Pat Hackett

POPism
Andy Warhol

A cultural storm swept through the 1960s -- Pop Art, Bob Dylan, psychedelia, underground movies -- and at its centre sat a bemused young artist with silver hair: Andy Warhol. Andy knew everybody (from the cultural commissioner of New York to drug-driven drag queens) and everybody knew Andy. His studio, the Factory, was the place: where he created the large canvases of soup cans and Pop icons that defined Pop Art, where one could listen to the Velvet Underground and rub elbows with Edie Sedgwick and where Warhol himself could observe the comings and goings of the avant-guarde.

Andy Warhol (1928-1987) was a painter, graphic artist filmmaker, and leader of the Pop Art movement. He also produced a significant body of film work, including the famous Chelsea Girls. Equally well known in the late Sixties and early Seventies as resident host at his studio, the Factory. Andy Warhol died following gall bladder surgery, in New York on the 22nd February 1987. As Warhol said: 'I never think that people die. They just go to department stores.' Pat Hackett worked closely with Andy Warhol for twenty years, coauthoring two books and a screenplay as well as serving as his diarist.