Andy Warhol was an American artist, printmaker, and cinematographer, and one of the pioneers of the visual art movement Pop Art. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where the Andy Warhol Museum commemorates his work and life. After achieving great success as a commercial illustrator, Warhol worked as a painter, avant-garde filmmaker, archivist, and writer, among other roles. He also coined the widely known concept of “15 minutes of fame.”

Silkscreen printing is a hallmark of Andy Warhol's work, allowing images to be repeated in large quantities at low cost. Like the Pop Art he championed, his work reflects the impact of the consumer revolution while embracing everyday life and an egalitarian outlook. Familiar goods such as Coca-Cola and Campbell's soup cans became his subjects. He observed that a great feature of America was that the richest and poorest people could enjoy essentially the same things: one could watch television and drink Coca-Cola just as the president or Liz Taylor did. A Coke was a Coke; there was no better, more expensive version. If money could not buy a better Coca-Cola, why could Coca-Cola not become art?

In the 1950s, after graduating in commercial design, Andy Warhol moved to New York with the ambition of bringing commerce into art—and succeeded. He achieved great success as a commercial illustrator and went on to pioneer Pop Art, becoming one of the twentieth century's most influential artists. Moving in high society, he enjoyed a popularity comparable to today's influencers. His famous prediction, 'In the future, everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes,' suggested that sufficient exposure could turn anyone into a star. It remarkably anticipated today's world of social media.