Anthony d'Offay Gallery

Anthony d'Offay Gallery was the London setting for Andy Warhol's July 1986 exhibition opening and several days of close negotiation over how his pictures would be presented. The visit brought a public success—crowds, a lengthy autograph session, and sales—alongside a disagreement over the images chosen for the show, making the gallery both a platform for Warhol's work and a place where control of its presentation was contested.

The London Visit

After arriving in London on July 6, Warhol was met by Anthony d’Offay and taken to his hotel. The following day he went to the gallery, where he looked at the pictures and found the visit exciting. The gallery was already central to the trip before the opening: Warhol returned there for lunch on July 8, then went back to his hotel before the evening event.

Opening Night and Public Reception

The July 8 opening drew a large crowd. Warhol spent two hours signing autographs as photographers recorded the event. The evening continued with a dinner organized by d’Offay at Café Royale, attended by about a hundred people. The crowded opening and substantial dinner marked the exhibition as a major London occasion, not simply a viewing of the pictures.

Art Direction and Negotiation

Warhol later described the show as a room filled with photographs of himself that he considered among the worst. He explained that the selections were not the ones he had chosen: d’Offay had art-directed the exhibition, requesting particular pictures, while Warhol sometimes substituted pictures he preferred. Their disagreement also extended to scale and format: d’Offay wanted the smaller camouflage works rather than the large one. The episode shows that the gallery's presentation involved active choices about which version of Warhol the audience would encounter, and that the artist did not always share those choices.

Sales and the Gallery's Support

The London trip brought substantial work and painting sales, including one to Carnegie-Mellon. In recounting the visit, Warhol also noted that d’Offay offered to cover Chris Makos's hotel bill and estimated that the hotel costs for the party would be about $10,000. At 7:30 on the morning of their departure, d’Offay and his wife came to the hotel to say goodbye. These details present the gallery's role as extending beyond the exhibition room: d’Offay combined the public staging of the show with practical support for the visiting group, even as his curatorial preferences sometimes differed from Warhol's.