Ten Most Famous Jews series

The Ten Most Famous Jews series was a proposed portrait project that brought together Andy Warhol’s interest in famous subjects and his established practice of commissioned portraiture. In 1979, diary entries show the project taking shape through tentative roster discussions and photo research, while leaving unclear who ultimately belonged in the series or what was completed.

Conception and Changing Roster

On July 31, 1979, Warhol and Ron Feldman discussed possible portraits of Woody Allen and Charlie Chaplin, while wondering whether Chaplin was Jewish. Feldman also added Harry Guggenheim to the list of subjects he wanted painted. The exchange presents the series not as a fixed canon but as a project whose boundaries were still being negotiated.

By August 29, Warhol and Rupert Smith were working on the series, but Warhol had not yet been told for certain who would be included. His diary names Sarah Bernhardt, possibly Woody Allen, Charlie Chaplin, Freud, Modigliani, Martin Buber, the Guggenheims, Einstein, Gertrude Stein, and Kafka. He questioned who Martin Buber was, underscoring that the roster was being assembled through practical research as well as recognition. Bob Dylan was also under consideration, though Warhol wondered whether his conversion to Christianity meant he should be left out. These names are candidates recorded during planning, not evidence of a settled final lineup.

Research and Portrait Production

On August 2, Warhol sent Rupert Smith to UPI to look for photographs for the series. That errand records a concrete step toward making the proposed portraits: locating source images. The diary does not specify which photographs Smith found or identify any finished portrait from the project.

The series belonged to a broader portrait business that was central to Warhol’s income. His usual method began with about sixty Polaroids taken with a Polaroid Big Shot; he selected four images for conversion into 8-by-10-inch acetates, chose and cropped one, and cosmetically altered it before enlarging it to a 40-inch square acetate for silkscreening. Assistants prepared canvases with different flesh-tone backgrounds for men and women; Warhol traced the image, painted selected areas, and aligned the silkscreen over the painted colors. Small shifts in alignment produced the portraits’ characteristic unsettled appearance. This documented procedure describes his general portrait practice, not a confirmed step-by-step account of how the Ten Most Famous Jews series itself was executed. His usual prices were about $25,000 for a first canvas and $5,000 for each additional one.

Place in Warhol’s Portrait Practice

Warhol’s commissioned portraits extended his earlier portraits of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Elvis Presley, and Marlon Brando toward private and non-entertainment subjects. In Ronnie Cutrone’s account, this was a natural evolution: portraits could make non-stars equal, in some sense, to legends. The proposed series gave that expanding portrait practice a named historical and cultural category, while its tentative roster shows that inclusion itself remained an active question.

What the Record Establishes

The surviving diary passages establish that the series was discussed, that Harry Guggenheim was added to a proposed list, that Warhol and Rupert Smith worked on it, and that photo research was assigned to UPI. They do not confirm a final roster, the number of portraits, or the series’ completion or exhibition. The distinction matters: the diary captures the project in motion, with names being proposed and images sought, rather than presenting a finished suite whose contents can be definitively reconstructed.