In 1946, after three years in the army, Philip Pearlstein returned to his hometown of Pittsburgh and became an art student at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. Here, in an excerpt from his autobiography in progress, Pearlstein remembers his student years, his friendship with the young man at the next easel named Andy Warhol, and their struggles to establish their careers in New York City.

“During the next three years, Andy’s easel remained next to mine in painting and life-drawing classes, and we became close friends. His drawings and paintings were always eccentric and charming, as if the styles of Paul Klee, Egon Schiele, and Ben Shahn had been combined. The rest of us almost always produced more traditional realist work, at least until our junior year, when aspects of modernism began to dominate and we became more inventive and experimental, while Andy continued on his own way.” (via artnews.com)

Read the full article here.

Check out our Philip Pearlstein collection here & our Andy Warhol collection here.