Intimate and unseen
By Leon Nigrosh
 April
2005 -To m a t o soup cans, flowers , electric chairs, Liz Taylor
— Andy Warhol (1929-1987) is still internationally famous for creating
and marketing his iconic Pop Culture images during his sadly truncated
career. Through the clever manipulation of his followers at The Factory,
he created reams of silk-screened images of everything and everyone from
car accidents and cats to Elvis and Mao, and produced C-grade movies like
“Blow Job,” “Lonesome Cowboys” and “Trash.”
He made stars of Nico, the Velvet Underground and Lou Reed, wrote books
and published glitter magazine Interview.
But what most people didn’t know was that Warhol was a shutterbug.
Not until after his untimely death were more than 70,000
photographs found, apparently shot over a period of ten years. From 1976
on, he almost always carried a small Minox 35mm pocket camera and constantly
took pictures for his own amusement. While he did use a Polaroid camera
to photograph subjects for his commissioned portrait screenprints, these
black and whites were never intended for public consumption. However,
during their intimate relationship in the early ’80s, Warhol did
give Paramount Pictures’ marketing exec Jon Gould some 300 candid
shots of public figures and personal friends.
A selection of 40 prints from Gould’s estate is currently on display
at the Fitchburg Art Museum. Mostly 6” x 9” images, these
works have little of the refinement one would expect from such a prodigious
cameraman. They are often unflattering, too high in contrast, poorly composed
and bordering on garish. The three exceptions to this disappointing quality
are two landscapes and a kitchen stovetop still-life, the only shots that
evidence the artful eye of a master.
The works are arranged by subject, beginning with a small group of still-lifes
that includes a shot of the famous marionette Howdy Doody. The exhibit
progresses to pictures of various celebrities, including Nancy Reagan
in the White House, director Robert Altman, fashion designer Halston,
and rock star Mick Jagger. What is most striking about these images is
not that Warhol actually knew these folks, but how young they were at
the time the photos were taken.
The pictures taken during vacations in Aspen include several of unknown
young men, a few of Jon Gould, and the two noted landscapes, one of a
bungalow in the snow and the other of a fenced-in road winding toward
the distant mountains. The two groupings of images featuring Gould are
tedious, with the notable exception of the one featuring him posing on
Montauk Beach wearing a gift from Warhol, an opera-length strand of pearls.
Warhol also had a penchant for giving his camera to others so that they
could take pictures of him, photos he later copyrighted as his own. We
get a chance to see him on the banks of the Seine and standing in front
of an unidentified bridge. The last group of photos was taken during visits
to Cape Cod and the Vineyard, with the final image showing an assistant
from The Factory standing in front of a bus, neatly framed by the school
name Gay Head.
Saving us from total banality, six brightly colored 36” x 36”
screenprints have been incorporated into the show. The bright red, yellow
and blue “Ingrid Bergman with Hat” and a red screenprint of
the famous “Moonwalk,” with its astronaut and pop-up flag,
do catch and hold the eye. Perhaps the most telling work is a 1982 black
and red screenprint of Jane Fonda’s beautiful face, her giant hairdo
artfully drawn in with blue crayon. Next to the print, for comparison,
hangs the original Polaroid. Compare the two and you can see that beneath
his façade of bland disinterest, Warhol was truly a pioneering
artist.
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