Andrew Warhola left Pittsburgh in 1949 and came to New York City to be famous, which he found ridiculously easy. His first move was to drop the "a" from the end of his name. Walking around with his portfolio, he immediately caught on with Glamour, Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. The fashion magazines couldn’t get enough of his illustrations. He drew advertisements for I. Miller, seller of some of the smartest shoes on Fifth Avenue. These whimsical ads are works of art, he decided, and if not, why not?

By 1960 Warhol had enough money to buy a four-story townhouse in Manhattan and hang up his shingle with a capital A for "artist." He and an ex-Abstract Expressionist named Roy Lichtenstein independently invented a style featuring Campbell’s soup cans, Brillo boxes, comic strips, Elvis, Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy. Pop Art was like catnip for the media. On January 31, 1964, Life magazine ran a spread on Lichtenstein asking, "Is he the worst artist in the U.S.?" (Obviously, the answer was "no.") Andy must have been sick with jealousy, but he was undaunted. Four years later, he made a statement that defines our era: "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes."

Since his death in 1987 at age 58, Warhol’s 15 minutes keep getting longer and longer. His style of recycled mass-media images, accentuating the graininess and half-obscuring them with splashy colors, is arguably the world’s most widely imitated graphic signature. Copy it or spoof it, from China to Zanzibar there are artists and advertisers who can’t resist it. Taking his cue from Rorschach, Warhol figured out that our minds respond emotionally to images as coarse and contrasty as a tenth-generation photocopy. So, he turned from freehand painting to silk screens in search of a visual medium that guaranteed corroded visuals. Warhol had a genius for choosing subjects that would stick in our brains. Naturally, he didn’t overlook himself.

In discussing his self-portrait, the back story will help to set the scene. One of Warhol’s most important influences growing up was Shirley Temple. He was a passionate fan of the famous moppet (they were exact contemporaries, both born in 1928), joining her fan club and sending her letters. His most cherished possession, even through college, was a publicity still signed, "Andrew Warhola From Shirley Temple." (In 1948, a year before graduation, he transferred his attention, and letters, to Truman Capote, but that’s another story.) In 1936, when Warhol and Temple were 8, Time magazine called her the "world’s most photographed person." His longing for stardom started then.

Warhol photographed himself and silk-screened the unflattering results at all phases of his career. In the early ’60s, he sat in a passport photograph machine and took four shots wearing sunglasses and pretending to be cool—or maybe it wasn’t an act. Such antics paled, though, when in 1968 mortality hit home for Warhol, when Valerie Solanas, visiting The Factory, shot and almost killed him. Nine years passed before he did another self-portrait series, and this time it was accompanied by a skull. Late in his career Warhol was often accused of lacking inspiration, but even his critics agree that his last self-portraits are haunting.

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., owns a particularly striking example of this series, at which we can take a closer look. In 1986, within a year of his death, Warhol slapped on his silver fright wig, photographed his haggard face and double-screened it in pink and yellow on a canvas painted black. If you don’t think it’s scary, try making it your screensaver: 24 of these helter-skelter apparitions will give you nightmares (I know, I tried). Warhol made single printings of this death’s-head portrait, but its full force is unleashed in multiple groupings like the National Gallery’s set of four. The skewed alignments and slipped printing make it nearly impossible to tell if it’s two images repeated or four different ones. This harrowing, pitiless self-portrait poses a classic Warhol quandary: Who are we, really? He was still working on it when his time ran out.

John T. Spike, Art&Antiques’ Florence, Italy, correspondent, is an international art critic and curator and former director of the Florence Biennale.