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Julia Warhola
Julia Warhola
Юлія Варгола
	Warhola, c. 1930
Born	Juliana Justina Zavaczki; November 20, 1891; Mikó, Austria-Hungary
Died	November 22, 1972 (aged 81); Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Resting place	Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Spouse	Ondrej Warhola (m. 1909; died 1942)
Children	4, including John and Andy
Relatives	James Warhola (grandson)
Website	warhola.com

Julia Warhola^[a] (born Juliana Justina Zavaczki;^[b] November 20, 1891 – November 22, 1972) was the mother of the American artist Andy Warhol. She was an artist in her own right and provided the calligraphy to her son's artwork.

Biography

Julia Warhola was born Juliana Justina Zavaczki to a peasant family in the Rusyn village of Mikó, Austria-Hungary (now Miková in northeast Slovakia) and married Andrew Warhola (Slovak: Andrej Varchola; 1889–1942) there in 1909. He emigrated to the United States soon after in 1914, and in 1921 she followed him to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.^[2] The couple had four children: Maria (1912; died in infancy), Paul (1922–2014), John (1925–2010), and Andy (1928–1987).^[3] The family lived at several Pittsburgh addresses, beginning in 1932 at 3252 Dawson Street in the Oakland neighborhood of the city. The family was Byzantine Catholic and attended St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church.^[4]

Julia enjoyed singing traditional Rusyn folk songs and was artistic. She loved to draw, and her favorite subjects were angels and cats. She also did embroidery and other crafts, such as bouquets of flowers made from tin cans and crepe paper. During the Easter season, she decorated eggs in the Pysanka tradition.

As a widow, she moved to New York City to be near her son Andy in 1952.^[5]^[6] He often used her decorative handwriting to accompany his illustrations such as the book 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy (1954).^[7]^[8] In 1957, she also wrote and illustrated her own book called Holy Cats.^[9]^[10] She won awards for her lettering, including one from the American Institute of Graphic Arts for an album cover for The Story of Moondog, featuring the musician Louis Thomas Hardin in 1957.^[11]

In 1966, Andy made a movie called Mrs. Warhol, which was filmed in color. The 66-minute film featured Julia in her basement apartment in Andy's house playing "an aging peroxide movie star with a lot of husbands," including the most recent spouse, played by Andy's lover Richard Rheem.^[12] Andy follows her with his camera as she goes about her daily domestic routines.

After Andy survived an assassination attempt by Valerie Solanas at the Factory in 1968, Jed Johnson, who would become his longtime partner, moved into his Lexington Avenue home to help him recover.^[6] Jed brought order to the house and took Julia to her doctor's appointments.^[5] "She got really senile and she would just go out and leave the door open, forget where she went. We were just afraid that she would get lost. Once, the police came," he recalled.^[5] Julia's bedroom was in the basement, and Jed moved her bed away from the exposed brick wall because she complained that she could smell buried aborted fetuses in the New York Fertility Center next door.^[6]^[5] By 1970, Julia's health was rapidly declining and Jed felt that she needed full-time care in a nursing home, but Andy was against that idea.^[6]^[5]

In February 1971, already stricken with dementia, Julia suffered a stroke.^[6] Due to his busy work schedule, Andy decided that Julia would benefit from moving back to Pittsburgh and living with his brother Paul in 1971.^[6] Julia had another stroke in Paul's house, and after being discharged from the hospital, she was placed in a nursing home against Andy's wishes, although he covered the bill.^[13]

On November 22, 1972, Julia died at age 81 following a third stroke.^[6] Her funeral was held at the John N. Elachko Funeral Home in Pittsburgh.^[5] Andy did not attend her funeral, but he paid for the expenses.^[6]^[5] He kept her death a secret and would tell anyone asking about her that she was shopping at Bloomingdale's.^[14] Even his live-in boyfriend Jed found out about her death accidentally from one of Andy's brothers.^[6] In the years that followed, Andy felt remorseful about his inability to care for his mother. In a December 1985 diary entry, he said, "And at Christmas time I really think about my mother and if I did the right thing sending her back to Pittsburgh. I still feel so guilty."^[15]

Julia is buried with her husband Andrew in the St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, near their son Andy, who would be interred there in 1987.^[13]

Legacy

Andy Warhol created posthumous portraits of his mother Julia in 1974.^[16] The portraits appeared on the cover of the Jan/Feb 1975 issue of Art in America.^[13] They were also displayed as part of his retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1979.^[17]

Elaine Rusinko, a professor emerita of Russian language and literature at the University of Maryland, wrote the biography Andy Warhol’s Mother: The Woman Behind the Artist, which was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 2024.^[18]

Notes

^ Rusyn: Юлія Варгола, romanized: Iuliia Varhola, anglicized: Julia Warhola
^ Rusyn: Юлія Юстінія Завацка, romanized: Iuliia Iustiniia Zavatska; Slovak: Júlia Justína Zavacká