Warhol’s influence ‘still evident 20 years after death’

TWENTY years to the day after his death, pop art icon Andy Warhol is a seminal influence for contemporary artists and a collectors’ darling, even though what drove the man and his art remains a mystery.

“Everybody is influenced by him, in some way or another, because his creativity was so freewheeling,” said New York painter and critic Carol Diehl who worked with the American artist before his death on February 22, 1987.

Four decades after Warhol scandalised the fine art world with his tongue-in-cheek critique of consumer society — 32 silk-screen mass-produced canvases of Campbell’s Soup cans — his works are now highly sought after.