Art Masterpiece: 100 Cans



Art Masterpiece: 100 Cans

by Andy Warhol

[pic][pic]

Oil on canvas

72 x 52 inches (182.9 x 132.1 cm)

Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery

Keywords: Pop Art, Geometric shape, Repetition

Grade: 6th

Activity: 100 Can Collective Mural

Meet the Artist

• Born Andrew Warhola in 1928 near Pittsburgh, Pa. to Slovak immigrants. His father died in a construction accident when Andy was 13 years old.

• He is known as an American painter, film-maker, publisher and major figure in the pop art movement.

• Warhol was a sickly child, his mom would give him a Hershey bar for every coloring book page he finished. He excelled in art and won a scholarship to college.

• After college, he moved to New York City and became a magazine illustrator – became known for his drawings of shoes. His mother lived with him – they had no hot water, the bathtub was in the kitchen and had up to 20 cats living with them. Warhol ate tomato soup every day for lunch.

• In the 1960’s, he started to make paintings of famous American products such as soup cans, coke bottles, dollar signs & celebrity portraits. He became known as the Prince of Pop – he brought art to the masses by making art out of daily life.

• Warhol began to use a photographic silk-screen process to produce paintings and prints. The technique appealed to him because of the potential for repeating clean, hard-edged shapes with bright colors.

• Andy wanted to remove the difference between fine art and the commercial arts used for magazine illustrations, comic books, record albums or ad campaigns. His philosophy was well captured in his quote: “When you think about it, department stores are kind of like museums”.

• Warhol also made over 60 films and wrote several books. He created the fashion magazine, “Interview” which is still published today.

• Described by friends as a “work-aholic” he knew he could achieve the American dream only by hard work.

• Throughout his life, Warhol held a notorious celebrity status, enhanced by his self-promotion. After an assassination attempt in 1968 the pop artist made a radical turn in his process of making art. The philosopher of art mass production now spent most of his time making individual portraits of rich and affluent people like Mick Jaggar, Michael Jackson or Brigitte Bardot.

• Warhol died suddenly in 1987 leaving no family of his own. His estate, worth millions of dollars was directed toward the establishment of an endowment fund for the arts.

• The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pa. Is the largest American Art Museum dedicated to a single artist – there are more then 4,000 works by Warhol himself there.

POP ART: a major art movement of the 20th century in the United States that uses elements of popular culture, magazines, movies, music, bottles, cans (everyday objects seen in a NEW WAY)

Discussion of Print:

100 Cans was painted by hand, assisted by stencils. A close look reveals the fact that the cans are not identical, nor are they evenly spaced. The bottom row is cut off, suggesting that they continue beyond the confines of the canvas, which leads to another aspect of the work—Warhol’s interest in machine-like processes such as mass production. Mass production is impersonal, and America was becoming more and more depersonalized. But mass production is also efficient, and Warhol admired that efficiency. He even said in 1962, "I want everybody to think alike. . . . I think everybody should be a machine."

What do you see in this painting? What SHAPES do you see? (circles, rectangles, cylinders) What kinds of shapes are these called? (geometric).

How are today’s cans different from Warhols’ painted cans in 1962? How are they the same? Do you think he liked soup? (Warhol ate tomato soup every day for 20 years)

Is this painting symmetrical or asymmetrical?

What colors are in the painting? What kind of colors are they? (warm)

How many cans are there? This is called REPETITION - a design that is used over and over again, repeated.

Activity: SOUP CAN MURAL

Materials: Can template Handouts 1/student, White 9 X 6 Construction Paper, oil pastels or crayons, markers, black marker for outlining, rulers, erasers and pencils.

1. Have the students draw(trace) an outline of a soup can - same as the template.

2. Have them write out Campbell’s condensed__________ soup, using the same fonts as the template.

3. They are to come up with their own kind of soup and write that in above the word soup. They will design a logo to go along with their type of soup and draw it in the circle area on the can. Encourage them to use their imagination with their kind of soup. (example: bubble gum soup – they will draw a piece of bubble gum).

4. Outline with black markers or crayons and use only two crayons to color in their cans - preferably complimentary colors.

5. Collect the finished pieces and mount on butcher paper to make a large version of Warhol’s painting.

6. Recollect soup can templates for future use.

7. Display in a visible area for all to admire!

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