Andy Warhol Trivia
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58 free Andy Warhol trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Andy Warhol trivia quiz runs from Pittsburgh to Studio 54. It starts with the Rusyn immigrant parents, the childhood illness that kept him in bed with movie magazines, the Carnegie Tech scholarship, the shoe illustrations that made him New York's most in-demand commercial artist, and the drawing MoMA politely declined. Then comes the leap to Pop: the Bonwit Teller window, the $50 tip that led to dollar-bill paintings, the 32 Campbell's Soup Cans in Los Angeles, the Marilyns, the Brillo Boxes and the silver Factory. The second half covers the films and the Velvet Underground, the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, the 15-minutes remark, Valerie Solanas and the shooting that left him in a surgical corset for life, Interview magazine, the Sticky Fingers zipper, the dachshunds, the Mao and Reigning Queens series, Basquiat, the Amiga portrait of Debbie Harry, the Love Boat cameo, the gallbladder operation and the wig he was buried in, then the museum, the Time Capsules and the record prices. Difficulty runs from easy to expert and is shown on every question. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. Try our Salvador Dalí and Banksy quizzes next.
30 of 58 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which US city was Andy Warhol born in 1928?
Pittsburgh
Warhol was born Andrew Warhola in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on August 6, 1928, the fourth child of working-class Rusyn immigrants from Austria-Hungary.
Q 02Warhol's parents came from Miková, a village in what is now which country?
Slovakia
They were Ruthenian Catholics; a funeral liturgy in English and Church Slavonic was said for him in 1987.
Q 03Which nervous-system disorder kept young Warhol bedridden for stretches in third grade?
Sydenham's chorea
Warhol had Sydenham's chorea in third grade, a complication of streptococcal infection that causes involuntary jerking movements; confined to bed, he drew and collected film-star pictures.
Q 04From which high school did Warhol graduate in 1945?
Schenley High School
Warhol graduated from Schenley High School, in his home city's Oakland district, in 1945 and entered the Carnegie Institute of Technology that autumn.
Q 05Warhol's prize-winning Carnegie Tech drawings satirised customers from which summer job?
Produce huckster
Warhol spent summers as a produce huckster, selling fruit and vegetables from his brother Paul's truck; his sketches of the customers won a Carnegie Tech student prize.
Q 06Warhol earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1949 in which subject?
Pictorial design
Warhol graduated from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1949 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in pictorial design and moved to New York that summer.
Q 07Which feature did Warhol have altered by cosmetic surgery in the 1950s?
His nose
Warhol had a rhinoplasty in 1957 to narrow his nose; his 1961 painting Before and After, copied from a plastic surgeon's advertisement, shows a nose job in profile.
Q 08Warhol's first solo exhibition in 1952 consisted of drawings based on the writings of which author?
Truman Capote
Fifteen Drawings Based on the Writings of Truman Capote opened at the Hugo Gallery in June 1952, staged by gallerist Alexander Iolas, who is often credited with discovering Warhol.
Q 09Warhol's 1950s drawing technique, combining printmaking and pencil work on paper, was known as what?
Blotted line
Warhol's blotted line technique traced a pencil drawing in ink and pressed it onto absorbent paper while wet, leaving the broken, dotted line he used throughout the 1950s.
Q 10Which shoe manufacturer's advertisements made Warhol famous as a fashion illustrator from 1955?
Israel Miller
Warhol drew Israel Miller's weekly shoe advertisements in the New York Times from 1955, work that made him one of the best-known fashion illustrators in the city.
Q 11In 1956 MoMA politely declined Warhol's gift of a drawing called Shoe, citing what?
Limited storage space
Director Alfred Barr's 1956 letter declined the drawing Shoe, citing MoMA's limited storage space and gallery space; that year a Warhol shoe drawing did appear in MoMA's Recent Drawings U.S.A.
Q 12Whose calligraphy did Warhol often use alongside his drawings in his self-published 1950s books?
His mother's
The calligraphy was his mother's: Julia Warhola, who lived with him in New York from 1952, lettered the text of books such as 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy in her ornate script.
Q 13Warhol's first Pop paintings were shown in April 1961 as a backdrop in which store's window?
Q 21Warhol's 1964 Stable Gallery show featured sculptures of what, sold for $200 to $400 each?
Commercial cartons such as Brillo boxes
Also Del Monte, Heinz, Kellogg's and Mott's; the original Brillo design was by commercial artist James Harvey.
Q 22Warhol's Cow wallpaper of 1966 came from a suggestion by which art dealer?
Ivan Karp
Ivan Karp, then director of the Castelli gallery, suggested cows as a wonderfully pastoral subject; the resulting Cow wallpaper lined Warhol's 1966 Castelli show and the Whitney retrospective of 1971.
Q 23Warhol's Empire (1965) is a static shot of the Empire State Building lasting how long?
Eight hours
Bonwit Teller
Five early Pop canvases, including Saturday's Popeye, Superman and Before and After, hung behind mannequins in Bonwit Teller's Fifth Avenue windows in April 1961.
Q 14What did Muriel Latow, for a $50 fee, suggest Warhol paint because he loved it most?
Money
Latow told Warhol to paint money, the thing he loved most, and he began painting dollar bills in 1962, the works that first led him to silkscreen printing.
Q 15How many canvases did Warhol send to the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles for his July 1962 show?
32
The 32 Campbell's Soup Cans, one canvas per variety the company then sold, hung at the Ferus Gallery in July 1962; Warhol said he had eaten the soup for lunch for 20 years.
Q 16Which dealer gave Warhol his first solo New York Pop show in 1962, in exchange for a painting of a $2 bill?
Eleanor Ward
Eleanor Ward's Stable Gallery show, which opened in November 1962 and was Warhol's New York Pop debut, included Marilyn Diptych, Gold Marilyn Monroe and 100 Cans.
Q 17Warhol's 1962 Marilyn silkscreens were based on a publicity still from which film?
Niagara
Warhol cropped a 1953 publicity photograph of Marilyn Monroe for the film Niagara, taken by Gene Korman, and used it for the Marilyn silkscreens he began soon after her death in August 1962.
Q 18Who fired a gun through four of Warhol's Marilyn canvases in 1964, creating the Shot Marilyns?
Dorothy Podber
Dorothy Podber, a performance artist visiting the Factory in 1964, asked if she could 'shoot' the stacked Marilyns, then fired a pistol through the canvases; once repaired they became the Shot Marilyns.
Q 19Who covered the Factory in aluminium foil and silver paint in 1964?
Billy Name
Billy Name (Billy Linich) lined the fifth-floor loft at 231 East 47th Street with foil and silver paint, creating the Silver Factory, where he also lived and photographed the scene.
Q 20Warhol's mural for the 1964 New York State Pavilion, Thirteen Most Wanted Men, met what fate?
It was painted over before the fair opened
Objections from state officials led to the mural being painted over in silver within days, before the fair opened in April 1964; Warhol's proposed replacement, portraits of fair president Robert Moses, was refused.
Empire runs eight hours and five minutes: silent footage shot from the Time-Life Building on the night of July 25–26, 1964, and projected at 16 frames per second.
Q 24Warhol's 1965 film Vinyl was a loose adaptation of which novel?
A Clockwork Orange
Vinyl, shot in 1965 with Gerard Malanga as the delinquent Victor, was Warhol's loose adaptation of Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange, six years before Kubrick's film.
Q 25Which band did Warhol manage, financing and providing the cover for their 1967 debut album?
The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground became Warhol's house band in 1966; he is credited as producer of The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967) and designed its peelable banana cover.
Q 26Warhol's 1966 multimedia shows with his house band at the Dom were called what?
Exploding Plastic Inevitable
The Exploding Plastic Inevitable combined Warhol's films, strobe lights, Gerard Malanga's whip dance and live rock at the Dom on St Mark's Place from April 1966, then toured the US and Canada.
Q 27How was Warhol's 1966 film Chelsea Girls designed to be projected?
Two reels side by side on a split screen
Chelsea Girls was shown as two reels projected side by side on a split screen, the soundtrack switching between them; its 12 reels run over three hours.
Q 28Whom did Warhol send to impersonate him on a West Coast college lecture tour in October 1967?
Actor Allen Midgette
Actor Allen Midgette, a veteran of Warhol's films, posed as the artist on a four-college tour in October 1967 with his hair sprayed silver; the hoax was exposed months later and Warhol refunded the fees.
Q 29Who shot Warhol at the Factory on June 3, 1968?
Valerie Solanas
Valerie Solanas, author of the SCUM Manifesto, fired three shots at Warhol; one passed through his lungs, spleen, stomach, liver and oesophagus, and he spent nearly two months in hospital.
Q 30What lasting effect did the shooting's complications have on Warhol?
He had to wear a surgical corset for the rest of his life
A second operation left his abdominal muscles improperly repaired; the Factory became a 'regular office' afterwards.