Andy Warhol and Christopher Makos's relationship

Andy Warhol and Christopher Makos’s relationship took shape in the overlap between image-making and friendship. Makos joined Warhol on photographic work and shared trips and outings with him, while Warhol’s diary also records a moment when he tried to support Makos through a painful personal crisis. Across these different settings, Makos appears not merely as a colleague but as someone whose company and wellbeing mattered to Warhol.

Photography and shared work

On a May 1981 outing, Christopher Makos came by and accompanied Andy Warhol and art director Marc Balet to Trump Tower. They photographed the building’s architectural model as source material for a portrait. Warhol noted the five-dollar cab fare, a small practical detail that places Makos inside the ordinary logistics of a working day as well as its creative purpose. The entry does not specify how the two divided the photographic work; it does establish that Makos was present on a project in which an image of a building would become part of Warhol’s portrait practice.

Portrait-making was a sustained part of Warhol’s business. His process could begin with about sixty Polaroid photographs of a sitter, narrowed to four images for screen-printing tests. He would select and crop an image, alter features to flatter the subject, and enlarge the chosen version before it was made into a silkscreen. Assistants prepared canvases in different flesh-toned backgrounds, and slight misalignment between painted color and screened detail produced the portraits’ shifting appearance. Makos’s documented trip with Warhol belongs to this wider world of photography as both artistic material and professional work, though the diary does not say that he carried out each stage of the portrait process.

Trips and the daily circle

In May 1981, Makos traveled with Warhol and Jon Gould to East Falmouth, where Peter Wise was waiting for them. The plane cost about eight hundred dollars, which Warhol paid by check. Wise showed the group his house, including its greenhouse, and assigned rooms; they then spent the day and night waiting for Vincent Fremont and Shelly to arrive after work. The account presents Makos as part of a small traveling party whose arrangements, shared waiting, and time together were recorded alongside the more conspicuous events of Warhol’s life.

The following day, the group visited a flea market in Mashpee and the Thornton Burgess Museum, where they fed swans and ducks with bread Christopher had bought. They later ate fried clams and fish at Sandy Neck before driving back. These particulars give the trip its texture without turning it into a formal work expedition: Makos appears in the company of Warhol through meals, excursions, and the unplanned stretches between destinations.

A few months later, on August 2, Makos picked Warhol and Gould up at 3:30 p.m. and drove them to the Whitney Museum of American Art. They saw a crowded Walt Disney exhibition, followed by a Georgia O’Keeffe show, and then went looking for dinner. When the River Café had stopped serving, they ate outdoors in the Village instead. Makos’s role as driver and companion recurs here in a routine social outing, alongside Warhol’s impressions of the exhibitions and the people they watched afterward.

Play and tension among friends

The East Falmouth diary also records a water-pistol fight in the house. Warhol and Wise were in another room talking when they heard a commotion; on returning, they found the others still playing. Makos was cornered in a bathroom and eventually gave up. He then slapped Gould, who stood still and said that he thought it had all been in fun. The episode is not evidence of a dispute between Makos and Warhol; rather, it shows Warhol present as an observer within a close-knit group where play could become unexpectedly dramatic. The diary moves from the commotion to its calming down, preserving the incident as one moment in a shared visit rather than assigning it a lasting consequence.

Trust and personal care

The relationship takes on a more intimate cast in April 1982, when Christopher Makos came by during marital problems with Peter Wise. Wise had stayed out until three in the morning, and Makos was crying. Warhol was startled by the contrast with the strong person he thought he knew, and the glimpse of vulnerability made him realize how much he liked Makos. He decided that he needed to help keep the marriage together and invited the couple to dinner.

The entry records Warhol’s response as practical care: he did not simply note Makos’s distress but proposed an occasion for the couple to spend time with him. The same day’s account later mentions dinner at the Coach House, though it does not elaborate on what was discussed or whether the invitation resolved anything. The diary therefore preserves the gesture without claiming an outcome. Read alongside the photographic outing, the museum visit, and the trip to East Falmouth, this scene makes the relationship’s range clear: Makos was a working companion and a recurring presence in Warhol’s social circle, but also a friend whose private trouble could move Warhol to act.