Andy Warhol | Photographs: Polaroids & Silver

Although Andy Warhol is generally known for his famous silkscreen prints of celebrities and soup cans, photography was an integral part of both his artistic practice and his personal life.

He especially embraced the automatic, serial, and mechanical properties of the polaroid camera that resulted in instant feedback. The plastic camera created by Polaroid called “The Big Shot,” became such an elemental part of Warhol’s work that he called it his “pen and pencil.” Warhol carried this camera, along with other Polaroid models, and eventually a Minox 35EL film camera, with him everywhere from the late 1950s until his death in 1987. During that time, Warhol created a “visual diary." He obsessively photographed and recorded his daily life and social circle alongside his commercial and professional projects, blurring the line between art and commerce, and private and public.

Photograph by Jean Pierre Laffont