgwick: An American actress, socialite, and heiress who starred in many of Andy
Warhol's films in the 1960s.
Taylor Mead: A writer and performer who starred in Andy Warhol's
Tarzan and Jane Regained . . . Sort Of 1964.
Christopher Makos: An American photographer who collaborated with Andy Warhol and who
was an apprentice in Paris for the American photographer Man Ray.
Time Capsules
Time Capsule 21 (selected contents) 1928–74
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the
Visual Arts, Inc.
© The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Inc.
• In 1974, Warhol began his Time Capsules series — an archive of materials from his
everyday life, including mail, photos, art, clothing and collectibles, all stored in
cardboard boxes.
• The TC’s (as Warhol referred to them) were a loose filing system, a way to forget,
but importantly not discard, anything from his life. When full, the boxes were sealed
and marked with a date and occasionally a title, and sent to storage.
• Warhol had amassed 612 Time Capsules during his career, however, they were
almost completely unknown until his death in 1987.
• Many items found in the Time Capsules have since been identified as source
materials for the artist’s work.
• The Time Capsules show many sides to Warhol — as artist, businessman, music
producer and collaborator, magazine editor, film producer, collector and celebrity.
Discuss and explore:
• See if you can identify any objects from Warhol’s Time Capsules that might have been used to
create his art works.
• What can you learn about Warhol’s personality, interests and his era through the objects he
collected?
• Do you think Warhol intended for his Time Capsules to be viewed? Why or why not?
• Why is it often so hard to let go of the things we own or have acquired over time?
There are a small number of works featured in the ‘Andy Warhol’ exhibition that contain adult content or mature themes. Parents, teachers
and carers are advised to check for further signage at the exhibition entry and in gallery spaces.
Visiting
‘Andy Warhol’
Ticketing:
 Entry to the exhibition is free for students 12 years and under
 $10 per student for 13–17 years and tertiary groups
 All supervisors accompanying student groups are free
To make a booking:
 Groups with more than 10 students are required to make a school booking to visit ‘Andy Warhol’
 All pre-booked groups will receive priority entry to the exhibition
 Contact the Education Bookings Office, Monday to Friday, 8.30am – 4.00pm, via phone:
(07) 3840 7255 or email: [email protected]
On the day of your visit:
1. All groups are requested to wait outside the main entrance of the Gallery of Modern Art
(Stanley Place).
2. One adult representative is to proceed to the Group Booking Desk in the Gallery of Modern Art
foyer to arrange payment. Payments are required to be made on the day (by cheque) or the
Gallery can arrange for an invoice to be sent to the school.
3. The adult can then escort their group into the exhibition. If possible, students should refrain from
bringing schoolbags as storage space is limited.
Please note:
When considering booking times, please keep in mind that large numbers are expected to visit
the exhibition, and some flexibility may be required with entry into the exhibition space.
All school groups visiting the Gallery are to be self-guided. A range of ‘Ready to Go’ tours and
other education resources are available to assist teachers in planning their school group visit to
‘Andy Warhol’. Visit www.qag.qld.gov.au/warhol_education for more information.
Curriculum
information
for teachers
Early Years and Primary teachers
For the duration of the ‘Andy Warhol’ exhibition, the Gallery is presenting ‘The Silver Factory: Andy
Warhol for Kids’, a curated program especially for children in the Children’s Art Centre spaces at
the Gallery of Modern Art.
‘The Silver Factory: Andy Warhol for Kids’ features some of Warhol’s art works that will particularly
appeal to kids — a large-scale installation of Silver Clouds 1966, a selection of toy paintings
displayed on Fish wallpaper and a group of early drawings. Free interactives for children are also
available in the Children’s Art Centre spaces and on the Gallery’s website.
EARLY YEARS
CURRICULUM
Health & physical
learning: Finemotor
‘THE SILVER
FACTORY:
ANDY
WARHOL
FOR KIDS’
DESCRIPTION
IN THE
EXHIBITION
IN THE CLASSROOM
‘Brillo’ boxes
Children sort Brillo Soap Pads and Heinz
Tomato Ketchup boxes into rows or stack
into piles.
Accompanying photographs show Andy
Warhol and his assistants making the
sculptures.
Brillo Soap Pads Box
1964
Heinz Tomato
Ketchup Box 1964
Campbell’s Soup 1
1968
• Introduce students to a range of boxed
consumer goods packaging — how can the
boxes be sorted? What are the similarities or
differences between the packages?
• Students can bring to class a favourite box
and share their reasons with the class.
‘Silver clouds’
1966
A room of large, floating helium-filled,
metallic pillows that children can watch
and touch.
This installation was first created by Andy
Warhol in 1966.
‘Photo booth
portraits’
Students can create a Warhol-inspired
self-portrait by photographing and
manipulating their image. The finished
portraits can be sent to an email address
for students to keep as a souvenir of their
Gallery visit.
Early mathematical
understandings:
Early numeracy
Health & physical
learning: Finemotor
Active learning
processes:
Thinking
Social & personal
learning: Social
learning
(understanding
diversity)
Active learning
processes:
Imagining and
responding
• List words or feelings relating to silver (for
example, silver reflects the light, or is cold to
touch). Where do we see silver?
(saucepans, jewellery, etc.).
• Conduct an experiment comparing how
long a group of balloons (air-filled versus
helium-filled) will float in the classroom.
Which ones float longer? How much do the
balloons deflate each day?
Celebrity portraits
such as Dolly Parton
1985, Debbie Harry
1980, Sylvester
Stallone 1980
Other portraits:
Ethel Skull 1963,
Self-portrait no. 9
(camouflage) 1986
• Discuss how Warhol’s photographs are
different to other types of photography, i.e.
family portraits or holiday photographs.
• Workshop: Students’ portraits taken with a
digital camera can be printed and
photocopied several times. Students can
add their own colours or drawings to alter
their images.
Years 1–10 teachers
Primary teachers can access the ‘Andy Warhol’ ‘Ready to Go’ online tours, or use the following
table for ways to extend some of ‘The Silver Factory: Andy Warhol for Kids’ interactives into the
classroom.
Visit www.qag.qld.gov.au/warhol_education for more information.
Studies of society and the environment
Time, continuity and change
Culture and Identity
Students will:
 investigate how identity is constructed in society across cultural and historical contexts
 discuss how contemporary art can raise awareness of cultural issues
 explore ways in which personal and public identities are constructed and reflected in Warhol’s
work (for example, through self-portraiture and images of celebrities and objects from popular
culture).
Media
Students will:
 analyse various media languages and technologies used to construct representations, including
still and moving images, sounds and words
 analyse how media texts are constructed by comparing media representations with personal
experiences
 encounter works in the exhibition that illustrate the ways in which audiences are targeted
through media techniques such as marketing (magazines and television), sponsorship
(representations of consumer products), censorship (Warhol’s ‘Death and Disaster’ series) and
fan culture (Interview magazine)
 analyse how audiences are active producers of meaning.
YEARS
1 TO 10
CURRICULUM
‘THE SILVER
FACTORY:
ANDY
WARHOL
FOR KIDS’
MEDIA
ENGLISH
DESCRIPTION
IN THE
EXHIBITION
IN THE CLASSROOM
‘15 seconds of
fame’
In the 1960s, Warhol made almost 500
screen tests — silent black-and-white films
of the many people who visited the Silver
Factory.
Students can capture their own screen test
and play them back in slow motion to
experience their own ‘15 seconds of fame’.
Lighting, film and sound effects recreate the
cinematic qualities of Warhol’s screen test
reels.
Screen Tests (1964–
66) – film works
displayed in
exhibition space
• Investigate the functions of screen tests in
the film and television industry. When are
screen tests conducted?
• Students can reflect on the experience of
being filmed for the screen test by writing a
short diary entry.
‘A was a lady
who went
shopping at
Sacks’ c.1953
In the 1950s, Warhol created alphabet
pictures of ladies with their expensive
purchases from the famous department
store Saks Fifth Avenue in New York.
Warhol’s mother wrote the stories on each
drawing, but there are some letters missing
from the alphabet. Students can help finish
the drawings by choosing a letter and
drawing a picture and writing a short story
about it.
Warhol’s early
drawings such as
Fantasy Shoes
c.1956
Choose a letter. How many words can you
list that start with the same letter?
Create a class story book inspired by letters
of the alphabet which is illustrated by each
student.
Teachers of senior students
Teachers of senior students can access the ‘Andy Warhol’ ‘Ready to Go’ online tours
for ways to extend some of the exhibition themes into their classrooms.
Visit www.qag.qld.gov.au/warhol_education for more information.
Investigate the following ideas and issues in the classroom:
 the history of celebrity, beauty and glamour stemming from Warhol’s work of the 1950s and his
celebrity portraits of the 1960s and 1970s
 the use of photography in Warhol’s works
 historical and contemporary issues relating to the practices of collecting, such as the
development and role of museum collections versus personal collections
 the representation of historical or political events by contemporary media
 historical and contemporary views on commercial and fine art practices.
Visual Arts
Students will:
 examine the techniques of Warhol’s practice throughout his oeuvre
 investigate the way Warhol commented on cultural life in the United States against the
backdrop of the mid twentieth century
 explore the ways in which pop artists, such as Warhol, redefined traditional views on art —
such as its parameters, subjects, the relationship between art and the viewer, and the role of
the artist in making work
 develop their own definitions of what constitutes contemporary art
 relate events and ideas presented in Warhol’s art to contemporary situations.
Film, television and new media
Students will:
 critique techniques used in Warhol’s film and TV works
 encounter the use of various film and new media technologies in Warhol’s work to understand
the role of viewers as consumers of visual culture
 broaden their knowledge and understanding of the history, evolution and practices of rapidly
expanding moving-image media industries.
English
Cultural: Making meanings in contexts
Students will:
 interpret the ways in which public awareness of particular social and political issues was an
effect of Warhol’s appropriation of images from the media
 consider the relevance of the issues presented in relation to contemporary political, cultural and
social contexts
 investigate the role of contemporary media in documenting issues of importance.
Operational: Operating language systems
Students will:
 discuss the ways in which visual and multimodal texts are used today in print media,
television and film.
Critical: Evaluating and reconstructing meanings in texts
Students will:
 encounter ways in which artists’ works can effect our understanding of texts and images
 consider the effects of the use of text and language in other media such as advertising.
‘Andy Warhol’
education resources
Education resources are available for teachers and students at the Gallery or online at
www.qag.qld.gov.au/warhol_education
Online tours
Self-guide your school group through ‘Andy Warhol’ with the aid of three dynamic online tours.
Suitable for primary and secondary teaching levels, the ‘Ready to Go’ tours include teacher notes
and curriculum information.
My Warhol
Through online interviews and specially-developed activities for students, see how artists
represented in the Queensland Art Gallery Collection respond to aspects of Andy Warhol’s practice
— available from 2008.
Warhol’s World
This specially developed computer activity enables children to explore a series of time capsules,
each focusing on a chapter of Warhol’s life. Constructed as a quiz, the game uncovers interesting
facts about the artist’s life and work, and his diverse roles as graphic designer, artist, band
manager and filmmaker.
Activity book
This free children’s activity book developed for ‘The Silver Factory: Andy Warhol for Kids’ display is
available at the Gallery and online. Visit the Children’s Art Centre on Level 1 and the Park Gallery
at the Gallery of Modern Art for copies.
Timeline:
Andy Warhol’s
life and art
1920s–1950s
1928 Andy Warhol is born Andrew Warhola on
6 August in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
USA
1936 Andy suffers involuntary spasms
('St Vitus Dance'). For eight weeks, his
mother nurses him at home.
1939 Begins collecting photographs of movie
stars in scrapbooks
1945 Graduates from high school and
accepted to study at the Department of
Painting and Design, Carnegie Institute
of Technology, Pittsburgh
1947–48 Experiments with the blotted line
printing technique, a prominent
feature of his commercial work of
the 1950s
1949 Moves to New York City and works as a
commercial artist for magazines such as
Glamour, Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar),
and begins using the surname Warhol
instead of Warhola
1952 First solo exhibition, ‘Fifteen Drawings
Based on the Writings of Truman
Capote’, held at Hugo Gallery, New York
1955 Illustrations for I Miller Shoe Company
advertisements appear weekly in the
New York Times
1956 Meets photographer Edward Wallowitch
(1933–81), who provides the artist with
photographs of Campbell’s soup cans
1960s
1960–61 Begins Campbell’s Soup Can series
1962 Begins screenprinted portraits of teen
idols, including Natalie Wood and
Warren Beatty, and Marilyn Monroe
following her death.
Starts the ‘Death and Disaster’ series
1963 Makes Elvis Presley and Elizabeth
Taylor paintings from publicity
photographs.
Buys a 16mm movie camera and makes
films Sleep, Kiss and Haircut and more
than 500 screen tests
1964 Begins Jackie Kennedy paintings
following the assassination of her
husband, President John F Kennedy.
Relocates his studio The Factory to a
building at 231 East 47th Street, and
Billy Name decorates it with aluminium
foil and silver paint, hence the name
The Silver Factory.
Makes Brillo, Heinz and other box
sculptures, which are exhibited in
New York
1965 Meets young heiress Edie Sedgwick,
who becomes his most prominent film
superstar
1966 Exhibition at Leo Castelli Gallery, New
York, featuring the walls of one room
covered with Cow wallpaper and another
filled with Silver Clouds (helium-filled,
silver, pillow-shaped balloons).
Makes the film The Velvet Underground
and Nico and produces the band’s first
record
1967 Produces Self-Portrait paintings which
are shown in the United States Pavilion
at Expo ’67 in Montreal, Canada
1968 Shot by Valerie Solanas (one of the
actresses in his films) at The Factory on
3 June, which critically wounded and
hospitalised the artist for almost two
months
1970s–80s
1970 Increases production of commissioned
portraits, such as Truman Capote, Mick
Jagger, Sylvester Stallone and Liza
Minnelli
1972 Begins paintings, drawings and prints
of Mao Zedong
1974 Begins assembling the Time Capsules,
comprising ephemera, drawings and
notes
1976 Begins dictating a detailed diary over
the telephone every weekday, which
becomes the basis for The Andy
Warhol Diaries
1978 Makes Oxidation and Shadow paintings
1980 Begins production of Andy Warhol’s T.V.
1982 Makes Crosses paintings and drawings
1985 Andy Warhol’s Fifteen Minutes first airs
on MTV
1986 Makes Camouflage and Last Supper
works
1987 Following routine gall bladder surgery,
Warhol dies on 22 February from a
heart attack. Following the stipulations
of Warhol’s will, the Warhol Foundation
for the Visual Arts is established.
1994 The Andy Warhol Museum opens in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Further
information
The Andy Warhol Museum: www.warhol.org
The Andy Warhol Museum website offers a range of interactives and online lessons exploring ideas in
Warhol’s work, such as advertising, time capsules, collecting and screenprinting.
Resources include:
Death and Disasters: Newspaper activity
Screen Tests
Super size it: Scale in art and advertising
Time Capsule 21
Virtual silkscreening
The thick and thin of it: Warhol and the blotted line
Warhol and collaboration
PBS ‘Art 21’ series
‘Consumption and contemporary art’: This series investigates the ways in which contemporary artists
represent ideas about consumer culture in their work.
Tate, London
Andy Warhol exhibition (2002)
The Fine Arts Cookbook
Screenprinting activity
The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Online lesson: ‘Art since 1950’
Bibliography
Angnell, Callie. Andy Warhol Screen Tests: The Films of Andy Warhol: Catalogue Raisonne,
Volume 1. HN Abrams, New York, 2006.
Bandy, Mary Lea and Biesenbach, Klause. Andy Warhol: Motion Pictures. KW Institute for
Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2004.
Bolton, Linda. Andy Warhol. Franklin Watts, London, 2002.
Dalton, David. A Year in the Life of Andy Warhol. Phaidon, London, 2003.
Finkelstein, Nat. Andy Warhol: The Factory Years 1964–1967. Sidgwick and Jackson, London,
1989.
Hackett, Pat. Andy Warhol Diaries. Warner Books, New York, 1989.
Hackett, Pat and Warhol, Andy. Popism: The Warhol ‘60s. Hutchinson, London, 1981.
Makos, Christopher. Warhol Memoir. Charter, Milan, 2003.
Makos, Christopher. Andy Warhol. Charter, Milan, 2002.
Newsters, Silvia and Soll-Tauchert, Sabine. Andy Warhol: Paintings for Children. Prestel, New
York, 2004.
Venezia, Mike. Andy Warhol. Children’s Press, United States of America, 2001.
Warhol, Andy. A: A Novel. Grove Press, New York, 1968.
Warhol, Andy. Giant Size, Phaidon Press, New York, 2006.
Warhol, Andy. The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again. Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, New York, 1975.
Warhol, Andy. Supernova: Stars, Deaths, and Disasters, 1962–1964, Walker Art Center,
Minneapolis, 2005.
Wolfe, Tom. ‘The 'Me' Decade and the Third Great Awakening’ in New York, 23 August 1976,
pp.26–40.
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