Andy Warhol Last Supper BUKOWSKIS CONTEMPORARY VIEWING MAY 7 - 13 | AUCTION MAY 14
andy warhol is one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, and we most likely haven’t yet seen the full extent of his significance. His ability to expose with precision what life in our post-industrial world means for the individual, and his or her existence, is quite simply unparalleled. And above the art and the artist hovers his mysterious and fascinating persona. One who early on understood Warhol’s greatness was Pontus Hultén, the former head of Moderna Museet in Stockholm. Warhol’s first major solo exhibition in a European art museum opened in February 1968 at Moderna Museet. The artist and his friends, Viva and Paul Morrissey, spent several intensive days in the Swedish capital and the exhibition was an enormous success. The vibrant pink on yellow cow wallpaper on the museum’s façade was visible for several kilometres. I was too young to have experienced the exhibition, but I can enjoy its history and the fact that such notable ties between Stockholm and Andy Warhol exist. For this reason, it is particularly magical that Bukowskis has been presented with the possibility of selling Warhol’s “Last Supper”, which in a poignant way summarizes his art: repetition, elegance and a constant mockery of death. Michael Storåkers, Director
a n dy wa r hol l a st su ppe r 5
6 a n dy wa r hol l a st su ppe r
Glenn O’Brien: Do you still go to church? Andy Warhol: Yeah. I just sneak in at funny hours. GO: Do you go to Catholic church? AW: Yeah, they’re the prettiest. GO: Do you believe in God? AW: I guess I do. I like church. It’s empty when I go. I walk around. There are so many beautiful Catholic churches in New York. I used to go to some Episcopal churches too. 1
“We were brought up to believe that prayers are the only thing that are going to help you and it seemed that when he had nowhere else to turn Andy got closer to God”. 2 (Andy’s brother John Warhola) On Wednesday, 1 April 1987, around 2000 people assembled in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. What brought this large group of, amongst others, leading representatives for the art world, the cultural elite and international jet-setters was Andy Warhol’s memorial service. The program 3 was illustrated with a reproduction of Warhol’s painting Raphael Madonna - $6.99 from 1985, which the artist had based on Raphael’s famous Sistine Madonna. The program also contained the information that Yoko Ono was one of the speakers at the memorial service and that the music included Amazing Grace and Louange a l´ Immortalite de Jesu.
rity-fixated member of the international jet-set. This image, however, becomes clearer with a closer look at Warhol’s private life at the time. Disappointed about how a handful of personal relationships had ebbed away during the first half of the 1980s, Warhol increasingly adopted an attitude towards life that was marked by depression and questioning. After Warhol’s death, the gallerist, curator and art collector Heiner Bastian commented that: “More than anyone else I ever knew, Andy talked about being let down by someone, or being disappointed by someone and in the last two years of his life I thought he was more miserable”. 4
Andy especially liked the little old ladies who hung around the soup kitchen, another friend recalled, because they reminded him of his mother. 7 In his diaries Warhol mentions one visit to the church:
The mind boggles when one tries to imagine how Warhol, after accomplishing his duties amongst New York’s poor and homeless, returned to his five-storey high Georgian-style town house on 57 East 66th Street. It was here, in the heart of the exclusive Upper East Side, that Warhol came to spend more and more lonely evenings in his large house, luxuriously furnished in Art Deco and Empire styles:
Five hundred homeless and hungry New Yorkers will assemble on Easter Day at the Church of the Heavenly Rest, on Fifth Avenue at 90th Street. They will be served a delicious meal, and they will be treated as honored guests by some eighty volunteers. They will also be saddened by the absence of one who, with dedicated regularity, greeted them on Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter.
Hildesley’s description of how Warhol served food on a regular basis to homeless people in one of the city’s many churches doesn’t really fit in with the general image of Warhol as a celeb-
A group of little black kids came in late and he ran into the kitchen and took aluminium foil and wrapped up all the extra cupcakes and stuff and gave it to the mother for them to take home. That was the first time I ever saw him in an environment where no one else knew who he was, and he just loved it.
Thursday, December 25, 1986. I got up early and walked to Paige’s and she and Stephen Sprouse and I went to the Church of the Heavenly rest to pass out Interviews and feed the poor. It wasn’t as crowded as it was at Thanksgiving. […] Stephen dropped me. Got a lot of calls to go to Christmas parties but I just decided to stay in and I loved it. 8
Perhaps the most interesting information in the program, which probably surprised most of the visitors, was under the heading “A lesser-known element in the portrait of Andy Warhol”, where the Reverend C. Hugh Hildesley, of the Church of the Heavenly Rest, wrote:
Andy poured coffee, served food and helped clean up. More than that he was a true friend to these friendless. He loved these nameless New Yorkers and they loved him back. We will pause to remember Andy this Easter, confident that he will be feasting with us at a Heavenly Banquet, because he had heard another Homeless Person who said: “I was hungry and you gave me food…Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you did it to me”.
‘He just loved doing it’, said Warhols assistant Wilfredo:
These feelings expressed themselves perhaps most of all during traditional holidays. Warhol’s associate and friend Paige Powell (who was employed by Interview 1981-1994 and was Jean-Michel Basquiat’s girlfriend) did her best to distract Warhol: Knowing how much he hated holidays, Paige Powell arranged for him to visit the Church of Heavenly Rest on Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter to serve the homeless dinners with Wilfredo and Stephen Sprouse. ’Andy dragged round garbage cans and poured coffee’, she recalled. ‘And he did something that wasn’t on the programme – he found Saran Wrap so people could take food home’. 6
Andy was suffering from some kind of terminal melancholia. For all the frantic activity around him, he was increasingly alone. Evenings often ended early as he returned to his bedroom to watch television, play with his make-up or try on one of his four hundred wigs in the large oval mirror of his dressing table, cared for now only by the two well-paid Filipino maids, Nena and Aurora, to whom he rarely spoke. 9 What this magnificent home actually looked like was in principle a secret since few were admitted into it. Nevertheless, most visitors would have reacted over how this private sphere departed from the public image of the most famous representative of pop art. The art historian Sir John Richardson, described the artist’s bedroom in an article in Vanity Fair, soon after Warhol’s death: a n dy wa r hol l a st su ppe r 7
”Andy left out Mother’s holy pictures, but he put in the cross from Dad’s funeral, on the fireplace where we always kept it”
The room abounds in late-eighteenth and early nineteenth-century furniture of museum quality. Apart from a nymph-embellished chimneypiece after Canova, most of it is American. There is a grandiose chest and a desk by Joseph Berry, the Philadelphia cabinetmaker; a megalomaniac’s cheval mirror that would overpower anyone who wasn’t wearing a full dress uniform or ball gown; a vast armoire for Andy’s vast collection of blue jeans, leather jackets and sneakers (some of them dyed black for evening wear); and not least a large Sheratonish four-poster bed with a painted cornice and fringed hangings of cocoa-coloured stuff. 10 This most private of spheres contained other objects as well however which has been described by Jane Daggett Dillenberger: On the bedside table, a santos carving, a crucifix, a statuette of the Risen Christ, and a devotional book gave evidence of Warhol’s religious practice. The book, Heavenly Manna: A Practical Book of Devotions for Greek [later editions replace “Greek” with “Byzantine”] Catholics, published in 1954 (now owned by John Warhola), shows Andy Warhol’s markings of selected prayers. Warhol’s piety was secret, as was also his home. Only his closest friends were ever invited in; Warhol usually entertained at restaurants. 11 Dagett Dillenberger’s description of Warhol’s home (“The elegant and formal rooms of Warhol’s townhouse looked more like the residence of an Episcopal bishop than of this rakishly wigged Pop artist” 12) clarifies what lay behind Warhol’s engagement in New York’s homeless people as well as the religious undertones in, not least, his last works and most of his artistic production: Warhol’s religion. The truth is probably that few, if any, came to know the complex artist Andy Warhol deeply during his lifetime. Those who did get close to him discovered that religion was an inescapable part of his many-facetted personality, and one that can be traced back to his childhood. Contradictory and mysterious, few artists have left such comprehensive documentation after them as has Warhol. In thousands of photographs, hundreds of selfportraits, innumerable film sequences and TV appearances, not to mention hundreds of hours of 10 a n dy wa r hol l a st su ppe r
tape recordings from his SONY tape recorder (“my wife” as Warhol used to call the machine), which accompanied him to work and countless parties, Warhol documented his world. His public persona, his obsession with money, fame and glamour, and his famous aloof attitude are well-documented, but there is another side of Any Warhol, a private side, which strikingly contrasts with the public one. This side shows a shy, reserved person, who places great weight on religious conviction – which John Richardson takes up in his eulogy at the memorial service in New York, 1 April, 1987: I’d like to recall a side of his character that he hid from all but his closest friends: his spiritual side. Those of you who knew him in circumstances that were the antithesis of spiritual may be surprised that such a side existed. But exist it did, and it’s key to the artist’s psyche. 13 Warhol’s belief in religion goes back to his childhood and early years in Pittsburgh. His parents, who were poor immigrants from the obscure village of Mikova in present-day Slovakia, were god-fearing people. Every Sunday Warhol’s mother Julia took young Andy to the local church, St. John Chrysostom, to attend no less than three masses, in accordance with the rituals of the Greek-Byzantine Catholic Church. His childhood made a lasting impression on Warhol, who during most of his adult life regularly, if not daily, visited nearby churches and carried a rosary in his pocket. 14 Warhol’s religious beliefs were coupled with a palpable fear of death. This appeared already in his childhood and adolescence when Warhol’s father, Andrej, died of tuberculosis in 1942. When his father’s body was taken home from the hospital in order to lie in state at home for three days, in accordance with the family’s religious customs, Andy, terrified, hid under his bed. Dagget Dillenberger writes: “The recurrent theme of death in Warhol’s paintings is thus rooted in the immediacy of this indelible childhood experience”. 15 One of Warhol’s earliest paintings, The Warhola Livingroom (tempera and watercolour on cardboard, 15 x 20 in, Collection Paul Warhola Family,
Pittsburgh) from 1946-7, pictures the family’s living room after his father’s death (P.8). Noteworthy in the composition is how Warhol includes the crucifix from his father’s burial where it stands on the mantelpiece. Warhol’s brother, Paul Warhola, has commented on how in this painting Andy: “left out Mother’s holy pictures, but he put in the cross from Dad’s funeral, on the fireplace where we always kept it.” Warhol’s childhood home had icons in most of the rooms, and another brother, John, has mentioned a picture of The Last Supper hanging in the kitchen. Jane Daggett Dillenberger adds: “Thus, Andy’s earliest experience of art was of religious art-it may not have been very good art, but unlike for many Protestants or those outside the churches whose experience of religious art may have been limited to museums, for Andy, art and religion were linked from a very early age. 16 The combination of fear of God and fear of death followed Warhol all through his life, even after his moving to New York in 1949. His initial successes in advertising continued and after first sharing an apartment with Philip Pearlstein, he earned enough money already in 1951 to buy his own. It didn’t take long before Warhol’s devoted mother Julia moved in with her three cats, religious pictures and unwavering religious beliefs: My mother had shown up one night at the apartment where I was living with a few suitcases and shopping bags, and she announced that she’d left Pennsylvania for good ”to come live with my Andy”. I told her okay, she could stay, but just until I got a burglar alarm. 17 Even if a burglar alarm was finally installed, Julia remained as Warhol’s only steadfast and secure point in life until her death in 1972. This means that Warhol lived almost 40 of his 58 years close to her expressions of piety. Every morning before Warhol went to his studio, he kneeled and prayed with his mother in their ancient native tongue. He also wore a chain with a cross under his shirt and had a prayer book as well as a rosary in a pocket. 18 Warhol´s religious brooding and his fear of death forms the foundation for much of his pop art production during the 1960s, when symbols for American consumption society (soup cans) and
”The elegant and formal rooms of Warhol’s townhouse looked more like the residence of an Episcopal bishop than of this rakishly wigged Pop artist”
a n dy wa r hol l a st su ppe r 11
They finally took us to our seats with the rest of the 5000 people and a nun screamed out, “You’re Andy Warhol! Can I have your autograph?”
12 a n dy wa r hol l a st su ppe r
images of celebrities (Marilyn Monroe, who died much too young) alternated with more direct expressions of these ruminations – for example, 129 Die in Jet (Plane Crash), 1962; Woman Suicide, 1963; Orange Car Crash Fourteen Times, 1963; Tunafish Disaster, 1963; Atomic Bomb, 1965 and Big Electric Chair, 1967 etc. Valerie Solana’s attempt to murder Warhol in 1968 intensified his fear of death and his confidence in religion. Even though his heart stopped on one occasion during the five hour-long operation (which meant that the doctors de facto resurrected him from the dead), he survived. Warhol’s colleague, Bob Colacello writes how the attempt on his life affected Warhol: Andy himself did go to church […] every Sunday for as long as I knew him. He said mass took too long, and confession was impossible because he was sure the priest would recognize him through the screen and gossip about his sins, and he never took communion because he knew it was sacrilege to do without confessing. So every Sunday he would “run to church” for a few minutes between masses, or after the last one, kneel down at the pew, make the sign of the cross, and pray. […] Andy was less regular before he was shot, but in the hospital he promised God to go to church every Sunday if he lived-and he kept to the letter of that promise. 19 Warhol told Leticia Kent, reporter on the Village Voice: “I wasn’t afraid before. And having died once, I shouldn’t feel fear. But I’m afraid. I don’t understand why. I am afraid of God alone, and I wasn’t before”. 20 As documented in his diaries, Warhol continued to go to church for the rest of his life. One, typically laconic entry, is the following: Sunday, November 16, 1980-Paris-New York. […] I went to church, gave my thanks for the trip and getting back alive. Did phone calls, and somehow got mesmerized. I got so nervous thinking about all these new kids painting away and me just going to parties, I figured I’d better get cracking. Thomas Amman called inviting me to dinner with Richard Gere, but I was too tired. I watched Saturday Night Fever on TV and it was great. 21
Warhol’s religiousity could also be expressed in concrete ways. The example below describes how he supported his assistant, Ronnie Cutrone, after overcoming his drug problems. Cutrone relates the following: I had gotten sober and I was reading and studying the Bible. Other people were making fun of me or staying away. One night I was going to be late for my biblical research class and Andy got a silver limousine and personally took me to the class himself. […] I know how Andy balanced his personal and professional life. He told me this. It’s common knowledge, but people usually ignore it. Andy believed in God. 22 That Cutrone, who was one of Warhol’s most important assistants (ie one who helped with painting), knew Warhol well is clear from the following event, which also points to the artist’s religiousness: This French woman came and did this interview and she said to him, ’You once said that if you want to see me, just look at the surface of my paintings, so that probably means you don’t believe in anything’. Andy got furious and the lady didn’t know what the hell she’d said. He just turned beet red and said, ‘I didn’t say that. I didn’t say that I don’t believe in anything’. I’ve never seen Andy freak out like this with a total stranger. And the lady drew back and said, ‘Well then, what do you believe in?’ And again he turned beet red, got infuriated and said, ‘Well, I believe in God’. And then he realized that he had freaked out and, half cool and half meaning it, he said to the lady, ‘And I believe in Ronnie’. 23 Another one of Warhol’s intimates, the photgrapher Christopher Makos, who travelled all over the world with the artist, including to the opening of the Last Supper exhibition in Milan, relates:
That that anonymity was desired but not always possible to maintain is conveyed in Warhol’s diary notes from a meeting with Pope John Paul II in Rome: Wednesday, April 2, 1980-Naples-Rome. Fred and I had to leave for our private audience with the pope […] We got our tickets and then the driver dropped us off at the Vatican. […] They finally took us to our seats with the rest of the 5,000 people and a nun screamed out, “You’re Andy Warhol! Can I have your autograph?” 25 Thus recognized wherever in the world he was, Warhol nevertheless often managed to hide behind his celebrity status per se or behind an external attribute such as a silver wig and monosyllable communication. In the same way, over many years he enriched his pop art by a religious undertone, which is there to see for anyone who seriously looks for it. In his eulogy, John Richardson wisely noted: Though ever in his thoughts, Andy’s religion didn’t surface in his work until two or three Christmases ago, when he embarked on his series of Last Suppers […] The knowledge of this secret piety inevitably changes our perception of an artist who fooled the world into believing that his only obsessions were money, fame, glamour, and that he was cool to the point of callousness. Never take Andy at face value. The callous observer was in fact a recording angel. 26 But Warhol himself expressed it clearest of all: Few people have seen my films or paintings, but perhaps those few will become more aware of living by being made to think about themselves. People need to be made aware of the need to work at learning how to live life because life is so quick and sometimes it goes away too quickly. 27
Andy went to church every Sunday. […] His religion was a very private part of his life. In church he was Andrew Warhola and not a cool pop star Andy Warhol. I think it took a lot of pressure off him. It restored to him a perspective of the world that he had grown up with. In church he was the anonymous Catholic. 24 a n dy wa r hol l a st su ppe r 13
“The police had to close off the street, and all the socialites arriving in their limousines couldn’t get in”
Paul Taylor: Does the Last Supper theme mean anything in particular to you? Andy Warhol: It’s a good picture
16 a n dy wa r hol l a st su ppe r
28
in the 1980s Andy Warhol frequently returned to motifs of more or less palpable religious character. Almost one third of the exhibition, Guns, Knives and Crosses (Galleria Fernando Vijande, Madrid, 16 December 1982 – 21 January 1983) was based on Warhol’s depictions of the possibly most expressed Christian symbol. In 1982 Warhol made a series of paintings and prints of eggs. Eggs have always been associated with various religions and philosophies where, for instance, the Easter egg was a symbol of reincarnation. Warhol’s mother, Julia, in accord with Byzantine-Catholic custom, used to paint Easter eggs. 29 Around the same time Warhol also undertook a number of reinterpretations of religious motifs which were originally produced by some of the most significant Renaissance artists. These projects resulted in, for example, the graphic portfolios, Details of Renaissance Paintings (1984), in which Warhol interpreted Paolo Uccello’s St. George and the Dragon from 1460 as well as Leonardo da Vinci’s The Annunciation from 1492. This development culminated around 1985 when Warhol began working with what would be his last major exertions as an artist: the first variations of his reinterpretations of Leonardo’s The Last Supper (Il Cenacolo). The variations on this theme would in the end burgeon into a whole suite, where some of the paintings acquired a monumental format (for example, Sixty Last Suppers, 1986, synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink on canvas, ca 295 x 998 cm). Jane Daggett Dillenberger, who calls The Last Supper, “his last, and perhaps his largest – certainly his grandest – series” writes:
Art in New York the same year). Warhol had nostalgic associations with Leonardo’s art in general and his Last Supper in particular. According to the artist’s brother, John Warhola, a reproduction of The Last Supper hung in the kitchen of their childhood home. Their mother, Julia, had a small color reproduction of The Last Supper in her wellworn yellowed Old Slavonic Prayer Book, which was always near at hand. 31 Warhol’s main challenge in his project was to find a useable source to base the paintings on - reproductions in art books were generally too dark. At the same time high-definition photographs of the original revealed that extremely little of Leonardo’s original pigment was preserved and that most of what remained of the badly worn mural was the result of previous generations’ badly done restorations. Warhol’s friend, the art historian David Bourdon writes: Consequently, he decided to work from kitsch, secondary sources. They included a white plastic maquette of the Last Supper that was reportedly found in a gas station on the New Jersey Turnpike, a published line drawing based on the composition, and a large, Italian-made Capo-di-Monte bisque figural group that was found in a midtown shop. 32
Though an accurate count cannot be made until a complete listing of Warhol’s work is finished, it is certain that there are at least twenty very large Last Supper paintings by Warhol, which, together with a group of smaller canvases and works on paper, constitute a kind of last will and testament of the artist. 30
The idea for what became Andy Warhol’s last major exhibition came from the internationally known gallerist, Alexandre Iolas. As director of the Hugo Gallery in New York, Iolas had arranged Warhol’s first solo exhibition, Fifteen Drawings Based on the Writings of Truman Capote, in the summer of 1952, and it seemed as if fate determined that Iolas would also be behind the artist’s last exhibition. Iola’s idea was based on the exhibition being shown in the Palazzo delle Stelline in Milan, just across the street from Santa Maria delle Grazie, where Leonard’s famous mural stands in the refectory. Warhol found the proposal interesting and stimulating. According to one of Warhol’s prominent colleagues at the time, Vincent Freemont, Warhol was “on a creative roll”. 33
To work with a model based on the great master, Leonardo, was by no means difficult or intimidating for Warhol, who as early as 1963, based a number of his compositions on da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (which drew large crowds of visitors when she was shown at The Metropolitan Museum of
There are differences of opinion about exactly which year Iolas made his proposal. According to one of Warhol’s assistants, Rupert Smith, it was probably in the beginning of 1986 when Iolas visited The Factory and was fascinated by Warhol’s new suite of images, then in progress:
Andy’s last great work, the Leonardo Last Supper, was commissioned by Alexandre Iolas, the art dealer, early in 1986. He offered Andy the show in Milan right across the street from the real Last Supper. Andy worked on the project on and off for a year from photographs, but I could never get a really good photograph out of the real Last Supper books because the images were always so dark. In one, however, an updated Vasari type book, we found line drawings of every famous painting. Andy used that because it gave clear definition. 34 Silkscreen versions of The Last Supper were thus based on drawings rather than the previously mentioned sculpture groups and were executed after working with the hand-painted canvases had started. Warhol said he had worked with the motif for more or less the whole of 1986 and had finished around 40 paintings. 35 Twenty of these paintings were shown in the exhibition, Warhol Il Cenacolo, which caused an uproar when it opened in the Palazzo delle Stelline in Milan, 22 January, 1987. 36 The opening took place under what can be described as hysterical conditions. The morning began with a press conference for over 200 invited journalists, photographers and TV reporters. This was followed by a lunch in the home of Gianni Versace (who asked Warhol to paint two heads of Christ for his library). The opening, which went on from four in the afternoon until nine at night, was followed by a grandiose banquet, hosted by the interior decorator/ designer, Dino Franzin. 37 Daniella Morera, Interviews correspondent in Italy, called the opening: The biggest event that ever happened in Milano. They were expecting five or six hundred people, but there were five or six thousand. One paper said ten thousand. The police had to close off the street, and all the socialites arriving in their limousines couldn’t get in. Every designer was there. Versace. Krizia. Moschino. The whole Missoni family. Every big artist. Every art director. All the graphic artists. And the public, the kids. People came on trains from the suburbs. People sent flowers. Andy was surrounded by white lilies, sitting behind a white Formica table, getting exhausted. He was signing catalogues, posters, magazines, glasses, scarves, gloves. People were pressing, screaming to get things signed, waiting for hours. 38 a n dy wa r hol l a st su ppe r 17
ANDY WARHOL (USA 1928 -1987) ”LAST SUPPER” 1986 STAMPED SIGNATURE AND CERTIFIED BY FREDERICK HUGHES ON VERSO SYNTHETIC POLYMER PAINT AND SILKSCREEN ON CANVAS, 102.1 X 102.1 CM PROVENANCE: GALERIE BRUNO BISCHOFBERGER, ZÜRICH PRIVATE COLLECTION (ACQUIRED FROM THE ABOVE IN 1989) E 6.711.450–8.948.550 / SEK 60.000.000–80.000.000
18 a n dy wa r hol l a st su ppe r
a n dy wa r hol l a st su ppe r 19
“He greatly surprised me when he said to me: ’Pierre, do you think that the Italians will see the respect I have for Leonardo? ...Conciously or not, Warhol seemed to me to having acted there as a curator of a masterpiece of Christian culture, of maintaining a tradition he was part of.”
2 0 a n dy wa r hol l a st su ppe r
Warhol’s health suffered in combination with the heavy program. Christopher Makos, who shared a suite with Warhol at the exclusive Hotel Principe di Savoia noted: I just remember that the Last Supper trip was a difficult one, because Andy was starting to have stomach pains, and as we all know, he died a short time after returning to NYC. So it wasn’t the best of times… 39 This was confirmed by Daniella Morera, who visited Warhol in the hotel suite: He didn’t have the usual enthusiasm. I mean, as much as he could keep his beautiful, childish enthusiasm, Andy was really getting old and he was in pain from his gallbladder. We had a press
conference in the morning before the show. The journalists said, ‘Why are you doing Leonardo da Vinci, are you very much in touch with Italian culture?’ And he said, ‘Oh Italian culture – I only know really the spaghetti but they are fantastic!’ 40 Warhol’s jesting attitude was balanced, however, by his genuine respect for the remarkable context he was able to be a part of through the exhibition. The French art critic, Pierre Restany, relates the following about the day of the exhibition’s opening: It was a beautiful Lombard winter day, a limpid sun which conferred on Warhol’s work a strange aura of spirituality. […] Andy, fascinating in his mauve-tinged platinum wig which gave him a half-mourning air, seemed penetrated by the importance of the moment. He greatly surprised me
when he said to me: ’Pierre, do you think that the Italians will see the respect I have for Leonardo?... Consciously or not, Warhol seemed to me to having acted there as a curator of a masterpiece of Christian culture, of maintaining a tradition he was part of. 41 The day after the opening Warhol was in such a bad state that he spent the whole day in his suite at the hotel. The next day he broke off his stay in Milan early and returned home to New York. One month later, 22 February, Warhol unexpectedly died after an operation at New York Hospital. The exhibition in Milan closed soon after, but Warhol’s paintings on the theme of The Last Supper came to be called: “the grandest and most profound cycle of paintings by this prolific, enigmatic and complex artist, whose importance defies the test of time”. 42
Glenn O’Brien, “Interview with Andy Warhol”, in High Times, August 1977, pp. 20-42. Quoted by Victor Bockris in Warhol: The Biography, Da Capo Press, Inc., New York, 1997, p. 48. Reproduced in Jane Daggett Dillenberger, The Religious Art of Andy Warhol, The Continuum Publishing Company, New York, 1998, p.16. 4 Bockris, p. 478. 5 Paige Powell, e-mail correspondence with the author, April 16, 2014. Paige Powell is a photographer, curator, Interview magazine Associate Publisher and animal rights activist. She was employed by Interview magazine 1981-1994 and worked with Andy Warhol on special art projects. 6 Bockris, pp. 478-479. 7 Ibid. 8 The Andy Warhol diaries. Edited by Pat Hackett, Warner Books, Inc., New York, 1991, pp. 786-787. 9 Bockris, p. 475. 10 John Richardson, “The Secret Warhol: At Home with the Silver Shadow”, Vanity Fair, July 1987, p. 125, quoted in Bockris, pp. 475-476. 11 Daggett Dillenberger, p. 33. 12 Ibid. 13 Quoted in Daggett Dillenberger, p. 13. 14 Andy Warhol 365 takes. By the staff of the Andy Warhol Museum, Thames & Hudson, London, 2004, p. 254. 15 Dagget Dillenberger, p. 20. 16 Ibid., p. 19. 17 Andy Warhol & Pat Hackett, POPism. The Warhol ’60s, A Harvest Book, 1990, p. 5. 18 David Bourdon, Warhol, Harry N. Abrahams, Inc., New York, 1991, p. 38. 19 Bob Colacello, Holy Terror. Andy Warhol Close Up, Cooper Square Press, New York, 2000, p. 70. 20 Bockris, p. 311 21 The Andy Warhol Diaries, p. 343. 22 Bockris, p. 454. 23 Ibid., pp. 454-455. 24 Christopher Makos, Warhol: A Personal Photographic Memoir, New American Library, New York, 1988, p. 53. 25 The Andy Warhol diaries, pp. 275-276. 26 Quoted in Daggett Dillenberger, pp. 13-14. 27 Alan Solomon, Andy Warhol, exhibition catalogue, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, October 1 to November 6, 1966. 28 Paul Taylor,”Andy Warhol: The Last Interview”, in Flash Art, # 133, April 1987, pp. 41-44. 29 Daggett Dillenberger, p. 48. 30 Ibid., p. 79. 31 Ibid., p. 80. 32 Bourdon, p. 406. 33 Daggett Dillenberger, p. 101. 34 Rupert Smith in The Andy Warhol Collection: Collectibles, Jewelry, Furniture, Decorations, Paintings, Sotheby’s Auction Catalogue, Friday April 29 and Saturday April 30 1988, item nr 927. 35 Taylor, pp. 41-44. 36 Alexandre Iolas, Warhol Il Cenacolo, Edicioni Philippe Daverio, Milano, 1987. 37 Colacello, p. 486. 38 Ibid. 39 Christopher Makos, e-mail correspondence with the author, April 9, 2014. Christopher Makos is a photographer who uses photographic imagery in paintings, prints and three dimensional works. For a number of years he was Andy Warhol’s friend and travel companion. Warhol loved modeling for Makos who still remembers him as “one of my favorite subjects”. 40 Bockris, p. 484. 41 Pierre Restany, ”Andy Warhol: A Mauve-Tinged Platinum Wig” in Andy Warhol: An Exhibition, curated by Jacob Baal-Teshuva, May-June 1989, Magidson Fine Art, New York, 1989. 42 Daggett Dillenberger, p. 120. 1 2 3
picture cr edits P.4 Interior picture. Photograph by Patrick Miller, Manocamera. Set Designer Linda Ring. P.6 Hans Gedda´s portrait of Andy Warhol, 1976 (detail). P.7 Andy Warhol, Church of the Heavenly Rest, New York City 1986 (detail). Photograph by Paige Powell © Courtesy The Suzanne Geiss Company. P.8 Andy Warhol. Living Room, 1946-47 (detail). Watercolour and tempera on cardboard 15 x 20’’. Collection Paul Warhola Family, Pittsburgh. Reproduced with kind permission from James Warhola. P.11 Bedroom, Warhol residence at 57 East 66th Street, New York City 1987. Photograph by Elizabeth Heyert © Elizabeth Heyert Studios, Inc. P.14 Andy and two priests in front of The Last Supper, January 1987, Milan, Italy. PHOTO: Christopher Makos 1989 makostudio.com P.20 From Palazzo delle Stelline, January 1987. Reproduced in ”Andy Warhol. Il Cenacolo”, from 20/Gallerie Gruppo Credito Valtellinese 1987-2007. Vent’anni. ©Fondazione Gruppo Credito Valtellinese.
a n dy wa r hol l a st su ppe r 21
BUKOWSKIS CONTEMPORARY MAY 14 AT 10 AM WAHRENDORFFSGATAN 8, STOCKHOLM PLEASE NOTE THAT THE SALE ALSO TAKES PLACE ONLINE AT WWW.BUKOWSKIS.COM VIEWING MAY 7-13, BERZELII PARK 1, STOCKHOLM
FOR ENQUIRIES OR ADVICE, PLEASE CONTACT: ANNA-K ARIN PUSIC , HEAD OF FINE ART +46 (0) 8 - 614 08 32, ANNA-K ARIN.PUSIC@BUKOWSKIS.COM PEDRO WESTERDAHL, SENIOR SPECIALIST +46 (0) 8 - 614 08 05, PEDRO.WESTERDAHL@BUKOWSKIS.COM ANNA PERSSON, SPECIALIST CONTEMPORARY ART +46 (0) 8 - 614 08 30 ANNA .PERSSON@BUKOWSKIS.COM EBBA BOZORGNIA , HEAD OF SALES +46 (0) 8 - 614 08 92 EBBA .BOZORGNIA@BUKOWSKIS.COM
BUKOWSKIS, ARSENALSGATAN 4, BOX 1754, 111 87 STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN SWITCHBOARD: +46 (0) 8 - 614 08 00, FAX: +46 (0) 8 - 611 46 74 WWW.BUKOWSKIS.COM
AUTHOR: PEDRO WESTERDAHL GR APHIC DESIGN: PATRICK WATERS / LÖWENHIELM FINAL ART: OLOF ROGBR ANT PHOTO: L ARS GUSTAFSSON AND PATRICK MILLER PHOTO EDITING: LINDA RING, MALIN ERKKONEN, JENNY HEDENSTR AND PRINT: TMG, STOCKHOLM © COPYRIGHT 2014 BUKOWSKIS
22 a n dy wa r hol l a st su ppe r