Andy Warhol’s 1979 Whitney Museum exhibition

Andy Warhol’s 1979 Whitney Museum exhibition brought his portrait work into focus as both a body of art to be assembled and a subject of public judgment. The diary records Warhol sorting through portraits for the show, considering a self-portrait in drag, and hearing a prominent objection to the unfavorable reviews. It offers glimpses of preparation and response rather than a complete account of the exhibition or its reception.

Assembling the Portraits

On April 24, 1979, Warhol went to the office to meet David Whitney, David White, and Fred and review all the portraits he had made for the Whitney show. The entry presents the task as looking back across an existing body of work: the exhibition was not simply a matter of producing a new portrait, but of determining which works would represent his portrait practice. It does not list the portraits considered or say which were ultimately selected.

That work drew on a portrait operation Warhol had refined over many years. A sitter would pose for about sixty photographs taken with a Polaroid Big Shot; Warhol selected four images to be made into positive images on acetates, chose and cropped one, and cosmetically altered it to enhance the sitter’s appearance. The selected image was enlarged to a forty-inch square acetate for the silkscreen. Assistants prepared canvases in flesh-toned backgrounds, while Warhol painted areas such as hair, eyes, lips, ties, and jackets beneath the screened photographic details. Slight differences in alignment between the painted colors and the screened image produced the portraits’ characteristic shifting effect. This established method gives context to the range of portraits under review, though the diary does not confirm that every work considered for the Whitney show followed the same process.

A Self-Portrait in Drag

On October 29, Warhol noted that he had to make a portrait for the Whitney exhibition and that, because the show was about portraits, he should dress himself in drag. The idea came from Fred. Warhol planned to bring in Gigi to do his makeup, while Ronnie was preoccupied with an upcoming art exhibition of his own, making cages as artworks.

The proposal turned the exhibition’s subject back on its maker: Warhol would not only select portraits of others but consider presenting his own image through a deliberately constructed appearance. The diary records an intention, not its completion. It does not establish whether the drag portrait was made, included in the show, or how it looked.

Reviews and Response

On December 20, at a gathering at Tom Armstrong’s home, Robert Rosenblum said he could not understand why Warhol’s Whitney show had received bad reviews. The remark records a disagreement with the critical response, not a reversal of it: the diary does not identify the reviewers, summarize their arguments, or suggest that Rosenblum’s view changed the show’s standing.

The entry places that comment amid a busy evening of visits. After the office Christmas party, Warhol went to Armstrong’s, then took John to Richard Weisman’s gathering at United Nations Plaza. The criticism surfaced in this wider social circuit, where art-world opinion moved through conversations as well as published reviews. Its appearance in a social diary preserves one person’s defense of the exhibition without supplying a comprehensive account of its critical reception.

What the Diary Preserves

The evidence for the exhibition comes through Warhol’s daily accounts, which began as a log of business visitors and expenses and became a personal narrative recorded in weekday morning phone calls with Pat Hackett. Hackett noted the conversations and typed them soon afterward; Warhol’s reports could also be supplemented or corrected in later calls. The diary’s close attention to appointments and remarks therefore makes it especially useful for tracing the show’s preparation and afterlife in conversation.

The published diary is also an edited record: Hackett reduced an original twenty thousand pages, cutting whole days, weeks, and portions of entries. The surviving references establish a review of Warhol’s portraits, a proposed self-portrait in drag, and at least one art-world response to negative reviews. They do not supply an exhibition checklist, opening account, or complete critical history, so the show’s significance here emerges through the work of selection and the arguments that followed it.