He may be famous for creating great works of art out of the mundane, and the icons of the twentieth Century, but now Pop Art luminary Andy Warhol can be bought in a bottle; a bottle of perfume that is. Perfume that supposedly captures the scent of Andy’s beloved New York, where the artist spent most of his time.

Andy Warhol once said about New York:

My favourite smell is the first smell of spring in New York.

Now that smell has been captured in a fully authorised perfume named Andy Warhol Union Square, and it sells for $160 for 50ml. The Pop Art inspired perfume can be bought in a fuchsia version of the famous Bond No. 9 sculpted glass perfume bottle. It features an image of Andy Warhol’s flowers set against an image of a lawn.

There are different designs on the bottles so collectors could easily spend a lot of money on these, the latest in a line of ‘Warhol prints’.

The scent is billed as being unisex, though seems to obviously play towards the feminine side.

Gul Coskun is an art dealer who specialises in Pop Art, and in particular the work of Andy Warhol. She has been dealing in Warhol’s work for twelve years, when she started selling his work from her Kensington based gallery.

Back then dealings in Warhol weren’t so commonplace as the artist wasn’t as popular as he had been in the past, or indeed as he is now.

Gul Coskun’s first exhibition at the London Art Fair was a modest display as the gallery gave her a lowly stand right at the back near the toilets, which because her Warhol paintings of Jackie Onassis weren’t the sort of thing that art lovers at the time were enthusing about.

People said that it was just decorative rubbish… I believed in Warhol.

Luckily for Gul Coskun she persevered with her love of Warhol and continued to deal and collect his works. That faith in Andy Warhol has paid off for Gul Coskun immeasurably, as Warhol is indeed now regarded as one of the finest artists of the last Century.

Coskun even used to hold parties themed around Warhol, such was her dedication to his work.

There would be Warhols on the walls, the Velvet Underground on the stereo and Warhol look-alikes walking about. The walls were covered in tin foil. They were great parties.

Naturally the themed parties convinced people attending to purchase the artwork, which is why Coskun is now the leading dealer of Andy Warhol in Europe.

Pop Art isn’t just confined to the canvas. It isn’t just a medium that exists in the 2D format, hung on the wall for art fans to enjoy. Pop Art also exists in the form of film, from such luminaries as Andy Warhol.

The recent film exhibition in the ICA in London showcased the second part of Independent Cinema’s Secret Masterpieces of Cinema. In the exhibition was a program centred around Pop Art.

Among the artists featured were Derek Boshier, who appeared in ‘Pop Goes the Easel’, a BBC documentary set in 1962. The documentary was about four Pop Artists, set at the time when Pop Art was just starting out as a movement.

Also shown was Boshier’s Link, which is a travelogue examining the shapes through architecture through the ancient world, including Egypt and Mecca.

Velvet Underground: Exploding Plastic Inevitable shows clips from the home movies of Pop Art master Andy Warhol. The movies feature abstract footage of Warhol stalwarts such as Gerard Malanga appearing before the camera in a series of blurred images and light.

When an art show is organised in Paris you expect things to be very slick, very chic and well, very French… for want of a better word. However, a recent Paris art show has caused its organisers to be somewhat embarrassed at the conspicuous absence of the central painting.

A painting that was actually displayed on the poster promoting the art show!

Paris’ Grand Palais has been promoting their new Pop Art show by featuring the work of the Haitian painter Herve Telemaque on their posters, but due to auction house Christies, the painting was nowhere to be seen.
The 1964 painting is called ‘Escale’ and was featured on the front of the catalogue, prompting art lovers to query the whereabouts of the Pop Art classic.

Christies auction house sold the painting for 180,250 euros in December, but the buyer has still to pay for the work, meaning that even though the new owner had promised the painting to the gallery for their exhibition, until he pays Christies what he owes they have refused to let the painting leave their auction house.

A spokesman for the exhibition stated:

There was a setback with the art collector and we only found out about it a week before the opening.

We spent a lot of money to advertise this exhibition with the promotion centered on Telemaque’s painting.

With or without the famous painting, the art exhibition is sent to remain open until July 13th.

What exactly is ‘Pop Art’?

Pop Art is an abbreviation for Popular Art, and represents an art movement that became famous for taking common, everyday objects and turning them into artwork. Images from Television and Advertising were most commonly used, such as Warhol’s beans tins and the famous work featuring the icon that was Marilyn Monroe.

Lawrence Alloway, an English art critic, first coined the phrase ‘Pop Art’ in 1958 in the Architectural Digest. He was referring to post-war work that use commercialism as its subject matter.

Pop Art started as a movement in the Fifties, in England. It didn’t reach the United States until the Sixties.

London pioneers of Pop Art included the artists Richard Hamilton and Eduardo Paolozzi. In the Sixties the movement was joined by artists such as Peter Blake and David Hockney.

The development of Pop Art in the Sixties in the USA was aided by the backlash against consumerism and wealth after the Second World War.

It was at this stage that Andy Warhol, the most known Pop Artist, used a technique called seriagraphy, which was a mass production printing technique, to make his commentary on advertising and culture.

Although the artistic genre of Pop Art may have started over 50 years ago, new artists to the scene are merging every day. The emergence of such new talent is bolstered by competitions such as the one recently held in Northern Ireland.

This month saw the 7th annual ‘Ulster in Bloom Schools Art contest’ where the competition centred around one of the founders of pop art, David Hockney.

Andre Douglas, a New Bridge Integrated college student, won a highly commended aware in the competition. Andrew, from Loughbrickland, was delighted to receive his award in the pop art inspired art competition.

The competition rules asked for entries from students that produced their own interpretations of what they saw from their window. The competition was launched in September 2007 and received hundreds of works of art from across Northern Ireland.

Famed local artist Rita Duffy was one of the judges for the competition. The panel reduced the finalists down to just twenty-one before choosing an overall winner for each age group, from years eight – ten.

As we previously reported, a collection of Andy Warhol prints have been distributed to various US based universities so that the students can become inspired and influenced by the Pop Art pioneer’s artwork.

Prints featuring such icons of the 20th Century as Wayne Gretzky and Carly Simon are featured in the collection of 153 Andy Warhol prints and Polaroids that will be on show and the Reed Art Gallery at the UMPI received as a ‘gift’ from the Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program

The photographs were opened on Tuesday in front of an expectant crowd that had gathered to witness this, a momentous event for fans of Warhol.

The Warhol Foundation has donated a reported $28 million worth original Andy Warhol photographs to 183 universities across the United States. They’ve made this very generous gesture in order to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their creation.

They aim to provide better access to Andy Warhol’s work and methods so that others can study his art and learn from his methods.

The photographs donated to the UMPI are said to be worth $116,700 in total, with individual photos valued at $200 to $5,700 each!

The professor of fine arts at the UMPI said:

This will be a wonderful teaching resource for our art classes. What a resource this is for northern Maine and New Brunswick. The value of this gift is only going to appreciate.

What is Pop Art if it’s not about icons of our time inspiring artwork from the industry’s greatest art figures? Andy Warhol had his inspiration from the great figures such icons as Marilyn Monroe and Wayne Gretzky; today the icons are no less inspirational.

Bob Dylan is one such icon, and he has inspired a work of art from New York based illustrator Aaron Meshon. ‘Positively Dyland’ promises to let you enter the world of Bob Dylan, as the work features various aspects of the life and times of Bob Dylan, and the locations in New York City that were important to his career.

Bob Dylan himself also figures in the work, featured in the bottom right hand corner of the piece, on New York’s Fourth Street.

Aaron Meshon has produced a limited run of just 150 hand signed, and numbered prints. They have been created on Hahnemuhle fine art paper and are just 13 x 9 inches in size.

Each one carries a retail of £175.

Andy Warhol made his name as one of the best, one of the founding members and one of the iconic symbols of Pop Art in the twentieth century. Something that many people don’t realise about Andy Warhol though, that as well as his painted Pop Art, he was also an accomplished photographer.

Recently some of Andy Warhol’s original private photographs were revealed as Cal State Fullerton’s Grand Central Art Centre was honoured to receive 155 of his Polaroids, all black and white, all taken by Warhol himself.

The Andy Warhol Foundation has celebrated its twentieth anniversary by handing over 28,543 different photographs taken by Warhol to 183 university and college museums throughout the United States. The idea is to showcase the artist’s photographs, as many people didn’t even know of the existence of the photographs.

Andrea Harris-McGee, director of the Grand Central Art Centre said:

These never-before-seen personal photographs give background information and a behind-the-scenes look into the mind of a world-renowned artist who was ahead of his time. Warhol was a catalyst for the pop art scene [and] set the art world on fire.

Warhol made his name turning mundane symbols into iconic art pieces celebrating popular culture of the time.

The photographs Warhol took were used to prepare for his artwork; they were used for research from the artist into his portraits.