<blockquote> <p> A major reassessment of the most influential and controversial American artist of the second half of the twentieth century </p> </blockquote> <p> To his critics, he was the cynical magus of a movement that debased high art and reduced it to a commodity. To his admirers, he was the most important artist since Picasso. Indisputably, Andy Warhol redefined what art could be. As the quintessential Pop artist, he razed the barrier between high and low culture, taking as his subject matter comic books, tabloids, Hollywood publicity photos, and supermarket products. Through his films and the exotic milieu of the Factory, he exhibited an unprecedented talent for publicity and outrage, revealing an underworld of speed freaks, transvestites, and glittering, doomed superstars. Beneath the deceptively simple surface of his silk screens, the old hierarchies of art collapsed. Warhol's x-ray vision exposed the garish, vulgar, and irrepressible new world of 1960s America. </p> <p> Focusing on that influential decade, <i>Pop</i> disentangles the myths of Warhol—fraught with contradictions—from the man he truly was, and offers a vivid, entertaining, and provocative look at the legendary artist's personal and artistic evolution during his most productive and innovative years. A detailed, insightful chronicle of his rise, as well as a critical examination of Warhol's most important works, this ground-breaking book sheds light on a man who remains an icon of the twentieth century. Drawing on brand-new sources—including extensive original interviews and insight from those who knew him best—<i>Pop</i> offers the most dynamic, comprehensive portrait ever written of the man who changed the way we see the world. </p>