Andy Warhol—Chris Makos friendship

Andy Warhol and Chris Makos’s friendship took shape around photography and travel, but the diaries show it as more changeable than a simple working partnership. Warhol could be sharply disappointed when Makos did not help as expected; at another point, he described him as an ideal companion whose energy made him feel young. The contrast matters: their closeness was expressed through shared movement and creative work, while irritation and unequal expectations remained part of it.

Photography and the working context

For Warhol, portraiture was both an artistic practice and a major source of income. Commissions occupied a corner of the studio even when he was preparing work for galleries and museums, and people who brought him commissions received a share. His method was carefully staged: he photographed a subject with a Polaroid Big Shot, usually taking about sixty pictures; selected four images for screen-printing preparation; chose and cosmetically altered one; then enlarged it for transfer to canvas. His assistants prepared canvases in different flesh-tone backgrounds, and the slight misalignment of painted color and screened photographic detail produced the portraits’ characteristic shifting effect. The first canvas generally cost about $25,000, with each additional one about $5,000.

That demanding routine establishes the photographic world in which Warhol and Makos’s association operated, but the diary does not say that Makos took part in each step of Warhol’s commissioned-portrait process. It does show Warhol photographing subjects himself: when he photographed Sylvester Stallone, he used ten rolls of film and struggled to reconcile how Stallone’s body appeared from different angles. A later television project centered on Carly Simon having her portrait painted by Warhol and two other artists. Warhol insisted on payment for further work, and Vincent Fremont arranged a contract under which Simon would pay most of the cost. These episodes show portrait-making as both labor and business; they should not be mistaken for evidence that Makos assisted on those particular jobs.

Help, frustration, and travel

On a trip through Frankfurt and Düsseldorf in November 1980, Warhol said he had brought Makos along to help. Instead, he felt that Makos would not carry his bag or do anything for him, and that Makos was chiefly interested in taking photographs for himself. The complaint gives their shared photographic interests a competitive edge: the camera could be common ground, but it could also mark a difference in what each man expected from the other. The diary records Warhol’s grievance, not Makos’s account of the trip.

That irritation continued into the travel arrangements. After a long drive to Düsseldorf, the two argued at the Breidenbacher Hof Hotel, where the thin walls let Warhol hear Makos making calls. Warhol became anxious as he heard Makos dial a long number, believing he was calling Peter Wise in New York and worrying about the expense. The episode turns an ordinary hotel inconvenience into a dispute over boundaries, privacy, and money: Warhol was close enough to hear the calls, yet their proximity made him nervous rather than reassured.

The ideal companion—and the unevenness of closeness

By April 1981, on the return from Paris, Warhol’s description had shifted dramatically. He regarded Makos as the perfect companion for him, praising a combination of pushiness and restraint, childishness, and an eagerness to move from place to place. Makos’s restless pace drew Warhol into running around, and Warhol said that even carrying Makos’s knapsack did not trouble him because the outings felt exciting and made him feel young. The practical complaint from the earlier trip was not erased; now the same kind of shared travel was framed as a source of animation and pleasure.

Warhol’s enthusiasm also carried an element of dependence. He offered Makos a wristwatch Makos wanted if he could persuade Jon Gould to return Warhol’s feelings. Warhol was therefore asking his friend to intervene in a separate, emotionally uncertain relationship. The request suggests how much he trusted Makos’s access and influence, while also showing that companionship did not mean equal emotional stakes: Warhol was trying to use the closeness between the two men to reach someone else.

Distance and emotional contrast

The diaries also register the friendship across distance. In April 1981, Makos called from Florida in a happy mood, and Warhol wrote that this made him depressed again. The brief entry provides no explanation for Makos’s mood or a fuller account of their conversation, but its contrast is telling: Makos’s cheerfulness reached Warhol as a painful reminder of his own low spirits. The friendship could be sustaining when they traveled together, yet even a phone call could sharpen Warhol’s loneliness rather than relieve it.

Taken together, these records do not establish an unbroken collaboration or a settled pattern of mutual support. They show a relationship repeatedly negotiated through concrete expectations—who carries the bag, whose photography takes priority, how much another person’s calls may cost, and whether a friend can help with an unreturned attachment. Warhol’s changing descriptions are themselves significant: Makos is first a disappointment on a work trip, then an exhilarating companion, and later the recipient of Warhol’s request for help with Jon Gould. The diary preserves the friendship not as a fixed label but as a closeness capable of friction, practical reliance, and emotional uplift.