Andy Warhol was born Andrew Warhola 1928, in Pittsburgh, USA. He received his B.F.A. from the Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh, in 1949. That same year, he moved to New York, and became a successful commercial artist and illustrator.

It was in 1952 when he had his first solo show at the Hugo Gallery, New York. By the early 1960s, Warhol began to paint comic-strip characters and images derived from advertisements. Warhol's new painting was exhibited for the first time in 1962, initially at the Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles, then in a solo exhibition at the Stable Gallery, New York (1964).

An enormous number of Warhol exhibitions were held during the artist's lifetime, a major retrospective was organised by the Pasadena Art Museum which travelled to Chicago, Eindhoven, Paris, London and New York (1970). Other solo exhibitions were held at Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna (1981) and Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield travelling to the Center for Visual Arts, Aspen (1983).

After his death in 1987 solo exhibitions and retrospectives followed throughout the world including the Grey Art Gallery, New York touring to The Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, the Serpentine Gallery, London, and Newport Habor Art Museum, Newport Beach (1989). Most recently a major exhibition was organised by the Tate Modern (2002).