Leo Castelli

Leo Castelli is a recurring presence in Andy Warhol’s diary as a dealer and professional interlocutor whose business with Warhol reaches from commissions and exhibitions to the sale and replacement of individual works. Their relationship is shown not through a continuous account of its history but through working encounters: a failed television-filmed BMW demonstration, auction results, a retrospective and a planned advertisement, followed years later by worry over criticism and rival galleries. The entries make Castelli’s importance concrete in the transactions that shape Warhol’s work and in Warhol’s changing interpretation of the man behind them.

The BMW project and public image

On April 12, 1978, television cameras arrived to film Warhol painting a model of a BMW car that he expected to paint later. The demonstration immediately went wrong. Warhol had planned to use a flower-patterned roller and pink and black paint, but Chris Makos persuaded him to change the colors to yellow and black. The glossy paint slid across the model instead of adhering. Warhol even rolled paint onto Victor Bockris, and the attempt ended as a failure. Castelli came by and, as Warhol recorded it, almost got sick at the mess. The episode places Castelli near both the work and its public presentation, but also shows how little control the planned image of artistic production had over the unruly material process.

A few weeks later, Castelli supplied a more workable prospect. He told Warhol that BMW was introducing a new car and would not use the design made for the old model, but that the company wanted Warhol to travel to Paris on June 12 to paint the new one. The failed demonstration therefore did not end the project: the change in car design made the first version obsolete, while the possibility of a new commission remained. Castelli’s account connected the practical setback to a fresh opportunity, even as the diary preserved the gap between the polished prospect and the chaotic first attempt.

Sales, commissions, and the value of the work

The diary records Castelli in the midst of the market surrounding Warhol’s paintings. At a party, Peter Brant reported that he was happy to have disposed of all of Warhol’s paintings he had put up for sale. Castelli then told Warhol that the de Menil family had bought the works at auction: François acquired a Soup Can for $95,000, Mrs. de Menil a Disaster for $100,000, and Philippa a Funeral for $75,000. Warhol was relieved that the paintings had sold. In the same account, he wondered whether buyers were avoiding auctions because they offered no chance to make a large profit. The figures mattered not only as prices but as evidence that the works had found buyers in a market Warhol considered uncertain.

Castelli’s influence also reached the presentation and circulation of Warhol’s work. In December 1981, Warhol was preparing a fold-out page for Artforum and considered several possibilities before settling on a dollar sign, noting that Castelli had already taken out an advertisement for it. The same entry records a less welcome matter: Castelli called to say that a portrait of Laura had truly been destroyed. Warhol refused to supply a replacement for free, insisting that a new portrait would have to be paid for. The diary makes the terms of their professional world visible at close range: advertising could extend a work’s presence, while a damaged portrait raised a direct question of responsibility and compensation.

Exhibitions and personal exchanges

In November 1981, Castelli called to ask when Warhol would come to the Castelli Gallery, where a retrospective of Warhol’s prints was opening. He wanted to show Warhol a photograph of him by Hans Namuth, which Warhol thought beautiful. Warhol nevertheless hated the show. The contrast is telling: the photograph pleased him, but the retrospective itself forced him to confront old work he found difficult to look at. His response belongs to his own account of the exhibition, not to a judgment attributed to Castelli; Castelli’s role in the scene is to bring him to the gallery and show him the photograph.

Castelli’s employees also organized a surprise lunch for him at the Odeon after a planned lunch with Mayor Koch was canceled. Warhol went to the gathering and brought Castelli underwear and a handkerchief decorated with dollar signs. He noted that Castelli loved the gifts, while no one else had brought presents. The playful objects sit alongside a more consequential piece of social information: Warhol had copies of Interview with him, but others urged him to put them away because the issue included an interview with Castelli’s girlfriend, Laura de Coppet. According to what Warhol was told, Castelli’s wife, Toiny, saw the interview, became furious, tore up his ticket to Rome, and kept him in town for an extra day. The diary presents the story as reported conversation, but the incident shows how the magazine’s contents could spill into Castelli’s private life and affect his plans.

Criticism and the threat of competing galleries

By early 1985, Warhol’s confidence in Castelli’s judgment had become less secure. Fred Hughes told him that Castelli had made negative remarks about him in a USA Today article. Fred asked the employees at Castelli’s gallery why Castelli had said such things and was told that they would investigate. The same conversation brought news that Rauschenberg had left Castelli for Blum-Helman. Warhol interpreted Castelli’s comments as a sign that he was becoming senile. That was Warhol’s explanation, not an established fact in the diary; it conveys both his hurt at the reported criticism and his attempt to account for it.

The prospect of other galleries recruiting Warhol made the tension more immediate. Julian Schnabel called to say that Arne Glimcher had an open place for both Warhol and Jean Michel at Pace Gallery. Warhol’s response was sympathy for Castelli: he saw others trying to draw the two artists away from him. By June, he was unsure what to send for a Castelli exhibition. Anything he submitted, he feared, would resemble work by younger artists who were doing the same thing better, leaving his own work with no one interested in copying it. The uncertainty links gallery loyalty to a broader anxiety about artistic relevance: Castelli remained a point of reference, but Warhol was no longer sure what he could offer him.

Castelli’s place in the diary

Across these episodes, Castelli is neither presented only as a powerful dealer nor reduced to a single personal trait. He appears as the person who relays a new BMW commission, reports auction purchases, calls Warhol to the gallery, advertises a dollar-sign image, and remains at the center of disputes about damaged work, press coverage, and artists changing representation. The diary’s form keeps these roles in separate, sharply observed moments rather than resolving them into a settled account of their relationship.

That episodic view also preserves Warhol’s ambivalence. Castelli is associated with access to commissions and a gallery capable of mounting a print retrospective, but by 1985 Warhol is troubled by reported criticism and uncertain that his work can hold its place beside younger artists. The final concern is not a declared break: even while imagining that others are trying to take artists from Castelli, Warhol still wonders what to send him. Castelli’s significance in these entries lies in that continuing professional entanglement, which survives alongside doubt about the market, the work, and the relationship itself.