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 as a calligrapher, embroiderer, and illustrator.

Julia Warhola was born Juliana Justina Zavaczki to a peasant family in the Rusyn village of Mikó, Austria-Hungary (now Miková in northeast Slovakia). Her mother had 15 children.^[2] Three of her brothers came to America first.^[2]

At the age of seventeen, she met her husband Andrew Warhola (Slovak: Andrej Varchola; 1889–1942) who was twenty.^[2] Even though she thought he was handsome, she was too young to desire to marry him, but her father made her.^[2] "My Daddy beat me, beat me to marry him. What do I know? The priest—oh a nice priest—come. 'This Andy,' he says, 'a very nice boy. Marry him.' I cry. I no know. Andy visit again. ... He brings me candy, wonderful candy. And for this candy, I marry him," she said.^[2] She remembered with fondness their three-day wedding in 1909, which featured music performed by seven gypsies.^[2]

In 1912, her husband fled to Poland and then emigrated to the United States because he did not want to join the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I.^[2] Soon after in 1912, her daughter, Maria, died at eight weeks old from a cold because there was no doctor in town.^[2] She lived with her parents-in-law and worked, carrying potatoes.^[2]

In 1921, Warhola left Czechoslovakia and joined her husband in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.^[3] The couple had three sons: Paul (1922–2014), John (1925–2010), and Andy (1928–1987).^[4] 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.^[5]

In 1942, her husband died after drinking contaminated water from a coal mine in West Virginia.^[2] To provide for her kids, she worked cleaning homes and had $11,000 in the bank.^[2][6]

She became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1942.^[7]

Warhol was particularly close to her youngest son Andy Warhol. In 1952, She moved to New York City to be near him.^[8][9] She didn't speak English well. Although Andy didn't speak Slovak, he understood her native language.^[2] Warhola enjoyed singing traditional Rusyn songs. She recorded herself singing folk songs, hymns, and prayers for her sons in the 1950s.^[8] She also did embroidery and other crafts, such as bouquets made from tin cans and crepe paper. During the Easter season, she decorated eggs in the Pysanka tradition.

Like her son, she loved to draw, and her favorite subjects were angels and cats. He often used her decorative handwriting to accompany his illustrations such as the book 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy (1957).^[10][11][12] She also wrote and illustrated her own book called Holy Cats.^[13][14]

Warhola was awarded a Certificate of Merit from the American Institute of Graphic Arts for designing the album cover for The Story of Moondog, featuring the musician Louis Thomas Hardin in 1957.^[15][6]

In 1966, Andy made a movie called Mrs. Warhol, which was filmed in color. The 66-minute film featured Warhola in her basement apartment in her son's Lexington Avenue townhouse house playing "an aging peroxide movie star with a lot of husbands," including the most recent spouse, played by Warhol's lover Richard Rheem.^[16]

Warhola was featured in an article about artist mothers in the November 1966 issue of Esquire magazine.^[2] She attended mass at St Mary Byzantine Catholic Church on East 15th Street in Manhattan.^[2]

After Andy survived an assassination attempt in June 1968, his boyfriend Jed Johnson moved into his home to help him recover and look after Warhola.^[9] Warhola was in poor physical condition, she had heart problems, arthritis, and weak legs.^[17] Johnson brought order to the household and accompanied Warhola to her weekly doctor's appointments.^[17] "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," Johnson said.^[8] "She was really difficult. She needed medication which she didn't remember to take, and then she made a lot of demands but she didn't know what she was doing. I mean, she was like a bag lady. She had things stuffed in shopping bags and her whole bed was surrounded by shopping bags and she had things safety-pinned to her clothing," he added.^[8] Warhola believed the New York Fertility Center next door buried aborted fetuses there, and she complained that she could smell the stench of their decay, so she had Johnson move her bed away from the exposed brick wall in her basement apartment.^[9][8]

By 1970, Warhola's health was rapidly declining and Johnson felt she needed full-time care in a nursing home, but Andy was against that idea.^[9][8] In February 1971, already stricken with dementia, Warhola suffered a stroke.^[9] Due to his busy work schedule, Andy decided she would benefit from moving back to Pittsburgh and living with his brother Paul in 1971.^[9] Warhola had another stroke at 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.^[18]

On November 22, 1972, Warhola died at age 81 following a third stroke.^[9] Her funeral was held at the John N. Elachko Funeral Home in Pittsburgh.^[8] Andy did not attend her funeral, but he paid for the expenses.^[9][8] He kept her death a secret and would tell anyone asking about her that she was shopping at Bloomingdale's.^[19] His longtime partner Jed Johnson found out about her death from one of Andy's brothers.^[9] 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."^[20]

Warhola 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.^[18]

Andy Warhol created posthumous portraits of his mother Julia in 1974.^[21] The portraits appeared on the cover of the Jan/Feb 1975 issue of Art in America.^[18] They were also displayed as part of his retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1979.^[22]

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.^[23]

• Rusinko, Elaine (November 19, 2024). Andy Warhol's Mother: The Woman Behind the Artist. University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN 978-0-8229-9169-4.

• The Warhola Family website