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Beauty
‘People should fall in love with their eyes closed. Just close your eyes. Don’t look.’
From Warhol’s romantic relationships to his thoughts on interior design, these candid, highly entertaining musings - on love, sex, beauty, work and space – give an intimate glimpse into the mind of one of the most iconic figures in twentieth-century culture.
From Warhol’s romantic relationships to his thoughts on interior design, these candid, highly entertaining musings - on love, sex, beauty, work and space – give an intimate glimpse into the mind of one of the most iconic figures in twentieth-century culture.
- GenresNonfictionArt
128 pages, Paperback
Published April 17, 2025
37 people are currently reading
164 people want to read
About the author
Andy Warhol
392 books607 followersAndy Warhol was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol is considered one of the most important American artists of the second half of the 20th century. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, advertising, and celebrity culture that flourished by the 1960s, and span a variety of media, including painting, silkscreening, photography, film, and sculpture. Some of his best-known works include the silkscreen paintings Campbell's Soup Cans (1962) and Marilyn Diptych (1962), the experimental films Empire (1964) and Chelsea Girls (1966), and the multimedia events known as the Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1966–67).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews
August 19, 2025
Makes you miss New York
June 11, 2025
Tahan kunagi ka nii lahe olla, jään igatsema neid mõtteid
October 27, 2025
Una forma de pensar un tanto rara. Un famoso que te quiere hacer pensar que no es tan guay como parece, nye… algunas reflexiones interesantes, pero no toca de peus a terra
May 17, 2025
Classic Warhol. Pioneer of art but as a man just so so shallow. He only ever said anything if he thought it would look cool in a book 50 years later, and that’s what this is
August 29, 2025
I picked up this little book because I flicked to an essay on beauty and read: “I’ve never met a person I couldn’t call a beauty. Every person has beauty at some point in their lifetime.” That jived with my own private aesthetics.
It was a fun little book, despite the fact that I don’t really know anything about Andy Warhol the artist. A meandering set of musings on a bunch of different topics from a weird dude with a (for want of a better word) idiosyncratic view on life — that’s how I’d describe the reading experience.
Sort of interesting to read alongside Oscar Wilde (whom I’m also reading concurrently): there’s a kind of theatrical celebration of artificiality in both of their works.
It was a fun little book, despite the fact that I don’t really know anything about Andy Warhol the artist. A meandering set of musings on a bunch of different topics from a weird dude with a (for want of a better word) idiosyncratic view on life — that’s how I’d describe the reading experience.
Sort of interesting to read alongside Oscar Wilde (whom I’m also reading concurrently): there’s a kind of theatrical celebration of artificiality in both of their works.
April 27, 2025
Ik ben het niet eens met heel veel van de dingen die Andy Warhol hier zegt.
July 6, 2025
Me gusta mucho y me parece muy Warhol, me gusta mucho como solo tiene opiniones y las puso en un libro, es lo más arte pop que puede seguir haciendo.
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April 20, 2025he was so right
July 1, 2025
"An artist is somebody who produces things that people don't need to have but that he - for some reason - thinks it would be a good idea to give them.
Business Art is a much better thing to be making than Art Art, because Art Art doesn't support the space it takes up, whereas Businesses Art does. (If Business Art doesn't support its own space it goed out-of-businness.)"
Dit boek bestaat slechts uit een aantal hoofdstukken uit zijn autobiografie gekopieerd...
Business Art is a much better thing to be making than Art Art, because Art Art doesn't support the space it takes up, whereas Businesses Art does. (If Business Art doesn't support its own space it goed out-of-businness.)"
Dit boek bestaat slechts uit een aantal hoofdstukken uit zijn autobiografie gekopieerd...
September 23, 2025
Love Andy’s musings on Love, Beauty, Time, Atmosphere ❤️ this book is a a little window into his viewpoints.
August 22, 2025
This book is just a curation of Warhol's thoughts on love, beauty, work, time and atmosphere (which are also the chapter titles in the book).
He was such a kook, a very chaotic and superficial and shallow person (which he acknowledges himself a couple of times throughout the book - at least he was self-aware). However crazy and unrelatable at times, his opinions are still interesting and entertaining to read. Among a sea of diabolical ones, he did have a couple of really nice thoughts that were way ahead of his time, and some I could 100% agree with.
He was such a kook, a very chaotic and superficial and shallow person (which he acknowledges himself a couple of times throughout the book - at least he was self-aware). However crazy and unrelatable at times, his opinions are still interesting and entertaining to read. Among a sea of diabolical ones, he did have a couple of really nice thoughts that were way ahead of his time, and some I could 100% agree with.
April 30, 2025
Archive #4
Swallowed this whole in a single sitting on my 1 hour journey back from my office job.
I didn’t know much about Andy Warhol going into this book apart from the fact that he did paintings of soup cans. After having read this book I now know a great many things about him. He had a general ambivalence towards sex and love. He thought about pimples a lot. He liked the city and disliked the countryside. When he grew up he fantasised about getting to eat lots of candy, and when he became famous that is exactly what he did. He liked talking on the telephone. He preferred to make business-art rather than art-art. When he went on dates he would bring his whole office with him.
And things like that and so on and so forth.
That is all there is to this book.
It was written like he was talking to me and so even though I wouldn’t say there was much literary merit to this book I found it endearing and I came out of the experience feeling quite amused.
In fact I just had to go back and change the tense of the new things I learnt about him from present to past. I forgot he is in fact dead. This book was very vibrant in that way.
Swallowed this whole in a single sitting on my 1 hour journey back from my office job.
I didn’t know much about Andy Warhol going into this book apart from the fact that he did paintings of soup cans. After having read this book I now know a great many things about him. He had a general ambivalence towards sex and love. He thought about pimples a lot. He liked the city and disliked the countryside. When he grew up he fantasised about getting to eat lots of candy, and when he became famous that is exactly what he did. He liked talking on the telephone. He preferred to make business-art rather than art-art. When he went on dates he would bring his whole office with him.
And things like that and so on and so forth.
That is all there is to this book.
It was written like he was talking to me and so even though I wouldn’t say there was much literary merit to this book I found it endearing and I came out of the experience feeling quite amused.
In fact I just had to go back and change the tense of the new things I learnt about him from present to past. I forgot he is in fact dead. This book was very vibrant in that way.
July 22, 2025
Como fan de Andy Warhol, este libro me encantó. Beauty es una recopilación de pensamientos que ofrece una mirada íntima al mundo interior de uno de los artistas más icónicos del siglo XX. Leer sus reflexiones me pareció fascinante, no solo por el contenido, sino porque revela cuán adelantado estaba Warhol a su época.
Aunque el libro fue publicado en 2007, muchos de estos fragmentos provienen de los años 70, una época en la que Warhol ya reflexionaba sobre temas como el amor, el tiempo, el dinero, el arte y la fama con una claridad que resuena incluso hoy. Me impactó especialmente su manera de hablar del amor: distante, pragmática y a la vez profundamente humana. También reflexiona sobre el tiempo, algo que parece obsesionarlo, casi como una moneda de cambio para la belleza, la productividad o la vida misma.
Uno de mis capítulos favoritos fue “Work”. Aunque Warhol es famoso por su arte y su imagen excéntrica, este apartado muestra su enfoque casi empresarial hacia la vida. Para él, hacer dinero era una forma de arte. Esta mentalidad me parece admirable y, personalmente, me identifico mucho con ella. Su capacidad para combinar creatividad con una ética de trabajo implacable es inspiradora.
Andy Warhol fue un artista, cineasta y figura clave del movimiento pop art. Nació en Pittsburgh, de padres inmigrantes eslovacos, y se trasladó a Nueva York, donde revolucionó el arte contemporáneo. Famoso por obras como las latas de sopa Campbell y los retratos de Marilyn Monroe, también incursionó en el cine, la música y la moda, y fundó su legendario estudio The Factory, que se convirtió en un epicentro de creatividad y contracultura.
Durante los años 70, cuando Warhol escribió muchos de los pensamientos recopilados en este libro, el mundo vivía un cambio cultural profundo: el fin del idealismo de los 60, la llegada de una época más cínica y comercial, el auge de la televisión, el culto a la celebridad y el inicio del consumismo moderno. Warhol no solo fue testigo de esto: lo anticipó y lo convirtió en arte.
En ese sentido, Beauty no es solo un libro sobre belleza. Es un espejo de Warhol, del mundo que lo rodeaba, y de lo que él ya veía venir: un tiempo donde la fama, la imagen y el dinero serían más poderosos que nunca.
Aunque el libro fue publicado en 2007, muchos de estos fragmentos provienen de los años 70, una época en la que Warhol ya reflexionaba sobre temas como el amor, el tiempo, el dinero, el arte y la fama con una claridad que resuena incluso hoy. Me impactó especialmente su manera de hablar del amor: distante, pragmática y a la vez profundamente humana. También reflexiona sobre el tiempo, algo que parece obsesionarlo, casi como una moneda de cambio para la belleza, la productividad o la vida misma.
Uno de mis capítulos favoritos fue “Work”. Aunque Warhol es famoso por su arte y su imagen excéntrica, este apartado muestra su enfoque casi empresarial hacia la vida. Para él, hacer dinero era una forma de arte. Esta mentalidad me parece admirable y, personalmente, me identifico mucho con ella. Su capacidad para combinar creatividad con una ética de trabajo implacable es inspiradora.
Andy Warhol fue un artista, cineasta y figura clave del movimiento pop art. Nació en Pittsburgh, de padres inmigrantes eslovacos, y se trasladó a Nueva York, donde revolucionó el arte contemporáneo. Famoso por obras como las latas de sopa Campbell y los retratos de Marilyn Monroe, también incursionó en el cine, la música y la moda, y fundó su legendario estudio The Factory, que se convirtió en un epicentro de creatividad y contracultura.
Durante los años 70, cuando Warhol escribió muchos de los pensamientos recopilados en este libro, el mundo vivía un cambio cultural profundo: el fin del idealismo de los 60, la llegada de una época más cínica y comercial, el auge de la televisión, el culto a la celebridad y el inicio del consumismo moderno. Warhol no solo fue testigo de esto: lo anticipó y lo convirtió en arte.
En ese sentido, Beauty no es solo un libro sobre belleza. Es un espejo de Warhol, del mundo que lo rodeaba, y de lo que él ya veía venir: un tiempo donde la fama, la imagen y el dinero serían más poderosos que nunca.
May 14, 2025
This is basically what I expected a book by Andy Warhol to be like. It's simply Warhol talking in a very conversational manner, telling the reader his observations on life and art.
I understand this is actually a cut-down version of a book called "The Philosophy Of Andy Warhol" from 1975, though this isn't noted anywhere on the cover. (Only the copyright notice mentions it, and it calls this a "selection".)
There's a lot of quotes in this you may have very well read before. There are passages that are very charming and amusing, and others that really pissed me off. ("Business Art"!? NO, ANDY! BAD ANDY!)
In any case, I was pleased to find where that one quote on "New Art Riot" by the Manic Street Preachers came from: "A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the street is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it."
There is a fair bit of repetition, presumably as the material from this was most likely transcribed from interviews and he forgot he'd already mentioned something. He usually rephrases things and sometimes adds an extra little point to whatever he's talking about, but it is a small issue. To be honest Warhol never struck me as someone who would sit down and properly write a book, and he had form for this kind of thing (see his "novel" from the early 60s, which gets a mention in this).
One aspect about Warhol that does come across quite clearly is how oddly hapless and comedy-character-like he could be. All the stuff about being wrongly impressed by bad typists, the bit where he falls into a tree, being accidentally outsmarted by noted Coca-Cola drinker Liz Taylor, and the whole "sanding down my nose" anecdote.
Finally, the section where he covers "Women In Revolt" made me sad, as did his comments on gender in general, although blankly ignorant transphobia was another thing I was expecting.
...Actually, I expect it in a lot of things.
I understand this is actually a cut-down version of a book called "The Philosophy Of Andy Warhol" from 1975, though this isn't noted anywhere on the cover. (Only the copyright notice mentions it, and it calls this a "selection".)
There's a lot of quotes in this you may have very well read before. There are passages that are very charming and amusing, and others that really pissed me off. ("Business Art"!? NO, ANDY! BAD ANDY!)
In any case, I was pleased to find where that one quote on "New Art Riot" by the Manic Street Preachers came from: "A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the street is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it."
There is a fair bit of repetition, presumably as the material from this was most likely transcribed from interviews and he forgot he'd already mentioned something. He usually rephrases things and sometimes adds an extra little point to whatever he's talking about, but it is a small issue. To be honest Warhol never struck me as someone who would sit down and properly write a book, and he had form for this kind of thing (see his "novel" from the early 60s, which gets a mention in this).
One aspect about Warhol that does come across quite clearly is how oddly hapless and comedy-character-like he could be. All the stuff about being wrongly impressed by bad typists, the bit where he falls into a tree, being accidentally outsmarted by noted Coca-Cola drinker Liz Taylor, and the whole "sanding down my nose" anecdote.
Finally, the section where he covers "Women In Revolt" made me sad, as did his comments on gender in general, although blankly ignorant transphobia was another thing I was expecting.
...Actually, I expect it in a lot of things.
June 7, 2025
💬 “I am a deeply superficial person.”
Beauty, part of Penguin’s Archive series, offers a curated selection of Warhol’s musings: witty, provocative, and often disarmingly candid. Reads like snapshots from several interviews. Though slight in volume, this collection distills the essence of Warhol’s public persona, so expect to love it or hate it.
Thematically, the book dances between love, desire, appearance, consumerism, and identity. Warhol’s reflections are rarely linear or deeply explored; rather, they arrive like aphorisms. It’s not deep, and that’s kind of the point. Warhol embraces the surface, plays with ideas of fame, love, and art in a way that’s both aloof and vulnerable.
Stylistically, the book reads like a string of overheard confessions: self-conscious, and unsurprisingly performative. Warhol understood image as substance, and Beauty is less about offering answers than about framing perception itself as art.
💬 “Art is anything you can get away with.”
Ultimately, like much of Warhol’s work, what you see in it depends on what you bring to it.
Read this if you like aphorisms, want a glimpse into the pop mind, or need a palette cleanser between heavier reads.
3/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Beauty, part of Penguin’s Archive series, offers a curated selection of Warhol’s musings: witty, provocative, and often disarmingly candid. Reads like snapshots from several interviews. Though slight in volume, this collection distills the essence of Warhol’s public persona, so expect to love it or hate it.
Thematically, the book dances between love, desire, appearance, consumerism, and identity. Warhol’s reflections are rarely linear or deeply explored; rather, they arrive like aphorisms. It’s not deep, and that’s kind of the point. Warhol embraces the surface, plays with ideas of fame, love, and art in a way that’s both aloof and vulnerable.
Stylistically, the book reads like a string of overheard confessions: self-conscious, and unsurprisingly performative. Warhol understood image as substance, and Beauty is less about offering answers than about framing perception itself as art.
💬 “Art is anything you can get away with.”
Ultimately, like much of Warhol’s work, what you see in it depends on what you bring to it.
Read this if you like aphorisms, want a glimpse into the pop mind, or need a palette cleanser between heavier reads.
3/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️
July 19, 2025
i feel very conflicted writing this review but i have a few thoughts:
1. he doesn't really explain what he means, he just says stuff which can get really frustrating at times
2. i felt like some thoughts didn't have any finality (like the ''tub girls'' one)
3. not gonna lie some of the things were so evident: ''people who like each other start to look like each other because they eat the same food''.... duuuh!!?? and also what???
Anyways, I give this book a 2/5 because i quite enjoyed the late night read and the structure of thoughts that have no connection to each other being just written down on a page.
1. he doesn't really explain what he means, he just says stuff which can get really frustrating at times
2. i felt like some thoughts didn't have any finality (like the ''tub girls'' one)
3. not gonna lie some of the things were so evident: ''people who like each other start to look like each other because they eat the same food''.... duuuh!!?? and also what???
Anyways, I give this book a 2/5 because i quite enjoyed the late night read and the structure of thoughts that have no connection to each other being just written down on a page.
September 14, 2025
picked up this quick read in a quaint bookshop in Kuala Lumpur
Entertaining musings on sex and space. Not particularly thought-provoking but his writings on empty space and the role of the artists gave me a better understanding of modern art, Why a Blank Wall is Also Art, & his idea of Business Art.
"An artist is somebody who produces things that people don't need to have but that he - for some reason - thinks it would be a good idea to give them.
Business Art is a much better thing to be making than Art Art, because Art Art doesn't support the space it takes up, whereas Businesses Art does. (If Business Art doesn't support its own space it goes out-of-business.)"
Entertaining musings on sex and space. Not particularly thought-provoking but his writings on empty space and the role of the artists gave me a better understanding of modern art, Why a Blank Wall is Also Art, & his idea of Business Art.
"An artist is somebody who produces things that people don't need to have but that he - for some reason - thinks it would be a good idea to give them.
Business Art is a much better thing to be making than Art Art, because Art Art doesn't support the space it takes up, whereas Businesses Art does. (If Business Art doesn't support its own space it goes out-of-business.)"
July 15, 2025
do i agree with everything that warhol says? no
do i love reading his meandering musings on random crap? yes
it's clear warhols brain is just... chaotic and i relate to that a little too much.
Notes to self: see full notes in Obsidian. my enjoyment of this book was definitely linked to its brevity. unlikely to read the full works 'the philosophy of andy warhol', or at least not any time soon.
do i love reading his meandering musings on random crap? yes
it's clear warhols brain is just... chaotic and i relate to that a little too much.
Notes to self: see full notes in Obsidian. my enjoyment of this book was definitely linked to its brevity. unlikely to read the full works 'the philosophy of andy warhol', or at least not any time soon.
May 17, 2025
Entertaining if you want an easy read of random thoughts - he asks some very funny & creative questions, but for some passages I just could not understand where his opinion was coming from
The tone is friendly but not really endearing, there’s a distance and occasional sense of superiority that I didn’t like
The tone is friendly but not really endearing, there’s a distance and occasional sense of superiority that I didn’t like
April 21, 2025
He has a lot to say about a lot. Haha. Took photos of many quotes cos they were just too good. And many, I resonated with— “I always run into strong women who are looking for weak men to dominate them.” Maybe I’m one of these women.
Read
April 30, 2025a collection of anecdotes that precisely sums up most of warhol's personal philosophies. it was a quick and insightful read, I pulled a lot of quotes that resonated and found the bits I disagreed with still fascinating
June 12, 2025
I think Warhol created some fascinating art. But, as a writer, he is utterly talentless. I am at times cringing at his banal observations but still give it 3 stars because it gave me this insight about him.
August 3, 2025
“The most exciting thing is not doing it. If you fall in love with someone, never do it, it’s much more exciting.”
Reading the book felt like having a good conversation with Andy himself: brief, yet deeply intimate and thought provoking. Now curious when our paths will cross next.
Reading the book felt like having a good conversation with Andy himself: brief, yet deeply intimate and thought provoking. Now curious when our paths will cross next.
September 3, 2025
I like the short burst of writing, but he does say some daft things. And some interesting things too. I think he would have liked the internet and mobile phones. I can see him writing blogs and having a YouTube channel.
October 19, 2025
Easy to read and quite enjoyable, it only took me ages because I got busy with other stuff, it’s sort of something light I’d just pick up and read for a bit if I had nothing else to do. It was interesting but I found a lot of his opinions I couldn’t relate to and were poorly explained.
April 27, 2025
he was so real for this
May 5, 2025
A fabulous glimpse into the mind that has so much to say!
The execution of his thoughts on the page read like near brutal slaps of reality and leave you questioning how a man who died in the 80s perfectly personifies the anxiety of the social media age.
At times the anecdotes/ vignettes are delivered with a dry humour that takes a second read to uncover an underlying vulnerability. For a persona so well masked he does well in this mere 100 pages of consciousness to allow the reader into the intimate and genuine space of Andy Warhol.
The execution of his thoughts on the page read like near brutal slaps of reality and leave you questioning how a man who died in the 80s perfectly personifies the anxiety of the social media age.
At times the anecdotes/ vignettes are delivered with a dry humour that takes a second read to uncover an underlying vulnerability. For a persona so well masked he does well in this mere 100 pages of consciousness to allow the reader into the intimate and genuine space of Andy Warhol.
Read
May 10, 2025went through the motions of the start of a warhol hole last year but immediately pivoted to basquiat (my beloved) so trying this once again and I really enjoyed it
May 12, 2025
3.75 ⭐️
May 22, 2025
Mentality.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews