Neil Sedaka

Neil Sedaka’s appearances in Andy Warhol’s diary trace the making of a commissioned portrait from initial invitation to an uncomfortable dispute over how its subject should look. Their encounters show Sedaka’s public image becoming a practical question of photography and paint: Warhol liked him, but struggled to imagine portraying him at the weight Sedaka considered part of his appeal.

The Commission and First Meeting

In February 1979, Warhol went to Sedaka’s temporary home at 510 Park Avenue for cocktails before a Police Athletic League dinner. Sedaka and his wife were subletting the apartment while their own place was being finished. Conversation turned to the difficulty they had faced getting into a building because they were Jewish and entertainers; an older couple had helped them secure it. The gathering was largely black tie, though Warhol noted that he was dressed in old jeans and a sweater, while Sedaka, despite being from Brooklyn, wore a casual sweater in what Warhol called a California style.

The visit grew out of a portrait proposal: Sedaka’s wife had previously told Warhol that they wanted one. Warhol was unsure how the portrait would turn out, describing Sedaka as chubby. The commission thus arrived with a tension already in view: the sitter’s appearance was not incidental to the work but, for Warhol, a central consideration in whether he could face painting him.

The Disagreement Over Appearance

At a party for Sedaka later that month, Warhol told him directly that he was too fat to have his portrait done and needed to lose weight. Warhol acknowledged that he liked Sedaka, but said he could not face painting him so heavy. Sedaka answered that being fat was his image and that people liked him that way. Warhol remained unconvinced, suggesting that Sedaka overeated, and wondered afterward whether he had gone too far. He was nevertheless expected to paint him the following week.

The exchange sets two ideas of likeness against each other. For Sedaka, the weight Warhol objected to was part of a recognizable public persona; for Warhol, it obstructed the version of the face he wanted to put on canvas. The disagreement did not end the commission, but it made the portrait’s terms personal before the formal sitting began.

The Sitting and the Photograph

On March 6, Sedaka arrived at Warhol’s office to pose. Makeup artist Jane Forth was there, along with her young child, Emerson. Warhol found Sedaka adorable and great, but returned to the practical difficulty of photographing his face, which he still considered too fat. They worked on the image for an hour. The diary records the session as labor rather than a single decisive pose: the portrait began with trying to find a photograph that Warhol felt could carry the painting.

That effort fits Warhol’s usual portrait procedure. He photographed a sitter with a Polaroid Big Shot, taking about sixty pictures, then selected four for enlargement as positive images on acetate. From those he chose and cropped one, cosmetically altering it as he saw fit before having it enlarged for silkscreening. The account describes his general method, not the specific photographs or retouching used for Sedaka. It nevertheless clarifies why the hour-long sitting mattered: the commission depended on selecting and shaping a photographic image before it could become a painted portrait.

A Portrait in Warhol’s Commissioned Practice

Warhol’s commissioned portraits were a significant source of income, and the diary describes a system in which people who brought him commissions received a commission themselves. The process combined the sitter’s presence with choices made afterward—selection, cropping, cosmetic adjustment, and the alignment of silkscreened details with painted areas on canvas. In this practice, a portrait did not simply record a face; it translated a negotiated image into a reproducible screen and a painted surface.

Sedaka’s documented encounters leave the outcome unresolved. The diary records the proposed portrait, Warhol’s blunt demand that Sedaka lose weight, Sedaka’s defense of his image, and an hour spent trying to obtain a satisfactory photograph. It does not establish whether the portrait was completed or how it ultimately appeared. What remains is a compact account of the friction between a celebrity’s self-presentation and Warhol’s control over the image he was willing to make.