Book Description

From his early portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Jacqueline Kennedy, Elvis Presley and Campbell's Soup to his recent silk screens of Liza Minnelli, Diana Ross, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Donald Duck, Andy Warhol's twenty years as an artist of international acclaim have been nothing less than a passionate love affair with the United States. From the camera that never leaves his side now comes a love letter, a remembrance and an astonishing portrait of modern life: America. Culled from his 10-year archives, it is a work of blinding insight, a book of strange beauty and anonymous contradictions. Here are the very private world of wealt and celebrity, the young Americans of today with their sexy, muscular bodies and the street world of America's poorest people. Here are the astonishing creatures of the night, dressed in fullest array; and here is a brunch in Texas that includes Western dance instruction. In Montauk, a Gauguin beauty arches atop a Botticelli seashell, while in New York Arab protesters need a costumed Santa Claus on Fifth Avenue. America includes the stars of today, from Bette Davis to Sly Stallone and Pee-Wee Herman; and it has the simple joys of life in our country, from the beautiful colonial meetinghouses of Lenox, Massachusetts, to the young, restless crowds on the beach in Venice, California. Andy Warhol has achieved enormous popular success and critical acclaim in art, advertising, graphics, films, records, modeling and magazine publishing. With America, he reveals to us all over again a country and an artist we thought we knew so well. It is Andy at his funniest and most touching; it is America with all it's staggering contradictions; it is an important and beautiful new work from the twentieth century's most American artist.