Andy Warhol—Francesco Clemente artistic collaboration

Andy Warhol and Francesco Clemente’s artistic collaboration appears in the diary as a shared painting practice that shifted from a three-person project to canvases Warhol made with Jean-Michel Basquiat alone. Warhol’s account preserves both the mechanics of working together and his mixed appraisal of the collaboration’s results: affection for Clemente alongside a growing preference for the work produced without him.

A Three-Way Painting Project

On December 20, 1983, Clemente brought paintings to Warhol’s office for the three of them to work on together. Jean-Michel Basquiat was so out of it that he began painting immediately. Warhol described the painters as painting one another out, a compact account of a process in which each artist’s additions altered or displaced the others’ marks. The project was substantial in scale: Warhol estimated that they were working on about fifteen paintings.

A Changed Assessment

By the time Warhol discussed the canvases at a dinner at Café Luxembourg, his joint paintings with Basquiat were being made without Clemente, and he felt they were coming out very well. He contrasted them with the earlier works made with Clemente, for which the art dealer Bruno had paid very little. The comparison marks a change in both the group’s working arrangement and Warhol’s view of the work’s reception; it does not, however, amount to a rejection of Clemente. Warhol considered giving Clemente some of the newer paintings’ rejects to see what he could do with them, and described him affectionately as sweet. The record thus holds commercial disappointment, artistic preference, and personal warmth together without resolving them into a simple break.