Ethel Scull

Ethel Scull is remembered in Andy Warhol’s diary through a later encounter at the Whitney, where she presented a portrait he had made of her in the 1960s. The scene joins an artwork’s public afterlife to the fallibility of personal memory: Scull recalls the circumstances of its sale, while Warhol questions details he cannot remember and cannot verify.

Portrait and Public Appearance

At the Whitney gathering, the portrait was presented during a lunch held in front of the painting. Scull had not arrived when the guests expected her; when someone called, she was in the bath, believing the lunch was scheduled for Tuesday. She eventually appeared in a wheelchair, wearing a hat and with a large cast on her leg. Warhol likened the long wait and her arrival to a movie moment, but found the occasion sad. He also judged the portrait itself not very good, an unsparing assessment that contrasts with the ceremony surrounding its presentation.

Disputed Memories of the Sale

Scull recalled that Warhol had wanted $1,200 in cash for the portrait. He did not remember discussing money with her and doubted that he would have made such a demand. Instead, he wondered whether someone connected with the Bellamy Gallery or Ivan Karp had handled the payment. Scull also remembered visiting Warhol’s home and having his mother answer the door; he questioned that recollection too, reasoning that if he had been expecting a visitor, he would have answered himself. The diary leaves both accounts unresolved, showing the distance between a remembered transaction and Warhol’s uncertain reconstruction of it.

Family and the Scene’s Aftermath

The encounter carried a sadness beyond the painting and its disputed history. Warhol remarked that Scull did not speak to her sons, describing her family as sad. The diary offers no fuller account of that estrangement, but places it beside the public presentation of her portrait: a moment in which an artwork, an old financial memory, and a strained family life occupy the same room. Scull emerges not through an extended biography, but through this concentrated scene of appearance, recollection, and loss.