Viva

Viva wore band-aids over her nipples.

Andy Warhol was never sexy.

She was a goddess.

She lives in Palm Springs and paints landscapes of what she sees.

Painting Like Warhol

In 1969 my friend Joe Gator hand-painted his Chevelle SS white and slapped a ragged black slash down the middle. "It'll make it go faster." I think the BC High senior used the same paint as Warhol slopped over this BMW M1. Andy echoed Joe's comment, "I tried to portray speed pictorially. If a car is moving really quickly, all the lines and colors are blurred." Warhol had a common touch. According to http://www.anamera.com the first and only time this rolling work of art took part in a race was at the Le Mans 24-hour Race in 1979. It was driven by Manfred Winkelhock from Germany and the Frenchmen Herve Poulain and Marcel Mignot. They finished sixth overall and second in their class. Joe Gator only raced his Chevelle on Boston's Route 128. "Roadrunner, roadrunner." It never finished worst than last.

No Space For Warhol

Throughout the spring and summer of 1956 New York's Museum of Modern Art featured an exhibition, Recent Drawings USA. Andy Warhol was one of the artists in the group show. According to the informative http://www.warholstars.org Warhol and his companion Charles Lisanby traveled around the world visiting San Francisco, Honolulu, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Manila, Djakarta, Bali, Singapore, Bangkok, Angor Wat, Colombo, Calcutta, Katmandu, Benares, New Delhi, Agra, Aurangabad, Cairo, Luxor and Rome before returning to New York. That autumn he showed new drawings at the ice cream parlor Serendipity 3. Fame was not yet in his grasp and at the close of the Recent Drawings Show, Alfred H. Barr, the MOMA's advisory director wrote a letter to Warhol asking him to pick up his drawings And I can't blame Mssr. Barr, there were Warhols before Warhol revealed Warhol to the world. No one could see what was coming, but a few had a feeling. Nothing like rejection and nothing better than rejecting it. ps my first round the world trip was Los Angeles-Biak-Bali-Java-Sumatra-Penang-Koh Samui-Bangkok-Chiang Mai-Kathmandu-Paris. I wrote a book NORTH NORTH HOLIDAY. It went nowhere.

Warhol on Sale

My old boss Manny at the Diamond Exchange loved showing diamonds. I loved even more saying, "It's one of a kind, how many do you want?" His son Richie Boy and I groaned at this utterance, however more times than not the octogenarian would complete the sale. The old man had a good spiel and his son would shrug with acceptance, "After sixty-five years in the business Manny knows his shit." Mostly because Manny has stayed with what he knows best. Richie Boy and I have tried our hands at Art over the last couple of years. Our art dealer friends figure we are friends with rich diamond buyers and that selling art can't be too different from selling gems. Our learning curve has proven them wrong and last week a contemporary art dealer called from Paris. "I have a lovely Jackie O Warhol for sale." He wanted two million for the red-backed image of Jackie watching the JFK funeral procession. "The best price for that type of Warhol is $2.7 and that was at the height of the market." ArtNet was a neophyte's best friend in finding sale prices of paintings. "This is one of a kind." "My friend has two of them. Different colors. But I'll see what I can do." I hung up the phone and made a few calls. The best offer was for $750,000 from an LA dealer. He had three of these paintings. I got back to the Paris dealer and gave him the price. That was the last that I heard from him, but last week the Warhol Foundation announced that it had authorized Christies Auction House to sell the remainder. One New York dealer had offered to buy the entire estate to protect their investment in Warhols. The directors refused his bid in anticipation of a boost from an upcoming Warhol retrospective at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. The estate's auction will occur in early November. Most experts feel this sale will be the clearing out of the closets; mostly photos, lesser-known silk screens, and artifacts from the artist. They are all one of the kind. Even those that are three or four of a kind. Any questions? Ask Manny. He Knows.

Dead Presidents For Dead Man's Art

A reporter once asked Andy Warhol his opinion about art. The pop icon answered without hesitation. "It's a nice name for a man."

Warhol has been dead for years, yet his paintings made up 17% of auction sales of contemporary art in 2010.

Millions upon millions for his foundation and friends.

Proving that while you can't take it with you, just because you're dead doesn't mean you can't make money.