Andy Warhol’s famous works employed a 'machine-like' technique

Learn how to make a print like pop artist Andy Warhol.

Andy Warhol, explained

Andy Warhol wasn't just an artist—he was a cultural force. From his early days working as a New York illustrator to managing The Velvet Underground and creating experimental films, Warhol blurred the line between art and commerce, leaving a legacy that changed pop culture forever.

Andy Warhol’s Catholic background influenced his art

Warhol’s life and work hold clear religious through lines, from his Byzantine Catholic upbringing to reexaminations of his catalog, including an unfinished work for the 1968 world’s fair commissioned for the Catholic Church through a local Catholic university.

Andy Warhol's presence continues to persist in pop culture

Warhol produced iconic album art for The Rolling Stones and The Velvet Underground. He also inspired rappers Jay-Z and Tyler, the Creator. Warhol’s immense influence on art and pop culture elevated him to celebrity status, and his identity and style continue to be referenced in sometimes unexpected corners of cultural consciousness.

Andy Warhol’s 'Exploding Plastic Inevitable' shows were multimedia performance art

If you wandered into one of Andy Warhol’s "Exploding Plastic Inevitable" events in the 1960s, you might have encountered a Velvet Underground performance, go-go dancers, strobe lights, guerrilla filmmakers asking very personal questions, and mimes. Warhol was on the cutting edge of many art forms, and performance art was no exception.

Pop art brought 'low culture' to the fine art world

Pop art’s embrace of kitsch American pop culture furthered a centuries-long tradition of the visual arts during the second half of the 20th century. Its most famous exemplars, including Andy Warhol, were heirs to a vast tradition they sought to transcend and upend.

Pop art explored the concepts of mass production and consumerism

Consumerism emerged from industrial capitalism, promoting the idea that consuming goods was linked to personal success and happiness. Artists, especially pop artists, approached this cultural phenomenon through various perspectives, some supportive of consumerism and others against. Figures like Andy Warhol embraced mass media imagery and mimicked its style, while many artists rejected the “commodification” of things by creating art that couldn’t be sold or focusing on experiences rather than objects.

Painter Wayne Thiebaud's portraits of 20th-century Americana are often called 'pop art,' the kitschy movement associated with Andy Warhol that focused on commercialism and everyday objects, but Thiebaud disliked the term and the movement.

Rockwell based many of his paintings on staged photographs

Rockwell’s work was often noted for its realism. His paintings' near-photographic precision was no accident. Early in his career, he painted from live models. Later, he’d conceived a scene, staged it, photographed it, and then used the photos as the foundation for his paintings.

Basquiat and Warhol were friends and collaborators before a bitter falling out

The two men were tight, but they also offered what the other lacked in the art world: Basquiat inspired Warhol, and Warhol gave Basquiat art-world credibility. They began working together, producing 160 collaborative works between 1983 and 1985. A 1985 exhibition of their joint works was a massive flop, though, and the friendship never recovered.

Basquiat impressed Warhol by quickly painting a picture of the two men

After Jean-Michel Basquiat was introduced to Andy Warhol in 1982, Warhol took a Polaroid photo of the two of them, and Basquiat ran home (about a mile and a half) to paint it. Two hours later, he returned with Doz Cabezas. The act impressed Warhol, who mentored the young artist.

Roy Lichtenstein popularized benday dots in his famous comic-inspired paintings

American newspaper publisher Benjamin Henry Day Jr. developed the "benday" printing and photoengraving technique to produce grays and colors with fine patterns of ink of equal size and distribution. The process would become widespread in newspaper printing and define the work of Roy Lichtenstein.

Appropriation is a common feature of pop art

Many of pop art’s most famous works appropriate objects or (more controversially) artwork and photography with new techniques and contexts, a practice that extends beyond pop into movements like readymade and Dada. Some pop artists, like Elaine Sturtevant, even made copies in partnership with the help of their targets.

How Mary Cassatt pioneered printmaking

In 1890, the artist attended an exhibition in Paris featuring a vast collection of 725 Japanese woodblock prints. Inspired by the work, she told a friend she could not stop thinking about "color on copper," and eventually used a metal plate "intaglio" technique to execute her vision. This video recreates how she made it happen.

In 2015, a custom virus program was used to destroy and transform art images

At the Art Laboratory Berlin's "bOdy pandemOnium: Immersion into Noise" exhibit, Chicago-born artist Joseph Nechvatal explored viractualism—the interface between the biological and the technological—via a custom virus program that randomly altered images representing the human eye and rectum.

Woody Guthrie emblazoned 'This machine kills fascists' on his guitar, a phrase he borrowed from war machinery.

The Beats also influenced the imagery of the 1960s

First editions of Burroughs’s "The Naked Lunch," Kerouac’s "The Dharma Bums," and Ferlinghetti’s "A Coney Island of the Mind" were just as notable for their text as they were for their design, which anticipated the psychedelic imagery of 1960s countercultural touchstones like Ken Kesey, Andy Warhol, and R. Crumb.

A collage sparked the pop art movement

Richard Hamilton’s "Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?"—originally an illustration for a 1956 exhibition on modern living and collaborative art practices—would later become the nascent symbol of pop art.

MoMA hosted 1962's 'Symposium on Pop Art,' which made the term 'pop art' official

MoMA's history with pop art and its conceptual roots extends to its early origins, and its collection of works includes iconic works like Warhol's "Campbell's Soup Cans" and Lichtenstein's "Drowning Girl."

Many critics dismissed Norman Rockwell as overly sentimental

The painter’s portraits of American life were often dismissed as commercially minded, banal, or kitschy, especially when compared with the more abstract art of the time. Rockwell, however, was undeterred, commenting that he wanted to produce work that would make viewers “want to sigh and smile at the same time.”

Some argue that appropriation in pop art is simply plagiarism

Some of pop art’s most recognizable works rely on the art of appropriation, lifting advertisements, product images, and—in Roy Lichtenstein’s case—comic book panels drawn by other artists. Artnet dives into a 2023 documentary exploring the complicated legacy of appropriation and high versus low art through interviews with comic artists whose work Lichtenstein copied into million-dollar masterpieces.

Banksy turned graffiti into high art

The anonymous artist is renowned for his puckish, often stenciled street art. He's also known for the eye-popping sales those works command once they're up for auction. This podcast dives into the history of the singular artist, exploring how a British graffiti artist became a cultural icon.

Gary Panter's punk art defined the '70s and '80s counterculture

The artist got his start providing fliers and logos for early Los Angeles punk bands, but later took his psychedelic, Pop Art-vision to designing on "Pee-Wee's Playhouse," for which he won three Emmy Awards.

Keith Haring was inspired by graffiti's accessibility

The visual artist—known for his vibrant pop art—loved how graffiti was a democratic form, available to everyday people who wouldn't otherwise visit museums or galleries. He began drawing chalk murals in New York subway stations, remarking that it was an ideal venue because it attracted a diverse audience.

Read a 1984 interview with Dolly Parton, conducted by artist Andy Warhol.

Graffiti has its own visual language, including simple 'tags,' large block letters, and complex 'pieces.'

The de stijl movement embraced bright colors and abstract images

The 20th-century movement sought to develop a universal language for the modern era by fusing form and function. Modern day viewers will recognize its bright colors and clean aesthetic, popular with retro-styled book and album covers.

Indigenous art's influence on pop art often goes uncredited

Keith Haring’s iconic imagery, often known for its accessibility, was deeply inspired by the artwork of the Indigenous people of Australia. Their artwork influenced aspects of Haring's paintings, such as flat block colors and symmetrical compositions. While some critics find Haring to have appropriated their culture, others find his work to be pushing a message of unity and togetherness.

The iconic national park posters were created by New Deal artists hired through FDR's Works Progress Administration in the 1930s.

View Jean-Michel Basquiat's artwork

The iconic artist had a short career, but he produced a massive body of work and changed the style of American art by bringing together pop art, graffiti, hip-hop, and punk. His work still hangs in galleries across the world. View scans of the most famous ones here.

Rockwell's 'Rosie the Riveter' alludes to Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel

Norman Rockwell's 1943 painting was intended to show the strength of female contributions to the American war effort and used the character of Rosie the Riveter, popularized in a 1942 song, to represent that. Although Rockwell used a model for the portrait, he made the woman larger on the canvas to parallel Michelangelo's painting of the Prophet Isaiah on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Rockwell's Saturday Evening Post created an idealized American life

The Saturday Evening Post’s circulation exploded in the early 20th century, due in no small part to Rockwell’s iconic cover illustrations, which often portrayed idyllic portraits of American life from the not-so-distant past. This documentary explores how Rockwell’s covers played on national nostalgia, creating a vision of the country that grew to be associated with the American Dream.

Explore works by essential female pop artists

Like so many art movements, the pantheon of pop art was mostly men, despite the contributions of several important women artists to its aesthetics and history. See paintings from British pop founder Pauline Boty and several artists who worked with, or exhibited alongside, the likes of Warhol and Haring.

Rockwell left high school to become an artist

He began taking art classes at 14, while still in high school, but by 1910, he left traditional schooling to focus on his training at the National Academy of Design. He transferred to the Art Students League soon after to study under Thomas Fogarty, who taught him the particulars of commercial illustration, and George Bridgman, who was known for anatomically precise portraits.

Gary Panter designed punk flyers before building the surreal world of Pee-wee Herman

The illustrator’s anxiety-ridden comics adorned flyers for LA punk bands, defining a distinctive aesthetic for the burgeoning genre. That work caught the eye of Paul Reubens, who was staging a late-night show with his persona Pee-wee Herman.

The Velvet Underground is often considered a starting point for punk rock

The band blended Warhol’s Pop Art with Beat poetry, early rock ‘n’ roll and the European avant-garde, creating a sound that was often chaotic, noisy and abrasive. The band’s debut album, “The Velvet Underground and Nico,” sold poorly, but (supposedly) everyone who purchased a copy started a band.

Watch the engineering challenges overcome in turning a 3D printer into a tattoo machine

The DIY project required reprogramming the printer to operate on a curved, 2D surface rather than making flat layers in 3D, editing replacement firmware to bypass temperature safety checks, and developing a rapid system to stop the tattoo in case of an emergency. The final product printed "LEG" on a volunteer's leg.

Jackson Pollock and others developed 'action painting,' highlighting the creative process

A subcategory of performance art, action painting emerged in 1945 as a way to capture a moment-by-moment view of the creative process through painting. For these pieces, the physical act of painting is as important as the finished product. This short explainer video covers the philosophy behind action painting, as well as exploring the works of several well-known action painters, including Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, and Mark Rothko.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir's 'Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette' is considered an impressionist masterpiece that captures the fleeting moments of working-class people at a beer hall.

Banksy once sold his highly valued artwork on the street for $60

The notorious (and anonymous) street artist has a history of sending up the art world's pretensions. In 2013, he sold his artwork, valued at approximately $20K per piece, for $60 on a New York street. Some unassuming, but apparently aesthetically discerning, patrons took home world-renowned work that day at a steep discount.

Basquiat's work is often called neoexpressionist

The neoexpressionist movement was a reaction to the minimalism of the 1960s, employing bold colors and brash symbolism to convey emotion and, at times, make political statements. As the style’s name implies, it was a new form of expressionism, a movement popular in the early 20th century.

Basquiat produced more than 1,000 paintings in 10 years

He worked incredibly quickly, producing an estimated 1,000 paintings and 2,000 drawings during his 10-year career. Despite having little formal training, Basquiat was an autodidact who read and consumed widely, then rapidly infused those influences into his work.

Richard Hamilton's iconic pop art collage inspired the set of 'Barbie' (2023)

Ken's Mojo Dojo Casa House in Greta Gerwig's "Barbie" was inspired by Hamilton's jumbled vision of a home in "Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?" Set designers cited the work as inspiring the mishmash of Americana imagery in the man cave.

​​Andy Warhol made a Coca-Cola perfume called 'You're In'

The 100 spray-painted bottles were filled with a cheap citrusy perfume, practically begging audiences to ask if they were indeed filled with urine. The Coca-Cola Company sent a cease-and-desist letter shortly after learning of the project. IN 2017, a Japanese fashion brand remade the works without mentioning Coca-Cola.

Norman Rockwell considered himself an 'illustrator' rather than a 'painter.'

Listen to Steve Jobs explain his 'rock tumbler' metaphor for teamwork.

Explore an online gallery highlighting the importance of graphical user interfaces

Before the Macintosh, computers were primarily used in offices and required users to type complex commands to perform tasks. Apple followed the device with the LaserWriter printer, bringing graphic production to at-home artists and designers.

The widespread violence of World War I birthed surrealism

Following World War I, artists used unconventional forms of expression to make sense of the death and destruction they'd witnessed for years. Life as they knew it had ended, and movements like Surrealism, founded by André Breton, rebelled against tradition.

See a massive collection of Norman Rockwell's paintings

Rockwell's works sought to capture authentic scenes from American life and, in the process, came to define the American ideal. This collection includes 244 of his paintings, from his early days at the Saturday Evening Post through his more socially minded work for Look, to the end of his career. Below is 1951's "Saying Grace."

Trove of posthumous paintings reveals Basquiat's technical skill and process

The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art exhibited 50 paintings by the artist in 2026 that had not been shown before. Focused primarily on heads and anatomy, the artworks are touched with signs of his process: smudges, footprints, splashes. The exhibit is annotated with comments from contemporary artists on Basquiat's visionary skill, with some describing him as one of the world's greatest. View a sampling and read more about them here.