“Andy Warhol’s Mother”

Elaine Rusinko
University of Pittsburgh Press, $40

Flowers? Check. Brunch reservation? Check. Looking for something a little extra to give Mom this year? Check out Elaine Rusinko’s “Andy Warhol’s Mother: The Woman Behind the Artist.”

Rusinko, who is associate professor emerita of Russian language and literature at the University of Maryland,

Baltimore County, has crafted not only a fascinating biography of the famed artist’s mother, but also written a richly detailed cultural history of the Carpatho-Rusyn people.

“Carpatho-Rusyns, also known as Rusyns, Rusnaks, Carpatho-Russians and Ruthenians, are a stateless people, whose homeland today stretches across five European countries – Ukraine, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary and Poland,” writes Rusinko.

Andy Warhol’s parents emigrated to the United States and, eventually, to the city of Pittsburgh from Mikova, a small village in Slovakia. Julia Warhola has been described by other biographers of Warhol as “oddball” and “freaky”.

Rusinko, however, finds in Warhol’s mother a woman “who, for most of her life, defied the limits imposed upon her by poverty, hardship and illness.” Julia Warhola emerges as tenacious, persnickety and personally artistic (the lettering in Warhol’s paintings is actually Julia’s handwriting).

Lou Reed once sang, “There’s no Michelangelo coming from Pittsburgh,” but “Andy Warhol’s Mother: The Woman Behind the Artist” offers plenty of insight as to how Andy Warhol’s family background informed the world-renowned artist he eventually became.