San Francisco

San Francisco appears in Andy Warhol’s diary as a compact but sharply observed stop on a trip from Los Angeles to Miami. The visit combines the formal business of a gallery exhibition and press appearances with private travel, family encounters, and a late-night excursion, before the group leaves the next day.

Arrival and the gallery

On Monday, February 21, 1977, United flight 433 arrived in San Francisco at 1:05. A representative named Mark from the gallery hosting Warhol’s show met the party with champagne and a limousine, then took them to the Mark Hopkins Hotel. They had lunch at Top of the Mark before walking three blocks downhill to the gallery. Warhol describes the descent as steep and the exhibition space as very large, setting up a pointed contrast with his judgment of the installation: he found the hanging wild, badly arranged, and in poor taste. He also objected to Mark’s mother, though the diary does not explain her role beyond her presence and influence at the gallery.

The exhibition visit extended well beyond a brief inspection. Warhol stayed at the gallery until 9:30, and he felt that Mark’s mother made him work. The diary gives no account of the show’s reception or the works on display; its emphasis is instead on the physical space, the poor hanging, and the demands placed on the visiting artist. San Francisco is recorded less as a scenic destination than as a place where the practical obligations of an exhibition shaped the day.

Press, travel, and company

The gallery program included a press conference and a television appearance. Warhol regarded the television interviewer as handsome but uninformed, and believed the man did not like him; he adds that he responded by behaving unpleasantly himself. During the encounter, he pointed to a sculpture and claimed to have made it, although he had not. The deception was not discovered until afterward. The episode gives the visit a comic, antagonistic turn: a promotional appearance became an occasion for Warhol to mislead the interviewer, rather than simply answer his questions.

Mark also took the visitors behind the gallery, where magic mushrooms were present, and drove them across the Golden Gate Bridge. Warhol notes surfers beneath the bridge, dressed in black wetsuits, and describes them as strange and unsettling. The group then toured Sausalito, which he found enjoyable. After returning to the hotel, Warhol encountered Jed Johnson and Johnson’s family. Johnson’s mother thanked Warhol for being kind to her son, a remark that embarrassed him; the diary also notes Johnson’s new stepfather. This family encounter interrupts the day’s professional and touristic itinerary with a small, personal exchange.

Evening and departure

After the long gallery commitment, Warhol walked to Trader Vic’s, which was nearby. He also records that Carol Doda, a stripper who had attended the opening, had become a topic of conversation because he was bored. Mark consequently arranged a limousine trip to a strip club. Warhol describes the performance bluntly: three dancers rubbed themselves against the floor, and Doda descended onto a piano and was raised toward the ceiling on it. He noted that blinking lights were used for her performance. Catherine Guinness and Warhol were falling asleep, while Fred Hughes had disappeared to go cruising. The evening thus closes not with a shared celebration but with the party dispersing into different states of attention and activity.

On Tuesday, February 22, Warhol and his companions left San Francisco for Miami. The flight took five hours, and the diary marks the transition through the changed light and the late arrival: it was night almost immediately, and they reached Miami at 11:00. In the sequence of the trip, San Francisco is a one-day interval, but a densely populated one: the gallery’s difficult installation and obligations, the interviewer’s deception, the drive across the bridge, Johnson’s family visit, and the late-night show all sit between two flights.