Andy Warhol changed how we look at the world.

He made household items into art and art into a commodity. His images turned politicians into celebrities, and celebrities into icons.

He challenged notions of gender and identity and blurred the lines between art forms, bringing together music, film, and the visual arts.

To mark what would have been Andy Warhol’s 88th birthday this Saturday, and to celebrate his prescience and enduring influence, our friends and Global Partners at Shutterstock have reimagined some of his most famous works. Just as Warhol used images of Marilyn, Mao, and Muhammad Ali, these homages feature the faces who define 2016.

Warhol was drawn to women who were ubiquitous in the culture and knew the importance of the right image. It seems fitting that the 21st century version features one the most photographed women in the world – not least by herself.

One of Warhol’s other muses was Jackie Kennedy; sometimes smiling, sometimes grieving. In 2016 we’re thinking about another First Lady who has eclipsed her husband.

As well as capturing the great and the good of the 20th century, Warhol was famous for his self-portraits, his fright wig in full display. In our version he’s played by another man who is synonymous with New York and knows the value of his own surname: Donald Trump.

We’ve also created a video tribute, recreating some of his most famous films with stock footage. While Warhol’s images could be brash and immediate, his films were more like feats of endurance such as Empire, a continuous slow-motion shot of the Empire State Building that lasts 8 hours.

With Warhol’s impact all around us, we asked some of our favorite art directors how he had influenced them.

“I believe I first met him in 1950, when he was Andy Warhola, doing drawings of shoes for my first boss, Reba Sochis.

“Andy was at his funniest when he ‘acted’ in my Braniff commercial, sitting next to Sonny Liston on a plane. Liston didn’t have a clue who Andy was!”

“When I called up Andy to tell him I was going top put him on a cover of Esquire, he cooed to the people around him at the Factory, ‘Wow, George Lois is putting me on the cover of Esquire.’  But then he said to me, ‘But George, I know you. What’s the idea?’ When I told him I was going to show him drowning in a can of Campbell’s soup, he said, ‘I love it, but won’t you have to build a gigantic can of Campbell’s soup?’  Duh!”

— George Lois, ADC Hall of Fame laureate, 1978

“Warhol transformed the way the world experiences art. He was preceded by many anti-art-artists, but this former illustrator turned painter and polymath brought the art world to its knees, through what I can only call artistic magic. It seemed so simple, but I still cannot figure out how he did it. Can you?”

— Steven Heller, ADC Hall of Fame laureate, 1996

“I hate Andy Warhol. I hate that he used the obvious and made it iconic. I hate that he tapped into the popular image and made it even more popular. I hate that Andy went where the money was and made a lot of money. I hate that he opened up the rarified atmosphere of the art world to the everyman. I hate that he was unashemedly and deliberately just… Andy. I love Andy Warhol. —James Victore”

— James Victore, inaugural ADC Young Guns winner

Looking for additional inspiration? Check out Shutterstock’s downloadable 2016 Creative Trends infographic.

CREATIVE TRENDS