Thomas Ammann

Thomas Ammann is a recurring presence in Andy Warhol’s diary, moving between dinners, portrait work, art transactions, and invitations that linked Warhol to other artists and collectors. His significance lies less in a fully narrated personal biography than in the range of roles he occupies: host, intermediary, business contact, and companion. Across these encounters, a relationship built through practical arrangements and shared access to the art world becomes visible in the diary’s small details—the cost of a dinner, the paintings brought into a house, and the second floor Warhol could not easily agree to rent.

Identity and Place in the Diary

The diary gives little conventional background about Ammann, but repeatedly shows him taking initiative in Warhol’s social and professional life. He called to invite Warhol to dinner with Cy Twombly, asked where they should go, and later picked Warhol up in a limousine for a group dinner. On another occasion, he proposed a business dinner, which Warhol accepted. These episodes establish a relationship conducted through invitations and arrangements, not merely incidental encounters at parties.

Ammann also appears as a companion in less formal activities. When he came to town for a day with a decathlon discus thrower, he and Warhol went around the shops, where Warhol noticed the abundance of Art Deco objects. Elsewhere, Ammann picked Warhol up for a dinner at Aurora, where they met Stuart Pivar and Barbara Guggenheim. The diary does not develop these appearances into a private portrait of Ammann; instead, it shows him in motion through a social world where a car ride, a table, or an introduction could lead into the next engagement.

Dinners, Invitations, and Introductions

For the Twombly dinner, Ammann invited Warhol and then asked him to choose the venue. Warhol suggested the Palace, a restaurant on 59th Street in the Sovereign, because he had heard it might cost $300 per person. Ammann laughed at the estimate and accepted the choice. Bob Colacello was subsequently invited, and Ammann also called Barbara Allen, who was with Taki Theodoracopulos. The episode shows him both deferring to Warhol’s suggestion and widening the gathering through his own calls; the anticipated expense becomes part of the social occasion rather than a reason to cancel it.

A more elaborate evening began when Ammann picked Warhol up in his limousine and took him to Nippon to meet a group of ten men. The dinner cost $300, and Warhol noted the contrast between himself and John Reinhold, who seemed older than the other guests, and the younger men in ties and jackets. Afterward the group went to Cowboys and then Rounds. A man who said he had met Warhol in Tennessee asked to sit with them to see what New York was really like. The party later went to Flamingo, which was reopening; the man who had joined them got in without charge because Warhol had judged a male beauty contest there. Ammann’s role in the evening is concrete: he supplies the ride and brings Warhol into a group whose dinner leads, step by step, into a wider night out.

His invitations also reached beyond immediate plans. He told Warhol he had a standing invitation to spend Christmas in Gstaad. The diary records the invitation as a welcome gesture, though it does not say whether Warhol accepted. In a separate effort to bring people together, Ammann wanted to have dinner with Keith Haring, and Warhol called Haring to arrange it. Haring had been up late at Paradise Garage and was only just getting up. Ammann’s proposed dinner thus depended on the rhythms of another person’s night, while Warhol acted as the connecting point between them.

Portraits and Business

Ammann’s dealings with Warhol included portrait work. In Düsseldorf in February 1980, he woke Warhol to do a portrait. Warhol described the woman being portrayed as beautiful and said that she did not need makeup. Her husband, as Warhol recounted it, called her ugly; Ammann offered an explanation that some Swiss husbands treated their wives this way so that they would not become too secure. The diary presents this as Ammann’s interpretation, not as an independently established account of Swiss marriage. After the portrait session, Warhol and Ammann gave the couple a book and an issue of Interview, then sent out the film. The entry captures the portrait as both a commissioned image and a social exchange, with printed material accompanying the work.

Ammann also proposed a more substantial business arrangement involving Warhol’s home. He wanted to rent the second floor to show his paintings. Warhol tried to reach him during the day but could not find him, and wrote that he did not know how to refuse. The difficulty was not framed simply as a question of space: if the paintings were shown there, people would know the house was his. Ammann’s proposed exhibition therefore pressed business directly against Warhol’s wish to control what became publicly known about his private residence. The diary records the problem without recording a final agreement or refusal.

Art, Collecting, and the Home

Ammann’s presence in Warhol’s artistic world was not limited to commissions and business proposals. At an auction, Warhol noted that his Triple Elvis had sold for $135,000, above its estimate of $70,000 to $90,000. In the same entry, Ammann had bid $440,000 for one of David Whitney’s Rauschenbergs. The two sums place Warhol’s sale and Ammann’s bid side by side, revealing markedly different transactions within the same art-market setting. The diary reports the bid, but does not say whether Ammann won the work.

Ammann also brought paintings to show at Warhol’s house: a Balthus, a Picasso from 1923, and a work identified in the diary as Utrecht. Their appearance in the home connects his art activity with the private setting where he had also hoped to exhibit his own paintings. The contrast is telling without requiring a conclusion about his plans: in one episode, Warhol considers the difficulty of allowing Ammann to use part of the house for a display; in another, Ammann is already showing works there. The diary does not specify that the proposed rental went ahead, so the presence of these paintings should not be treated as proof that it did.

A Recurring Companion and Contact

Over time, Ammann recurs in the diary as someone Warhol could call on for a ride, a dinner, a portrait engagement, or a connection to other people in the art world. His role is not presented as a single formal partnership. It takes shape through separate acts: inviting Warhol to dine with Twombly, arranging a larger group outing, proposing a business dinner, seeking a place to show paintings, and inviting Warhol to Gstaad for Christmas. Those acts span sociability and commerce, sometimes within the same relationship.

The diary’s account remains selective. It documents what Ammann arranged, bid on, brought into Warhol’s house, or asked to rent, but offers little explanation of his private motives and no definitive resolution to the proposed second-floor exhibition. That incompleteness is part of his portrayal: Ammann is legible through movement and exchange, a recurring figure whose friendship and business interests meet in the practical spaces of Warhol’s life—at the restaurant table, in the limousine, at the auction, and inside the house.