By the mid-1950s, Andy's career in commercial illustration was really taking off. But what he wanted more than ever was to become a famous artist.

Andy's first illustration after leaving Pittsburgh for this article "Success is a job in New York," now seems incredibly apt 'cause within a couple of years he'd become one of the city's hottest commercial artists. His work had appeared in Glamour, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar. He did record sleeves and book jackets and dressed windows for department stores. By the time he was 27, he was already making more than $100,000 a year, which was big money in the 1950s. But he still dreamt of being a real artist.

For his work to be taken seriously as art rather than just illustrations, it had to be about something. It had to comment on the world around people and make them look at it differently. And the world that Andy saw was "boom-time America." This poor kid who'd grown up during the Great Depression was obsessed by the 1950s consumer revolution: the glossy commercials for shiny cars, the new supermarkets crammed with varieties of undreamt-of food. He loved this mass-produced world of plenty, and, with his commercial background, Andy thought he could create art that reflected it.