Forbes Dead Celebrity
Forbes magazine lists Andy Warhol as the “Fourth Highest Paid Dead Celebrity.” Warhol’s name generated over $16 million in sales for the past year alone.
Postal Stamp
The United States Postal Service issues a stamp based on Warhol’s "Self-Portrait", 1964.
The Andy Warhol Museum
The Andy Warhol Museum opens in Pittsburgh, with a collection of over four thousand works.
"Songs for Drella"
"Songs for Drella", a tribute album to Andy Warhol, is released, marking a brief reunion of The Velvet Underground.
"Shot Red Marilyn" and Retrospective
Shot Red Marilyn is sold for $4.1 million at Christie’s in New York, setting a new standard for Warhol paintings. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, holds a large retrospective of Warhol’s oeuvre,...
Auction
Warhol’s extensive personal collection of art, craft objects, jewelry and antiques is sold at record prices at two legendary auctions; proceeds benefit The Andy Warhol Foundation.
Warhol Dies
Warhol is admitted to the hospital for emergency gallbladder surgery. He unexpectedly dies on February 22 from complications arising from an allergic reaction to penicillin. His estate brings wrong...
"Black Monday"
“Black Monday” on the Stock Exchange brings a decade of relative prosperity to an abrupt end. In October 1987, share prices fall to lower levels than in the Wall Street Crash of 1929.
$10 Million Soup Cans
Irving Blum, owner of the Ferus Gallery, is offered $10 million for the first set of "Campbell’s Soup Cans".
Mercedes-Benz
Mercedes-Benz commissions Warhol to work on a series, “Cars.” For Parisian art dealer Alexandre Iolas, Warhol works on paintings of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper. Warhol’s television series is s...
"The Love Boat"
The Campbell Soup Company hires Warhol to produce a series based on their dry soup products. He appears on the 200th episode of “The Love Boat.” A crazed fan pulls off Warhol’s wig during a signing...
Bret Easton Ellis
Bret Easton Ellis publishes "Less Than Zero", the first of several novels that chronicle the nocturnal downtown Manhattan avant-garde.
Truman Capote Dies
Truman Capote dies.
AIDS
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is
Music Videos
Warhol directs music videos for The Cars, Miguel Bose, Laura Donne Berte, Walter Steding and Curiosity Killed the Cat. "Collaborations: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francesco Clemente, Andy Warhol" opens ...
Basquiat
Graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat moves into one of Warhol’s apartments; they later coproduce a series of large, collaborative paintings. The exhibition Warhol’s "Animals: Species at Risk" is sh...
Nancy Reagan
First Lady Nancy Reagan appears on the cover of "Interview".
Lennon, Reagan, Camcorder
- The Beatle John Lennon is assassinated in Central Park. - Ronald Reagan is elected President of the United States. - Sony introduces the first commercially available camcorder.
"Andy Warhol's TV"
“Andy Warhol’s TV” (a celebrity interview program featuring guests such as David Hockney and Diana Vreeland), is launched and runs until 1982. “Andy Warhol’s Fashion,” highlighting New York fashion...
Capote on "Interview"
Truman Capote, Warhol’s youthful obsession, appears on the cover of Interview.
Warhol meets Beuys
Warhol meets Joseph Beuys in New York at the Beuys retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Heiner Bastian commissions Warhol to take Polaroid photos on which his subsequent Beuys portrai...
Iran
The Shah of Iran is overthrown; Iranians take 66 Americans hostages at the American Embassy in Tehran for 444 days.
50
Warhol turns 50 years old. At his party at Studio 54, club owner Steve Rubell dumps a garbage can filled with one thousand dollars over Warhol’s head as a gift.
Cindy Sherman
American photographer Cindy Sherman begins working on the “Untitled Film Stills” series.
Studio 54
Studio 54 opens in New York. Warhol becomes a regular, along with Liza Minelli, Bianca Jagger, Truman Capote and Calvin Klein. The Museum of American Folk Art, New York, shows Warhol’s folk-art col...
Carter and Punk Rock
Punk rock is an underground sensation. Jimmy (James Earl) Carter is elected President of the United States.
Minox 35EL
Warhol buys the smallest camera on the market at the time, the Minox 35EL, which allows him to capture candid images. He starts work on a joint project with realist painter Jamie Wyeth. The Württen...
Mao Dies
Mao Tse-Tung dies in Beijing.
"The Philosophy of Andy Warhol"
Warhol writes The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again) in collaboration with Pat Hackett. He is invited to a White House dinner for the Shah of Iran. Warhol buys his first Rolls R...
Ozone Layer
Scientists discover a hole in the ozone layer.
"Time Capsules"
- Warhol begins to assemble Time Capsules: assortments of everyday objects, documents, notes, letters, etc. packed into cardboard boxes, labeled and stored away. - He buys a townhouse on East 66th...
Nixon Resigns
President Nixon resigns; Gerald R. Ford is sworn into office.
Joseph Beuys
Joseph Beuys stages his first “action,” "I Like America and America Likes Me," at the René Block Gallery in New York.
Polaroid
- An American Family (the first television reality series featuring the Loud family) premieres on PBS. - Abortion is legalized in the United States. - The United States pulls out of Vietnam. - Pola...
"Bonanza" and Wounded Knee
- “Bonanza” ends its fourteen-year run on television, signaling the decline of the Western on television. - A 200-person American Indian Movement contingent comes under siege at Wounded Knee.
Mother Dies
Warhol begins to dictate his diary to Pat Hackett; it is published later after his death. He returns to painting Mao portraits, and supports Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern by cre...
Brando
Marlon Brando stars in Francis Ford Coppola’s "The Godfather" and Bernardo Bertolucci’s "Last Tango in Paris".
Nixon in China
President Nixon makes a historic visit to Communist China and is later reelected.
"Society" Portraits and "Pork"
Warhol begins painting commissioned “society” portraits. His play "Pork" is performed by the LaMama Experimental Theater Club, New York, and at the Round House Theatre, London. Edie Sedgwick, a you...
Campbell Soup Cans
A hand-painted Campbell’s Soup Can sells for $60,000 at auction, a record for a work by a living American artist.
Beatles, Joplin, Kent State
- The Beatles break up. - Musician Janis Joplin is found dead of a heroin overdose. - Protesting students are shot at Kent State University, Kent, Ohio.
"Midnight Cowboy" and "Easy Rider"
- John Schlesinger’s movie Midnight Cowboy and Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider are released. - Liza Minelli is nominated for an Academy Award for The Sterile Cuckoo. - John Wayne wins an Academy Award f...
Moon and Woodstock
- Neil Armstrong becomes the first man on the moon. - Approximately 500,000 people attend Woodstock, a weekend concert in upstate New York.
"Interview" Magazine
For the first time, Warhol’s income as an artist exceeds his previous earnings from his commercial work. He opens an adult cinema called "Andy Warhol’s Theater: Boys to Adore Galore" (which closes ...
American Indian Movement
American Indian Movement is founded in Minneapolis by a group of Anishinabe (Chipewa).
Warhol Shot
Warhol films Lonesome Cowboys in Tucson. Stockholm’s Moderna Museet mounts the first European survey of Warhol’s work, which travels to Amsterdam, Berne and Oslo. The Factory moves to 33 Union Squa...
Events of 1968
- Tom Wolfe publishes The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test. - Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated in Memphis. - Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated in Los Angeles. - Photographs of the Earth are taken ...
Hockney
David Hockney paints "A Bigger Splash", one of his series of Los Angeles swimming pools.
Peace March
Tens of thousands of people take part in a peace march on Washington.
"The Velvet Underground and Nico"
Warhol produces The Velvet Underground’s first album, The Velvet Underground and Nico. He designs its infamous album cover featuring a yellow banana sticker that can be peeled off to reveal a phall...
"Hair", Heroin and McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan publishes The Medium Is the Message. The rock musical Hair opens in New York. The number of heroin addicts in the United States reaches an estimated 750,000; involvement in Vietna...
"The Exploding Plastic Inevitable"
Warhol organizes a touring production, “The Exploding Plastic Inevitable,” a multimedia extravaganza featuring the Velvet Undergound and Nico, a European model, actress and singer. He places an ad ...
"In Cold Blood"
Truman Capote publishes "In Cold Blood"
Sontag and Antonioni
American author and leading commentator on modern culture Susan Sontag publishes Against Interpretation, in which she observes, “A work of art is a thing in the world, not just text and commentary ...
Minimalism, Indiana "LOVE"
The Primary Structures exhibition, a keystone of the Minimalist art movement, opens at the Jewish Museum in New York. Robert Indiana creates his first LOVE sculpture.
Rosenquist "F111"
James Rosenquist achieves international acclaim with his room-sized painting F111 (10 x 86 ft.), named after the fighter-bomber plane then in development for the Vietnam War.
Watts, Malcolm X and Vietnam
Civil unrest over California’s proposition to circumvent components of the Civil Rights Act sparks the six-day Watts riot in South Central Los Angeles. Malcolm X is assassinated at the Audubon Ball...
Retirement
Warhol announces his plan to retire from painting to concentrate on filmmaking ”because it’s easier.” Lester Persky throws “The Fifty Most Beautiful People” party at the Factory, drawing guests su...
Velvet Underground and Rolling Stones
The rock band The Velvet Underground forms. The Rolling Stones top the charts for the first time with “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.”
"Shot Marilyn" and other events from 1964
Warhol produces a series of food boxes at the Factory. He is commissioned by the architect Philip Johnson to produce a mural for the façade of the New York State Pavilion at the New York World’s F...
Kubrick, Beatles, Civil Rights
- Stanley Kubrick releases Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. - The Beatles perform on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” watched by a record-setting 73,000,000 people. -...
Muhammad Ali and Mao
- Muhammad Ali becomes the World Heavyweight Boxing Champion. - Mao publishes Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, better known as The Little Red Book.
Events of 1963
- Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his “I Have a Dream” speech. - Betty Friedan publishes The Feminine Mystique, a milestone work of American feminism. - Polaroid introduces instant-color film. - P...
Jackie Kennedy and Film
Warhol begins portraits of Jackie Kennedy. Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and Warhol begins his versions of the painting including Thirty Are ...
Silkscreen Technique
Warhol “discovers” the photo-silkscreen technique. Gallery owner Irving Blum purchases Warhol’s first “Campbell Soup Cans” series for $1,000 after exhibiting them at the Ferus Gallery in Los Ang...
Monroe "Happy Birthday", Rolling Stones, Monroe Dead
- Marilyn Monroe serenades President Kennedy with “Happy Birthday” at Madison Square Garden. - Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Brian Jones form The Rolling Stones. - Marilyn Monroe is found dead.
Virginia Woolf, Cuckoo's Nest, Missile Crisis
- Broadway premiere of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - Publication of Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. - Nuclear missile crisis showdown between Cold War adversarie...
Rosenquist and Thiebaud
- James Rosenquist paints Marilyn Monroe 1. - Wayne Thiebaud’s paintings of commonplace objects such as cakes, slices of pie and sandwiches, attract attention in his first solo museum exhibition at...
Oldenburg, Wesselmann, Fluxus
- Pop sculptor Claes Oldenburg opens the Store on E. 2nd Street, New York (which he fills with a selection of his plaster replicas of food) as an exhibition hall, retail shop and performance space....
Catch-22, Berlin, Cuba
- Joseph Heller publishes Catch-22. - The Berlin Wall is constructed. - President Kennedy orders the ill-fated invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.
Soup Cans
Warhol approaches leading New York gallerist Leo Castelli for representation but is rejected due to the similarity of his comic-book work to Roy Lichtenstein’s paintings. Warhol begins work on 32 C...
Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor wins her first Academy Award for Butterfield 8.
Hitchcock, Leary and Kennedy
- Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is released. - Timothy Leary and Allen Ginsberg promote the “psychedelic revolution.” - John F. Kennedy is elected President of the United States.
Billy Linich
Warhol meets Billy Linich (a.k.a. Billy Name), who later becomes a founding member of the Factory. Warhol makes hand-painted pictures based on comic strips and advertisements.
Stride Toward Freedom
Martin Luther King Jr. publishes Stride Toward Freedom.
"New Wave"
French “New Wave” films find commercial success in American cinemas.
Multiple Artworld Events
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, opens in Manhattan. Frank Stella exhibits his minimal “Black Paintings” at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The first public “...
"Pop Art"
The term “Pop Art” (art that reflects aspects of popular culture) is coined by British art critic Lawrence Alloway in reference to British artist Richard Hamilton’s collage Just What Is It That Mak...
Julia Warhola Award
Julia Warhola wins an American Institute of Graphic Arts Award for her lettering on Warhol’s cover of Louis Hardin’s album The Story of Moondog.
ULAE
Tatyana and Maurice Grosman establish Universal Limited Arts Editions (ULAE), a fine-art printmaking studio, Long Island, New York, reinvigorating fine-art lithography.
Andy Warhol Enterprises, Inc.
Andy Warhol Enterprises, Inc. is established for Warhol’s commercial work. He publishes drawings in A Gold Book.
Lichtenstein Cartoons
Roy Lichtenstein begins to interpret cartoon images from bubble-gum wrappers, at first simply to please his children.
Donald Judd
Minimalist artist Donald Judd has his first solo exhibition at Panoramas Gallery in Greenwich Village.
Kerouac
Beat generation writer Jack Kerouac publishes "On the Road".
Lichtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein creates the Ten Dollar Bill painting.
Pollock Dies
Jackson Pollack dies in a car crash.
Warhol wins award
Warhol wins the 35th Annual Art Directors Club Award for Distinctive Merit for his I. Miller shoe ads. He travels around the world with his friend Charles Lisanby, a television set designer.
Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white rider in Montgomery, Alabama.
Gunsmoke
“Gunsmoke” premieres on CBS, ushering in television’s first “Western Boom.”
San Francisco Poetry Renaissance
The San Francisco Poetry Renaissance begins with a reading at Six Gallery by Allen Ginsberg and others.
Rebel Without a Cause
James Dean stars in "Rebel Without a Cause" and later that year dies in a car accident.
Shoe Ads
Warhol’s shoe ads for I. Miller appear weekly in the New York Times.
McDonald's and Disneyland
McDonald’s Corporation is founded. Disneyland opens.
Segregation illegal
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas makes segregation illegal in the United States.
Rauchenberg "Charlene"
Robert Rauschenberg creates the combine-painting Charlene, an assemblage that breaks down barriers between painting and sculpture by incorporating everyday objects.
On the Waterfront
Elia Kazan’s "On the Waterfront" (starring Marlon Brando) wins the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Erased de Kooning
Robert Rauschenberg shocks the world with his Erased de Kooning. He obtains a drawing from de Kooning, then erases and frames it.
Theatre 12
Warhol joins drama group Theatre 12 and becomes interested in the work of Bertolt Brecht.
Presley and Kennedy
Elvis Presley makes his first record. John F. Kennedy marries Jacqueline Lee Bouvier.
Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower is elected President of the United States. A nuclear bomb test in Nevada is filmed and broadcast on television.
Brando and Monroe
Marlon Brando is nominated for his first Academy Award for "A Streetcar Named Desire". Marilyn Monroe appears on the cover of Life magazine.
First Exhibition
Warhol receives an Art Directors Club Medal for various newspaper advertisements. With two other artists, he illustrates Amy Vanderbilt’s Complete Book of Etiquette. His first exhibition, Fifteen D...
Rauschenberg and Lichtenstein
Robert Rauschenberg and Roy Lichtenstein have their first one-person shows in New York.
Charles Ginzburg
Charles Ginzburg discovers a way to magnetically record images, creating the forerunner of the video recorder.
"The Nation's Nightmare"
Warhol designs newspaper publicity for “The Nation’s Nightmare,” a radio program aimed at combating drugs and violence.
Color TV
The first color television is introduced.
Black Mountain College
Black Mountain College in North Carolina becomes an increasingly important center for avant-garde artists.
West 103rd Street
Warhol moves into an apartment on West 103rd Street which he shares with dancers and actors. He buys his first television set. Warhol avoids the draft; his is changed from 1-A to 4-F.
Xerox
Photo-copier machines become commercially available with the formation of the Xerox Corporation.
Abstract Expressionism
Works by Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky and Jackson Pollock are shown in the American Pavilion of the Venice Biennale, solidifying Abstract Expressionism as the top American style.
McCarthyism
McCarthyism gains power and begins blacklisting registered members of the Communist Party.
Mao
Mao Tse-Tung founds the People’s Republic of China.
"Cold War"
The term “Cold War” is coined to describe relations between the powers of the East and West.
Carnegie Graduation
Warhol graduates from the Carnegie Institute of Technology, moves to Manhattan and works as an illustrator for Glamour magazine. He shares an apartment on St. Mark’s Place with Philip Pearlstein; t...
Jackson Pollack
Life magazine declares Jackson Pollock the “greatest living painter in America.”
Americanizes Name
Warhol produces Christmas cards, window displays, album covers, book illustrations and retail ad campaigns for various companies throughout New York. He develops an infatuation with Truman Capote, ...
Truman Capote
Truman Capote publishes his first book, "Other Voices, Other Rooms", about the disillusionment of a young man in search of his estranged father.
Polaroid
Edwin Land markets the Polaroid camera.
Cano
At the Carnegie Institute of Technology, Warhol is picture editor for the student magazine, Cano, and develops his trademark “blotted line” monotype technique.
Marilyn Monroe
Norma Jean Mortensen appears on her first magazine cover, Family Circle, signs her first motion-picture contract with 20th Century Fox Studios and adopts the screen name Marilyn Monroe.
Drawing Prize
Warhol receives the John L. Porter Prize for Progress for his drawings at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. He and his brother sell fruit from a van. Warhol and fellow students rent a barn to u...
Joseph McCarthy
Senator Joseph McCarthy’s House of Un-American Activities Committee, investigating the Hollywood motion picture industry for un-American and subversive activities, interrogates the “Hollywood Ten,”...
Atomic Bomb
The United States drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
High School Graduation
Warhol graduates from high school and begins studying painting and design at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh.
Elizabeth Taylor
At age twelve, Elizabeth Taylor becomes MGM’s top child star with the release of "National Velvet", grossing $4 million.
Nuclear Bomb
Robert J. Oppenheimer leads the “Manhattan Project” to develop the nuclear bomb.
Father Dies
Warhol’s father dies of jaundice, leaving the family in financial straits. Warhol’s mother is afraid the funeral might lead to a recurrence of his “nervous condition,” so he does not attend.
Pearl Harbor
Japan attacks Pearl Harbor.
Photo-copying
American Chester Carlson invents the process of Xerography, or photo-copying.
First Camera
Warhol receives his first camera and constructs a makeshift darkroom in the basement. At age nine, he begins free art at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh.
Mass reproduction
Walter Benjamin publishes the essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” He discusses destruction of the “aura” of the original artwork by mass reproduction.
Chorea
Warhol is diagnosed with chorea (St. Vitus’s dance), a rare, potentially fatal disease of the nervous system caused by poor diet and crowded, unhygienic living conditions. While bed-ridden, he indu...
The Depression
The Warhola family struggles financially during the Depression after the father loses his construction job. Julia Warhola takes domestic work and makes flowers cut from tin cans to sell door to doo...
Warhol born
Andy Warhol is born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Julia and Andrej Warhola, Eastern European immigrants.
Academy Awards
First Academy Awards held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, California.
