In 1962, the first exhibition of Pop art opened at New York's Sidney Janis Gallery, featuring work by Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein, and Andy Warhol, among others. Warhol would become not only the world's quintessential Pop artist, but also one of the most influential cultural figures of the 20th century. This fall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art will present his work alongside that of artists as diverse as Ai Wei Wei and Richard Prince, demonstrating Warhol's enduring impact on contemporary art. Beyond the art world, showing how the consumer culture that so influenced Warhol is now greatly influenced by him, Campbell's has created a new line of colorful soup cans based on Warhol's paintings. In October, Nars Cosmetics will release a line of Warhol-inspired makeup products, encouraging buyers to emulate the artist's celebrity muses.                                          

As our own tribute to the fiftieth anniversary of Pop art's emergence, Abbeville Press is pleased to present an e-book edition of Carter Ratcliff's classic account of Warhol's life and career. The first monograph on Warhol to be made available in digital form, Andy Warhol combines Ratcliff's critical insight with more than one hundred of Warhol's works in full color, including the whimsical drawings of the fifties, the iconic Pop images of the sixties, and the ceaselessly experimental paintings and prints of the seventies and eighties. Drawing on Ratcliff's firsthand observation of the artist and his milieu, as well as a deep understanding of the artwork and its historical context, this remains one of the most important surveys of Andy Warhol's career.

Andy Warhol, designed with iBooks Author, is now available in the iBookstore at an introductory price of $9.99, with a full apparatus that includes artist's statements, notes on technique, and a chronology. Readers can navigate seamlessly between the text and illustrations with convenient links and multiple viewing modes. Andy Warhol is the first of many low-priced digital books from Abbeville Press that will be released in the coming weeks, on subjects from fine art to fatherhood. Visit www.abbeville.com/digital for information on new and upcoming releases.