Julia Warhola also made and sold decorative tin flowers she had made from fruit cans. "That's the reason I did my first tin-can paintings, Warhol once said, referring to the Campbell's soup-can paintings that brought him initial fame.

Warhol influenced by a serious childhood illness during which he was confined to his bed. He entertained himself by drawing pictures and tracing magazine images. A favorite was Shirley Temple, a famous child movie star.

In 1949, Warhol moved to New York City and became a commercial artist. He was a highly successful fashion illustrator for magazines such as Glamour and Seventeen. He changed his name after magazines misprinted his name as Warhol.

Warhol began painting in the late 1950s. His early work was abstract, a popular style of the time. In 1962, he created "Coca Cola," a famous realistic painting of a soft drink bottle, and the first of his many renditions of Campell's soup cans.

These images were hand-painted with brushes just like other artists were doing. But painting with a brush took a lot of time on a large canvas and didn't produce the flat, machine-made, commercial look Warhol wanted. He soon began to use photographs to make stencils, working very much like he had as a commercial artist.

Warhol was a documenter of the world around him. He printed images of famous people, controversial newspaper photographs and disasters. Many of Warhol's prints were mass produced by a team of mostly unpaid assistants in his studio, know as The Factory.

The imaginary characters in the Myths Series were not typical subjects for Warhol. He most often dealt with real people or events.

Two of the images are of real people. A photograph of Greta Garbo in The Star was used to create Mata Hari, a Dutch dancer who was executed as a spy during World War I.

The other real image is a self-portrait of Warhol. The Shadow was a popular radio show and movie serial during the 1930s and '40s, Warhol's childhood. In each episode, a crime-fighting detective disappeared as soon as his good deed was accomplished, leaving only his shadow. In this print, Warhol's face looks out from a narrow, dark strip surrounded by his shadow.

Some people in the art world said that Andy Warhol's work wasn't original, so it wasn't art. Others said he was the most significant artist of the 20th century, whose work mirrored and created the mythology of American life.

Warhol was always involved with some sort of controversy, often provoking it on purpose, just to get people to talk about art. Andy Warhol died in 1987 in New York City, following a routine surgery.

When you travel to Pittsburgh, you can visit the Andy Warhol Museum, the largest museum in the United States devoted to a single artist. Also visit the Print Studio nearby at The Pittsburgh Children's Museum and see other original Warhol prints from the Myths Series.