Jamie Wyeth Portrait of Andy Warhol, ca. 1975
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GUEST:
Well, I brought a portrait, a study done by Jamie Wyeth of Andy Warhol. It was done in 1976 for a show at the Coe Kerr Gallery in New York City.
APPRAISER:
And you went to the exhibition, uh, to the opening?
GUEST:
I was there. I was there.
APPRAISER:
And what else did you bring? Photographs of Andy Warhol, Jamie Wyeth, and the final portraits that they did of each other. And how many studies were in the exhibition, do you remember?
GUEST:
The study like this, this is number 12. Maybe there were 15? They were just charming little studies that Jamie Wyeth had done.
APPRAISER:
Right. And how much did you pay for this? This was in 1976.
GUEST:
Yeah, I think it was around $5,000. I became friends with Jamie Wyeth through Fred Woolworth, who was the owner of the Coe Kerr Gallery.
APPRAISER:
Right.
GUEST:
And Andy Warhol became a friend of mine, actually... We first met when he came to New Orleans and had a show. And I brought a can of consommé soup and asked if he would sign it.
APPRAISER:
Oh, good.
GUEST:
And he did, and he got such a kick out of that, we became friends.
APPRAISER:
It was a very interesting friendship between Warhol and Jamie Wyeth. And you kind of think of them as complete opposites. But in fact, they had quite a nice friendship and a lot of respect for each other and each other's work.
GUEST:
Mm.
APPRAISER:
And they decided they wanted to paint each other's portraits. And then this exhibition came about, which took place in New York, and it traveled then to other venues. The exhibition was in 1976. They began doing the portraits of each other in 1975. When Warhol painted Jamie, he made him quite glamorous. He made him, as he put it, "very movie star-ish."
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
And Jamie's comment about the portrait was that it was really a little bit too glamorous for him. And this was maybe because Warhol had put lipstick on him and eye shadow and wasn't quite what he maybe would have preferred. And Warhol was always pretty careful about what kind of images he allowed.
GUEST:
Mm.
APPRAISER:
So, this was kind of a surprise when people saw it because he was so hyperrealistic, and it showed blemishes on his face, and his hair or wig looked kind of messy. And so it was a, kind of a new way for him to look that people weren't really used to. So, Jamie had a few interesting comments about painting the oil portrait, which is on the right-- he said that he had to use a ton of white paint because Warhol's skin was so pale. And he did also depict the blemishes in his skin. And Warhol could tell that as Jamie was painting him, that he was going to do something like this, because he was using the pimple-colored paint.
GUEST:
Whoa. (laughs)
APPRAISER:
Warhol loved Archie, he was very important to him, and he would take him everywhere, even to Studio 54. So, of course, he's included Archie here. This is a mixed medium. We have watercolor in the black, but then the white is a gouache or tempera paint, which is an opaque water-based paint. And you can see it's really built up. And it's such a great image. I think if this were offered today, the retail price for this painting, the portrait of Warhol, might be around $75,000.
GUEST:
Wow. Wow.
APPRAISER:
This accompanying material, which you also brought in, is very interesting, but it really doesn't have any, um, market value.
GUEST:
Well, that's wonderful.
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