Andy Warhol—Chris Makos

Andy Warhol—Chris Makos is a relationship of friendship and collaboration visible most clearly in the diaries’ European travel episodes of 1986 and 1987. Chris Makos was not only a companion on the road: he helped Warhol move through demanding trips, received work and contacts through their shared professional world, and offered practical care when Warhol became ill. The relationship was reciprocal without being perfectly balanced, and its closeness did not prevent irritation or conflict.

Travel as a Shared Routine

On July 6, 1986, Makos picked Warhol up early for a flight from New York to London aboard the Concorde. The itinerary quickly became social as well as professional: Warhol was met by Anthony d’Offay, checked into the Ritz Hotel, and later joined a dinner at Mr. Chow’s that Tina Chow had arranged despite Warhol’s request that she not host a party. Makos was part of this traveling circle, alongside a gathering that included Mick Jagger, Jerry Hall, Nick Rhodes, and Billy Boy. The entry presents the trip as a shared undertaking embedded in Warhol’s social and work life, rather than as a simple excursion.

The partnership involved concrete professional gains. In London, Warhol and Makos sold many paintings, including one to Carnegie-Mellon. Anthony d’Offay offered to pay Makos’s hotel bill, and Makos secured five jobs during the trip, one from Polaroid. Warhol registered the scale of those opportunities and wondered whether someone more deserving could have received them. Yet he also recognized that Makos, in his own way, took care of him. His mixed assessment holds gratitude and doubt together: Makos benefited from proximity to Warhol, but the relationship was not merely a one-way transfer of access.

Work, Access, and Social Friction

The London trip also exposed strain within the group around them. Warhol described Billy Boy as increasingly difficult company: he introduced himself to people, collected their phone numbers, invited them to lunch, and inserted himself into photographs. One photographer told him to get out of a picture, and Billy Boy struck the photographer with the camera. Makos also came to dislike him. At Heaven, after Billy Boy had behaved warmly toward Gloria Thurn und Taxis and her husband, he said he hated them once they had left; Makos was angry with him. This disagreement shows Makos exercising his own judgment within Warhol’s circle, rather than simply following Warhol’s social lead. Their shared company could generate alliances, but it could also make differences of temperament and loyalty unmistakable.

The diaries place Makos’s professional openings alongside Warhol’s role as a powerful conduit to people and work. Warhol noticed that Makos had obtained five jobs and that one came from Polaroid, while Makos remained present on the trip and in Warhol’s daily arrangements. The account does not describe a formal agreement or a precise exchange of favors. Instead, it records a practical interdependence: travel and introductions created opportunities for Makos, while his company and assistance were part of Warhol’s experience of traveling abroad.

Care and Unevenness on the Road

The next European journey, from New York to Paris in January 1987, again began with Makos collecting Warhol. Fred Hughes joined them for the airport journey. In Paris, the differences in their circumstances were recorded in small, material details: Makos had the better room, while Warhol’s was freezing. Makos arranged for two heaters to be sent to his own room. The episode offers no explanation for the room arrangements or the heaters, but the contrast makes the travel partnership feel less like seamless caretaking than a shared itinerary in which each person also attended to his own comfort.

In Milan, the balance shifted toward direct care when Warhol felt ill. His temperature rose to 100 degrees, he was exhausted, and the medicines brought back by the others did not help him sleep. Makos came by, ordered soup, and repeatedly checked Warhol’s temperature. He also went out discoing, so his care did not mean remaining beside Warhol continuously; the diary records both the attention and the ordinary independence of a companion on the same trip. The following day, Makos obtained soup and bread for Warhol before they left for the airport. Those simple acts give the relationship its most tangible form: attention expressed through food, checking a fever, and helping a sick traveler continue the journey.

Reciprocity Without Idealization

Across these episodes, Warhol’s account neither reduces Makos to a beneficiary nor presents him as an endlessly selfless attendant. Makos gained work in London and accompanied Warhol through travel; Warhol acknowledged the opportunities while also recognizing that Makos cared for him. In Paris, the better room and heaters complicate any picture of uninterrupted service, while the Milan entries show Makos returning with soup and bread and monitoring Warhol’s fever. The relationship is therefore legible through repeated acts rather than a declaration of loyalty: pickup, travel, introductions, work, food, and attention when illness disrupted the schedule.

The diaries preserve this friendship in the practical particulars of movement and companionship, including its frictions. Makos could disagree with someone in Warhol’s circle, pursue his own work, and go out while Warhol rested; he could also be the person who checked Warhol’s temperature and brought him food. Warhol’s recognition that Makos took care of him sits beside his awareness that the trip had opened professional doors. Together, those details make their bond both intimate and working, sustained by mutual presence without erasing the unequal opportunities or independent needs within it.