Andy Warhol, (1930 – 1987) was born in Pennsylvania, America, and is considered a founder and major figure of the POP ART movement. A graduate of the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1949, he moved to New York City and gained success as a commercial artist. He got his first break in August 1949, when Glamour Magazine wanted him to illustrate a feature entitled ‘Success is a Job in New York’, and by 1955 he was the most successful and imitated commercial artist in New York.

In 1960 he produced the first of his paintings depicting enlarged comic strip images - such as Popeye and Superman - initially for use in a window display. Warhol pioneered the development of the process whereby an enlarged photographic image is transferred to a silk screen that is then placed on a canvas and inked from the back. It was this technique that enabled him to produce the series of mass-media images - repetitive, yet with slight.

Later in the 1960s, Warhol made a series of experimental films dealing with such ideas as time, boredom, and repetition and in 1965 he started working with a rock band called ‘The Velvet Underground’ formed by Lou Reed and John Cale.

On June 3rd, 1968, Valerie Solanis, a rejected superstar, shot Andy three times in the chest. He was rushed to hospital where he was pronounced dead, but after having his chest cut up and been given heart massage, he survived. After recovering Andy Warhol continued to work on his paintings until his death at the New York Hospital after a gallbladder operation.