Petro Lopata

An Andy Warhol painting of a Campbell’s soup can being sold by the late artists brother Paul Warhola next month may fetch US $1.5 million. Christies in New York will be auctioning the painting Warhol gave his brother Paul to celebrate the birth of his nephew Marty Warhola in Decåmber 1961. This particular soup can, of the pepper pot variety, is perhaps one of five the artist created that year.

The groundbreaking work helped launch Pop Art and Warhol’s career at the same time. A year after painting it, when asked about the significance of rows of Campbell’s soup cans in an interview, he responded, "They’re things I had when I was a child."

The enigmatic yet immensely public figure worked in film, commercial art, magazine publishing, artist management and used everything from diamond dust to human urine while making his art.

Warhol was born in 1928 in Pittsburgh to Ruthenian immigrants from Mikova, a remote mountain village in the heavily mixed ethnic region where the borders of Ukraine, Poland and Slovakia currently meet.

Some experts consider his background Ukrainian, though the always evasive artist once commented, "I’d prefer to remain a mystery. I never like to give my background and, anyway, I make it all up different every time I’m asked."

As a boy, Warhol and his family regularly visited St John Chrysostom Church, of the Byzantine rite, in Pittsburghs Ruska Dolyna.

On his way to celebrity and riches, Warhol dropped the a from his parents last name.

In 1949, Warhol moved to New York and by 1955 was one of the citys most sought after commercial artists. Eventually a widowed Julia Warhola moved in with her son. She regularly visited St Marys Byzantine Rite Catholic Church on East 15th St. Though Warhol reportedly rarely went to church, contemporaries note that he wore a cross and had his own pocket missal and rosary.

Called shy yet constantly involved in publicity events and scandals, Warhol was a man of contrasts, often dressed in black, with pale skin resulting from a pigmentation problem and a great collection of variously grey, off-white and silver-tinged wigs to conceal his baldness.

Hobnobbing with the rich and famous was a favourite pastime of the gay artist. Painting portraits of celebrities like Mick Jagger, Yves Saint Laurent, Jimmy Carter, Dennis Hopper, Golda Meir and Muhammad Ali among others, Warhol eventually became a household name. Though he was the one who coined the phrase about everybody being famous for 15 minutes, Warhols fame lasted considerably longer.

He died a wealthy man in 1987 at age 58, following gallbladder surgery. His estate was valued between $75 and $100 million. The primary beneficiary was the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, perhaps the largest charity ever established by an artist in America.

The US $1.5 million reserve price of the soup can painting up for auction at Christies is a far cry from the record $17.3 million paid for one of Warhols famous Marylin Monroe portraits.

Paul Warhola used to let his seven children take the soup can painting to school for show and tell. A chicken farmer, he once dabbled in art by allowing his chickens to walk across coloured canvases with paint-daubed feet.