Christopher Makos

Christopher Makos occupies several overlapping roles in Andy Warhol’s diaries: photographer, companion, colleague, and at times intermediary in Warhol’s attempts to draw closer to Jon Gould. The relationship is not presented as a settled partnership. Instead, it emerges in practical favors, shared outings, exhibitions, and episodes of loneliness, then becomes more strained as Makos’s private life changes and Warhol tries to reduce his work assignments. The record’s defining tension is that closeness and distance repeatedly coexist: Makos remains present in Warhol’s working and social world even when neither seems sure how to restore their earlier ease.

Photography and life around Warhol

The diaries connect Makos with Warhol’s photographic practice and the circulation of Warhol’s image. In May 1981, Makos and Marc Balet went to Trump Tower to photograph its architectural model as source material for a portrait. The entry places Makos inside a process in which a photographed subject or object could become the starting point for a composed image. Warhol’s broader portrait method involved selecting and modifying photographs before transferring them to canvas, but the diary does not assign Makos a role in those later stages; his documented contribution here is the photography around the model.

The working relationship also had a social dimension. In August 1981, Makos picked up Warhol and Jon Gould for a visit to the Whitney Museum of American Art. The outing placed him between the two men as an active companion, not simply an employee summoned for a task. At the museum, the group saw the Walt Disney exhibition and a Georgia O’Keeffe exhibition before continuing their day together. The diary records Warhol’s sharp judgments about the art, while Makos’s practical presence helps make the visit possible.

Makos also made Warhol himself a photographic subject. In May 1982, Warhol went to an opening where Makos was exhibiting drag photographs of him alongside photographs of Candy Darling by different photographers. The gallery was crowded, and Jackie Curtis and Gerard Malanga were among those present. The images turned Warhol’s appearance into public material shaped by Makos’s camera and presentation. A 1982 photograph captioned as showing Makos with Warhol reinforces the intimacy of that photographic and social association; another caption identifies Makos as the photographer of Warhol on the German set of Querelle, with Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Brad Davis. Together, these records show Makos both making images of Warhol and appearing alongside him in the visual record.

Intermediary and companion

Makos became involved in Warhol’s effort to bring Jon Gould closer. In May 1981, Warhol called Makos to discuss the previous evening with Gould and offered him a gold watch Gould wanted if Makos could persuade Gould to do something with him. Warhol’s aim was not limited to a possible romance: he also wanted Gould to move in, hoping that greater proximity might allow the relationship to develop. The offer made Makos a practical intermediary in a deeply personal matter, joining a material reward to a request for help with intimacy.

A few weeks later, during a gathering in East Falmouth, Makos was part of a group involved in a water-pistol fight with Gould and others. When the play ended, Makos slapped Gould in the face; Gould said it had not hurt and treated the incident as part of the game. Warhol’s account dwells on Gould’s insistence that he needed to win, decide what was right, and get what he wanted. The episode gives Makos a place within the group’s rough, familiar play, but it also exposes the competitive edge Warhol perceived in Gould. Makos is not merely an observer of the relationship Warhol was pursuing; he is physically present in the social world through which that relationship was being tested.

That closeness did not prevent disappointment. At an art opening, Makos told Warhol he was lonely and felt Warhol was not looking after him or taking him to parties. Warhol replied that he could not bring Makos to dinner because Halston had invited him and the invitation did not include another guest. Makos left in anger. The exchange sets a personal need for attention against the practical limits of Warhol’s social arrangements. Warhol records the complaint, but the immediate outcome is separation rather than reassurance: Makos drives away, and the diary moves on to Warhol’s other commitments.

Work, romance, and strain

The diaries show Warhol trying to manage Makos’s work even as their relationship became more complicated. In July 1983, Makos brought his new young live-in partner, Brian, to the office, and Warhol treated them coldly. Warhol had been trying to give Makos less work, yet Makos came away with more assignments. That contradiction suggests a relationship not cleanly ended or resolved: Warhol could want distance from Makos’s personal life while continuing to rely on him professionally.

Warhol also connects his investment in Makos’s relationships to his own hopes. He says he had become involved in advising Makos and Peter Wise because he thought that if their relationship could work, there might be hope for his own. By the time of the entry, Wise was with a bank teller named George and Makos was with Brian. Warhol’s observation that he no longer believed in modern marriages makes these changes more than passing gossip: the relationships around him had become evidence against the kind of lasting partnership he wanted. Makos’s new household therefore appears both as a change in his own life and as a disappointment filtered through Warhol’s anxieties.

Another account catches Makos in a period of romantic disappointment. After returning from California, he told Warhol he had fallen in love with a young man there and saw him as a younger version of himself. Makos described the man’s choice of ordinary work rather than a more glamorous or lucrative path, and recounted an awkward dinner incident involving several desserts and food taken home. Warhol answered by recalling that Makos had once been devastated by his feelings for Mark from Denver but had later stopped caring about him, and advised him that this attachment, too, would pass. The exchange is striking for its asymmetry: Makos arrives visibly distressed, while Warhol offers reassurance by turning an earlier episode into a precedent. His counsel does not erase the immediate sadness, but it places it within a recurring pattern of intense attachment and eventual change.

By August, the strain had become explicit. Makos came to the office crying and said he wanted things to return to the way they had been, when Warhol gave him a great deal of work. Warhol did not know what to tell him and acknowledged that he no longer called Makos, though he thought he perhaps should. He also recognized that associating with Makos made him think too much about boys. The entry holds professional withdrawal and personal avoidance together: fewer assignments and fewer calls are not separate problems, but the outward signs of a closeness Warhol finds difficult to manage.

Images, visibility, and an unsettled bond

Makos’s place in Warhol’s world extended beyond private encounters into public images and conversations about sexuality. In 1982, Warhol went out with him after Makos had received negative results on tests connected in the diary to the period’s fear of AIDS. The diary’s phrasing conveys Warhol’s anxiety about exposure, even as Makos’s result offered immediate reassurance. A later entry about a People article on Tony Perkins notes that the magazine discussed his sexuality while leaving out Makos’s name. The detail places Makos within Warhol’s awareness of how public accounts selectively included or omitted people, though the diary does not explain what significance the omission held for Makos himself.

In April 1984, Warhol’s diary records a street-photography outing in front of the Public Library. They photographed people on the street, including a man wearing chains; Warhol gave the man two dollars and said he wanted to do more of this kind of photography. He also considered carrying release forms. The entry reflects an approach to photography that moved between observation, encounter, and questions of permission. Read alongside Makos’s documented work photographing Warhol and their shared outings, it helps situate their association in a continuing photographic culture, without establishing that Makos took part in this particular outing.

No final reconciliation between Makos and Warhol is recorded in these episodes. Instead, the relationship remains unresolved: Makos seeks a return to an earlier flow of work and attention, while Warhol registers both the wish to reconnect and the reluctance to call. The photographs, exhibitions, favors, and outings preserve a durable connection, but the diaries also show how readily that connection could become a source of hurt. Makos matters in this account not as a single fixed role but as someone who moved between the camera, the office, and Warhol’s private hopes—and whose changing circumstances made the limits of Warhol’s affection and loyalty visible.