PITTSBURGH -- Andy Warhol, who emerged as a flamboyant pioneer of pop art in the 1960s, was once the runt in a Pittsburgh college art class filled with mischievous World War II veterans.
Warhol spent more time out of class than in, his former art instructor recalled Sunday. But he said it was hard to be mad about the missed class time because Warhol showed so much talent.
Asked his recollections of Warhol, Robert Lepper, who taught the course in 'Pictorial Design,' paused and said: 'How can I frame this?'
'He was at that time a tiny little guy among a class of returned veterans from both theaters of the war,' Lepper said.
'They looked after him. He did the best he could, but he didn't share their activities. They were a very, very lively bunch who delighted in doing extra-curricular monkey business.
'But he could not share that because he was working downtown in a department store. I didn't see a great deal of him, but I didn't have a quarrel with him because he did some damned good work.'
Warhol worked his way through the Carnegie Institute of Technology, now Carnegie-Mellon University, graduating in 1949 with a bachelor's degree in art.
Lepper said it was the experience Warhol obtained doing display windows that aided his career.
'Presumably he was skillful and learned a lot. A colleague said he immersed himself in fashion magazines and when he went to New York he had the feel. He cracked it cold.'
Born Andrew Warhola, the artist was one of three sons of Czechoslovakian immigrants living in Pittsburgh. The inscription in the 1945 Schenley High School yearbook, under the photo of a young, blond student, read: 'Andrew 'Andy' Warhola, as genuine as a fingerprint.'
After college and a series of odd jobs in Pittsburgh, such as selling vegetables from a car and working as a soda jerk, Warhol moved to New York City and began his work as a fashion illustrator.
Warhol's first cousin, Michael Warhola, who works for the U.S Postal Service in Pittsburgh, remembered Warhol fondly from their youth.
'He was always painting when he was a kid,' Warhola said. 'He was very nice, pleasant. He was sickly when he was a kid. He was a regular kid. That's all.'
Warhol is survived by two brothers, Paul of Clariton, who is retired but was formerly 'self-employed in the junk business,' said Warhola, and John of Pittsburgh, who works for Sears & Roebuck Co.
John and Paul Warhola declined to comment on their famous sibling.
