Andy Warhol

 Andy Warhol, born Andrew Warhola (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987)

His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture, and advertising that flourished by the 1960s. After a successful career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol became a renowned and sometimes controversial artist. His art used many types of media, including hand drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, silk screening, sculpture, film, and music. His studio, The Factory, was a well known gathering place that brought together distinguished intellectuals, drag queens, playwrights, Bohemian street people, Hollywood celebrities, and wealthy patrons. He managed and produced The Velvet Underground, a rock band which had a strong influence on the evolution of punk rock music. He founded Interview magazine and was the author of numerous books, including The Philosophy of Andy Warhol and Popism: The Warhol Sixties. He is also notable as a gay man who lived openly as such before the gay liberation movement, and he is credited with coining the widely used expression "15 minutes of fame". Warhol died in Manhattan, at 6:32 am, on February 22, 1987. According to news reports, he had been making good recovery from gallbladder surgery at New York Hospital before dying in his sleep from a sudden post-operative cardiac arrhythmia. He is buried at St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery in Bethel Park, PA.