Andy Warhol ''Giant'' Size

There is perhaps no artist of the 20th century that is as famous and infamous as Andy Warhol; Andy Warhol "Giant" Size takes its inspiration from the over-the-top quality of Andy Warhol's life, career, and legacy and in a mammoth format and huge extent depicts, in roughly chronological order, the major events, people, works, and moments in the life of an artist who continues to be endlessly fascinating to those inside and outside of the art world.

Tracing Warhol's origins as the sickly child of Ruthenian immigrants in working-class Pittsburgh to his transformation into New York's dark prince of Pop and finally into the world's most successful business artist, Andy Warhol "Giant" Size provides an appropriately larger-than-life look at the celebrated artist's career.

Cultural critic Dave Hickey provides a compelling essay on Warhol's geek-to-guru evolution while chapter openers by Warhol friends and insiders give special insight into the way the enigmatic artist led his life and made his art. More than 2,000 illustrations culled from rarely seen archival material, documentary photography, and artwork not only provide a full picture of the artist's life but a telling look at late twentieth-century popular culture. Warhol's little-explored early career as a successful commercial illustrator and designer, his importance as a co-creator of the Pop movement, his midcareer switch to filmmaker and manager of the Velvet Underground, his founding of Interview magazine, and his bid for the hearts and pocketbooks of the high-flying glitterati are shown throughout this stunning new volume.

Dave Hickey is a freelance writer of fiction and cultural criticism, curator, and lecturer who has been affiliated with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas since 1992. He has served as owner-director of A Clean Well-Lighted Place gallery in Austin, Texas, as director of the Reese Palley Gallery in New York City, as Executive Editor of Art in America magazine in New York City, and as Contributing Editor to The Village Voice. He has written for most major American cultural publications including The Rolling Stone, Art News, Art in America, Artforum, Interview, Harper's Magazine, Vanity Fair, Nest, The New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times. Hickey received a B.A. (1961) from Texas Christian University and an M.A. (1963) from the University of Texas at Austin. He served as curator for SITE Santa Fe's Fourth International Biennial, "Beau Monde: Toward a Redeemed Cosmopolitanism" (July 2001 - January 2002). Hickey has been a visiting professor at numerous institutions, including Harvard University, Rice University, and the Otis Parsons Institute, Los Angeles. His critical essays on art have been collected in two volumes: The Invisible Dragon: Four Essays on Beauty (1993) and Air Guitar: Essays in Art and Democracy (1997). Hickey is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant (1969) and the College Art Association's Frank Jewett Mather Award for Distinction in Art or Architectural Criticism (1993). In 2001, he was a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship grant.

'With its beautiful layouts, pin-sharp reproductions and sparkling texts, this enormous 15-pound book is worth every penny of its price...The volume covers both Warhol's numerous accomplishments (in commercial illustration, advertising, painting, film) and his transformation of the New York art scene so thoroughly that even fans will gain new appreciation for Warhol's enduring influence.' (Publishers Weekly)

'A fresh insight into the private world of the ultimate showman.' (Sunday Times)

'What’s almost as good as having an Andy Warhol print on your wall? Having a huge coffee-table book stuffed full of hundreds of his photographs.' (Sunday Telegraph)

'Giant-sized genius … a must-have for all you size queens.' (Attitude)

'Giant is as close as most of us will get to owning a piece of pop art.' (Dazed & Confused)

'This Texas-sized tome is actually packed with serious research and writing ... the photographs and reproductions are sumptuous for their scale alone. Our favourite element is the accompanying ephemera, from ticket stubs, invoices and party invitations, to personal notes from celebrities such as Diana Vreeland and Halston. Giant is an archive in book form, a now essential addition to the Warhol canon. Just don't try to read it in bed!' (Kultureflash, www.kultureflash.net)

'As big as an old family bible and only marginally less instructive, though you won't find polaroids of drag queens and male nudes in the Good Book.' (Scottish Sunday Herald, (Sunday Herald magazine))

'Sheer visual pageantry.' (The Spectator)

'The book's full-size reproductions and breadth of references draw the reader into the small-print of Warhol's world.' (The Daily Telegraph)

'Highly desirable ... a work of art in itself. It's a huge, heavy, beautifully designed object, oozing class and cool from every page .... may be the ultimate coffee table book.' (Heat)

'Dazzling' (Elle)

'Will thrill any Pop Art fan.' (RA (Royal Academy of Arts) magazine)

'a visual feast which can be read or just perused for a fuller appreciation of the artist whose favoured style was 'to get it exactly wrong.'
(The Good Book Guide)

'truly astonishing ... A work of art in itself, the epic portfolio has the wow factor in spades!'
(Film Review)