SOUTHBANK CENTRE

1920s - 1930s 

1928 
Andrew Warhola is born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His parents are Czechoslovakian immigrants from a village near the present-day Slovakian-Polish border.

1936
Suffering from a nervous disorder, he spends long periods at home, passing the time with comics, colouring books and animated cartoons. Fascinated by Hollywood, he starts to collect celebrity autographs.

1940s 

1945-49
Attends the Carnegie Institute of Technology, majoring in pictorial design. During the summers, he works as a window dresser at a department store.

1949
Moves to New York and becomes known as ‘Andy Warhol’. Works as window dresser, book illustrator and as a commercial artist for magazines, including Glamour, Vogue and Seventeen. Becomes infatuated with the writer Truman Capote, whose 1948 novel Other Voices, Other Rooms is a bestseller.

1950s

1950
Moves to Manhattan, where his mother joins him in 1952; the two live together for the next twenty years.

1952
His first exhibition, Andy Warhol: Fifteen Drawings Based on the Writings of Truman Capote, is held in New York.

1957 
As a leading commercial illustrator, he establishes 'Andy Warhol Enterprises, Inc.' Unhappy with his appearance, he has corrective surgery on his nose.

1960 - 1964 

1961-62
Produces his first silkscreen paintings, which soon establish his reputation as an artist; motifs include dollar bills, Campbell’s soup cans, Coca-Cola bottles, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, and death and disaster.

1963
Rents his first studio - an old fire station in the Upper East Side - and employs Gerard Malanga as his assistant. Shoots his first film, Sleep.

1964
Warhol’s studio moves to a loft on East 47th Street, which becomes known as the Factory. His assistant, Billy Name, covers the walls in aluminium foil and silver paint and later recalls: ‘It was the hot spot to be … When famous people came to New York, they would be told, you really must go see Andy Warhol’s Factory, it's a stunning thing.’
Makes his first box sculptures, replicas of cartons containing cleaning products and food; the most famous of these is the Brillo Box (Soap Pads). From now on, repetition and reproduction become his core creative strategies.
Changes to an Auricon camera, and produces films such as Empire and Henry Geldzahler.

1965 - 1969 

1965
Attracts a glamorous entourage that includes Ingrid Superstar, Ultra Violet and Edie Sedgwick. The Factory becomes renowned as a venue for parties, concerts, performances, and film screenings. In Paris, at an exhibition of his Flower paintings, he announces his retirement from painting to concentrate on filmmaking. Thousands of fans mob Warhol and Edie Sedgwick at a retrospective of his work in Philadelphia.

1966
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.

1968
The Factory moves to 33 Union Square West. In June, Warhol is the victim of a nearly fatal attempt on his life by the mentally disturbed Valerie Solanas, who had played a part in his film I, A Man.

1969
First issue of inter/VIEW magazine, published by Warhol.

1970s - 1980s 

1970
Starts filming his Factory Diaries.

1974
Begins to assemble his Time Capsules, labelling and storing away boxes of everyday objects, documents, notes and letters. By the end of his life, he has 610 of them.

1975
Publishes THE Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again).

1976
Makes Bad, his last film.

1980
Publishes POPism The Warhol '60s, a memoir.
Andy Warhol's TV is shown on a cable channel and runs until 1982.

1986
His television series appears on MTV as Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes.

1987
On 22 February Warhol dies unexpectedly following a gall bladder operation