Andy Warhol

“I’m from nowhere”

Follow in the footsteps of Andy Warhol and visit the gallery of his paintings in the Muse Hotel in Košice, or his parents’ birthplace in Mikova.

In 2025, Slovakia will celebrate the thirty year anniversary since the official codification of the Ruthenian language. After the Round Table Conference of Slovak Ruthenians has been declared this year as the Year of the Ruthenian Language. Andy Warhol, the icon of American Pop Art, spoke Ruthenian with his mother all his life , and Rutnian language was his native one. That is why we have decided to introduce this immortal American artist to foreign tourists in the first issue of our magazine this year. We will follow in the footsteps of his works and parents.

Andy Warhol, when questioned about his origin by his American friends, always gave a non-committal answer, such as, “I’m from nowhere”, without admitting that he had used to communicate with his mother, Julia Warhol, née Závacká, in Ruthenian all his life. Ruthenian was the native language of the inhabitants of the Slovak village of Miková, where Andy Warhol’s parents Julia and her husband Andrej Varchola alias Warchola came from. They were Ruthenians (an ethnic minority living mainly in the east of Slovakia) and left their small village in the Medzilaborce district in 1921. They set forth for the “land of unlimited possibilities” in their expectations of a better life. Andrej Warchola, alias Andy Warhol, was born in Pittsburgh seven years after his parents had arrived in the USA. At that time, however, no one in the family had any idea that the often sickly child would turn out to be a world-famous artist whose works would be sold for more than two hundred thousand dollars a piece one day.

It was his mother, Julie, who encouraged young Andy in his studies of graphic arts and in his later artistic career. Andy’s brother, John Warhol, remembered in an interview with the personnel of the Andy Warhol’s Museum in Medzilaborce: “Our mother often told us about her birthplace, Mikova. She described to us how she had ridden in a horse-drawn carriage from Mikova to Medzilaborce, and we looked forward to trying the ride in a horse-drawn carriage”, remembered John Warchola when he visited Slovakia after the Velvet Revolution. The famous Andy Warhol, however, was not predestined to visit his native land, even though he dreamt of it all the time. He died unexpectedly in 1987 after a banal gall bladder operation, and is buried in America, but his Greek-Catholic funeral was in Ruthenian. Andy was a believer and attended a Greek Catholic church in New York all his life, his serigraphs contain elements of iconostasis and we find in them a colour scheme typical of the decoration of Greek Catholic churches in eastern Slovakia.

His aunt Eva Bezeková from Mikova visited Andy Warhol in New York in 1967. Yet, she described her nephew and a pop-art artist as “an eccentric individual” to her relatives after her return to Slovakia. No one could anticipate the fact that Andy Warhol’s fame would endure long after his death and lectures on the topic of his works would be given to the university students of art colleges around the world.

The idea of establishing the Andy Warhol´s Museum of Modern Art in Medzilaborce was born during one of the visits of Andy Warhol’s brother, John Warhol, to eastern Slovakia in 1991. Michal Bycko, the latest museum’s curator, the Ruthenian, born and bred, also participated in the founding of the museum, and the Andy Warhoľ s Foundation from New York provided the museum with the original pictures by Andy Warhol on long-term loan free of charge at that time. According to the curator’s words, the works chosen for the exhibition were thematically related to the landscape around Medzilaborce. There were paintings with the motifs of flowers, cow’s head, Lenin, as well as a poster which came to public attention in connection with a special edition of Absolut Vodka with Andy Warhol’s portrait.

In the museum in Medzilaborce, visitors could have admired, for example, the white shirt worn by Andy Warhol at his baptism, as well as his black leather jacket, well known from several personal photographs of the artist. More than 30 000 visitors usually come from all over the world, most of them from Poland, Czech Republic, Austria and Germany. The museum with 300 original works by Andy Warhol is currently being renovated into a modern and timeless design. According to Martin Cubjak, the museum director, this pop-art mecca will probably open its renovated door in the autumn of 2025 or in the spring 2026. “A major added value of the museum will be the connection of the interior to the exterior through the walkway sections of the roof and facade, and the use of the roof for various educational or other recreational projects, especially from spring to autumn”, Martin Cubjak explains. The layout changes, in terms of expositions, will create more suitable conditions for a wider presentation of art, including various interactive elements and multimedia installations. “There will be large screens, interactive digital screen printing, presentations of film works, various video walls, mixed reality and similar experiential exhibitions,” Martin Cubjak entices visitors to come to the only European pop-art museum in Medzilaborce. Andy Warhol Museum in Medzilaborce has currently lent 60 Warhol’s original works to the French museum Musée de la Banque in Hyéres. “The exhibition, which has been entitled „Andy Warhol“, is open to the public in Hyéres from 8 February 2025. Due to the great interest of the French public, the museum has extended the exhibition until June 8, 2025. By the end of March 2025, more than 25,000 French visitors had viewed Andy Warhol’s works. People are queuing up for the tickets to the exhibition, as if for the tickets to a musical pop concert by a world–famous superstar”, comments Martin Cubjak on the successful cooperation between the Museum in Medzilaborce and the French Musée de la Banque.

Admirers of pop art and Warhol’s paintings need not despair. The Muse Hotel on Pri Prachárni Street in Košice, located near the Cassovia shopping centre, offers around 20 Andy Warhol´s originals. The hotel’s current gallery boasts works not found in any gallery in Europe, according to the hotel management. Among the highlights on display in Košice is a painting of Marilyn Monroe. “This painting is unique because it is a unpublished work that Warhol made by hand. Together with the famous Campbell’s Soups, they are among Warhol’s iconic works,” Miroslav Mihaľ, the owner of the Muse Hotel, presents the most popular work among visitors. Other paintings in the hotel’s exhibition include originals entitled “Sickles and Hammers”, “Saint Apollonia” and “Annunciation”. The deeply religious Andy created the painting “Annunciation” based on a painting by Leonardo da Vinci, according to Miroslav Mihal. “Few people know that Warhol also depicted biblical themes and met the Pope John Paul II,” explains the hotelier. Some of the works exhibited in Košice have not been seen in the museum in Medzilaborce until now.

If tourists want to go directly to the native village of Andy Warhol’s parents – Mikova, they can get there by bus from Medzilaborce. Medzilaborce is more than 100 kilometres away, in the eastward direction, from Košice. Miková itself glows with the colours of Warhol’s paintings, whether it’s the blue paint on the residents’ fences or the pink of the village cherry blossoms in spring. A number of distant relatives of Andy Warhol named Varchola are buried in the Mikova cemetery, and there is a picturesque Greek Catholic church worth a visit on the cemetery grounds.

by Daniela Capcarová © 2025

photo by © Bartolomej Cisár and Andy Warhol museum in Medzilaborce