Born August 6, 1928. Died February 22, 1987
Modern Artist & Filmmaker
Andy Warhol was an American artist who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture, and advertisement that flourished by the 1960s. Warhol’s art used many types of media, including hand drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, silk screening, sculpture, film, and music. He was also a pioneer in computer-generated art.
Warhol was also a prolific filmmaker and the author of multiple books featuring his artwork.
Biographer Wayne Koestenbaum found evidence of Warhol’s dyslexia from his unusual spelling patterns:
Almost every sentence in his hand is full of bizarre spelling errors. Clearly, he was dyslexic, though undiagnosed (I assume dyslexia diagnoses were rare at the time). Some of his errors: “vedio” for “video,” “polorrod” and “poliaroid” for “Polaroid,” “tailand” for “Thailand,” “scrpit” for “script,” “pastic” for “plastic,” “herion” for “heroin,” and “Leory” for “Leroy.” Biographers have suggested that sympathetic female classmates in college helped him compose his papers. But these friendly collaborative efforts weren’t enough to see him through the required course in “Thought and Expression” at Carnegie Tech, and he failed his first year. (From Andy Warhol, 2001)