He starts painting enlargements of comic strips or banknotes. He then becomes a publicist and a very famous artist. He directed his first film in 1961. In 1962 Andy Warhol had his first exhibition at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. He adopts silkscreen printing to produce a large number of ordinary images of Campbell's Soup cans.
A few days after the death of Marilyn Monroe in August 1962, he buys a photograph of her from the 1950s and silkscreen. This technique allowed him to reproduce the image infinitely.
In 1963, he opens the Factory in a disused factory. It is a kind of artistic workshop that serves at the same time as a recording studio for his cinematographic works. It is there that the rock band The Velvet Underground, of which he is the producer, often plays.
In 1966 he shoots the film " The Chelsea Girls " a voyeuristic work about the events that take place in hotel rooms.
On June 3, 1968, an illuminated Valerie Solanas shoots several shots at him at the entrance of the Factory. One bullet wounded him. After this episode, Warhol would say "look at himself as if he were someone else". In 1969, he published the first copies of his magazine Interview with illustrated articles on the celebrities of the moment.
In 1972, he made a return to painting with new silk-screen portraits: Mick Jagger, Calvin Klein, Mao... He encouraged the young generation of New York artists in the early 80s, notably by collaborating with Basquiat.
Andy Warhol died in New York on February 22, 1987.