7 February - 1 April 2002

Introduction | Room Guide | Timeline

1920s | 1930s | 1940s | 1950s | 1960s | 1970s | 1980s

1960
Dissatisfied with being a commercial artist, Warhol starts making hand-painted pictures based on comic-strips and advertisements.
John F. Kennedy becomes President.

1961
Warhol stops making paintings based on comic-strips after seeing similar works by Roy Lichtenstein. Instead, he paints thirty-two Campbell's soup cans.

1962
Warhol makes his first photo-silkscreen pictures, and experiments with stamps and stencils. Advised by curator Henry Geldzahler to address darker subjects, he begins the Disasters series. Campbell's Soup Cans are shown at the Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles.
Warhol produces his first portraits of Marilyn Monroe after her death in August.
Warhol participates in The New Realists exhibition in New York, the first important survey of Pop art; and has a solo exhibition at The Stable Gallery. Warhol finally abandons commercial art, which had financed his career to date.
Cuban missile crisis.

1963
Warhol works on his Electric Chairs, Race Riot and Tunafish Disaster pictures.
He buys a 16mm camera and makes his first films, including Sleep, Eat and
Blow Job. Warhol hires Gerard Malanga as an assistant. Several months later his studio moves to a loft on East 47th Street, which becomes known as The Factory. Billy Name covers the walls in aluminium foil and silver paint.
President Kennedy assassinated.

1964
The Thirteen Most Wanted Men portraits at the New York World's Fair are considered inappropriate by the Fair's organisers and are painted over. Warhol continues to make films, including Empire, shot from an office facing the Empire State Building. Exhibitions of Boxes in New York, and Disaster paintings in Paris.Warhol transfers to the Leo Castelli Gallery. Advised to put more positive life into his pictures, he creates the first Flowers silkscreens. He acquires a tape recorder that he carries around with him, recording innumerable interviews and conversations. Increasingly, the Factory becomes a rendezvous for young artists, dancers, drop-outs and admirers of Warhol. Dorothy Podber, a regular visitor, brings a gun to the Factory and fires a shot through a stack of four Marilyn portraits.
First American combat troops in Vietnam.

1965
Warhol's films include Kitchen, My Hustler, and Poor Little Rich Girl. He now attracts a glamorous entourage that includes Ingrid Superstar, Ultra Violet and Edie Sedgwick.
Paul Morrissey becomes an important collaborator on his films, and helps to manage the Factory. In Paris, Warhol announces his retirement from painting to concentrate on filmmaking.Thousands of fans mob Warhol and Edie Sedgwick at an opening at the University of Pennsylvania.

1966
Warhol orchestrates nightclub events featuring rock band The Velvet Underground with the singer Nico. At the Leo Castelli Gallery, he exhibits his Silver Clouds while decorating another room with Cow Wallpaper.The film Chelsea Girls gains widespread recognition. Morrissey increasingly directs the films, with Warhol as producer. Warhol meets Fred Hughes, who becomes a close friend and business adviser.

1967
Warhol produces the Velvet Underground's first album, and films Lonesome Cowboys on location in Arizona. He hires the actor Allen Midgette to impersonate him on a college
lecture tour.
Race riots in Newark, New Jersey and Detroit.
Peace protestors storm the Pentagon.

1968
The Factory moves to 33 Union Square West. The new premises are designed as a place of business, rather than a meeting-place for hangers-on. On 3 June Valerie Solanas shoots Warhol and art critic Mario Amaya. Critically wounded, Warhol is saved by surgery lasting several hours. He remains hospitalised for eight weeks and never fully recovers from his injuries.
Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy assassinated.
Richard Nixon elected President.

1969
The first issue of Interview magazine, published by Warhol. Warhol makes the film Trash.
His income as an artist now exceeds his previous earnings from commercial work.
Neil Armstrong becomes first man on the moon.
Midnight Cowboy and Easy Rider released.
400,000 attend Woodstock Festival.