FROM THE PUBLISHER

With his tomato soup cans, silk-screened disasters, and matter-of-fact commercialism, Andy Warhol (born 1928) helped create the Pop art ethos. Warhol's life-long infatuation with glamour and the media provided the touchstone for all his work, from his earliest shoe advertisements to the most recent celebrity portraits, all of which can be seen here.

About the Modern Masters series:

With infomative, enjoyable texts and over 100 illustrations--approximately 48 in full color--this innovative series offers a fresh look at the most creative and influential artists of the postwar era. The authors are highly respected art historians and critics chosen for their ability to think clearly and write well. Each handsomely designed volume presents a thorough survey of the artist's life and work, as well as statements by the artist, an illustrated chapter on technique, a chronology, lists of exhibitions and public collections, an annotated bibliography, and an index. Every art lover, from the casual museumgoer to the serious student, teacher, critic, or curator, will be eager to collect these Modern Masters. And with such a low price, they can afford to collect them all.

Other Details: 115 or more illustrations, approximately 48 in full color 128 pages 8 1/2 x 8 1/2" Published 1991

deal about himself, but only in that flat, sometimes faintly mocking manner that has become his trademark--and a conversational style basic to the American social repertoire of the late twentieth century. Like his paintings, his autobiographical ramblings are filled with facts, empty of revelations. "If you want to know all about Andy Warhol," he said in 1968, "just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There's nothing behind it." This, we assume, is not true. In fact, we tend to believe that the more an individual, an art form, even a culture insists on its outward image, the more there is going on behind it. The seemingly absolute impenetrability of Warhol's surfaces is what gives him and his art their persistent interest. We are drawn by what stays hidden, all the more so because Warhol's Pop imagery seems to veil something basic--perhaps disturbing--about our culture, about us. Since there is no question of revealing this secret directly, we must gather what we can from the surface of the artifacts he is willing to provide us.