Henry Geldzahler

Henry Geldzahler is a recurring figure in Andy Warhol’s diaries, moving between civic projects, art-world business, and crowded social occasions. He is remembered both as a quick-witted companion, conspicuously displaying the badge Mayor Koch gave him for being commissioner, and as someone who had hurt Warhol enough that Warhol later chose to ignore him. Their connection is recorded less as a single continuous story than as a changing series of encounters in which humor, access, collaboration, and resentment coexist.

A comic presence in Warhol’s circle

At an office dinner arranged around a table of ten young men, Warhol had to explain to Pearl that it was a stag dinner. Most of the men were blond; Henry and Warhol were the gray-haired exceptions. Henry entertained the table by showing his commissioner’s badge and delivering one one-liner after another. Warhol described him as funny and bright, took photographs, and then brought the group to Studio 54, where getting everyone inside became Warhol’s birthday present to Curley. The episode places Henry at the center of a sociable performance: the badge served as a prop, his jokes held the table, and Warhol turned the gathering into a night out.

The badge recurs in a different setting. Henry told Warhol that he had asked Mayor Koch for a badge identifying him as commissioner and that the mayor had given him one; Henry then showed it off. Later, while discussing the city poster with Warhol, he still wore the badge under his lapel. The diaries do not explain the scope of the commissionership, but they make the badge a small, repeated marker of Henry’s public standing and of his pleasure in displaying it.

Warhol’s appreciation for Henry’s wit also appears at dinner. At a meal where Henry had a half-page interview in the newspaper, the restaurant’s owner went out to buy a copy, worried it might contain something unfavorable; it did not. Afterward, Henry and Warhol walked to the Ninth Circle, where people wanted to discuss Warhol’s art. Henry told them Warhol was too dumb to do so. The joke turns a familiar demand for an artist’s explanation into a comic exchange, with Henry speaking on Warhol’s behalf while making light of the expectation that Warhol provide an account of his work.

The city poster and its practical complications

Henry brought Warhol a proposal for a poster for New York City, and Fred Hughes thought it was a good idea. Henry wanted to go out immediately to photograph a tree for it, saying the work was needed within two weeks. Warhol, however, was only beginning to think Henry might be crazy. He recounted Henry’s story about Ellsworth Kelly wanting to paint over a portrait Warhol had made of him: Henry initially presented the idea as a possibility, then admitted he wanted Warhol to print another portrait so Kelly could paint on it for free. The anecdote made the poster discussions part of a less solemn portrait of Henry, one in which creative plans could sit beside opportunistic bargaining.

The first attempt to photograph a tree was interrupted by rain during a lunch for Henry. The eighty copies of Warhol’s book Popism had arrived that morning from Harcourt Brace, and Warhol distributed them, while resolving to be more sparing with the copies because of inflation. Henry still wanted to take him out to photograph the tree, but the weather stopped them. Their next outing took them to the Village, to the site of the former Women’s House of Detention, by then a locked-up park. Warhol found the trees perfect for the poster and gave an Interview to the woman who held the garden key. The public-art assignment thus depended on access to an otherwise locked garden as well as on the image Henry wanted to make.

The design process continued through discussion. Henry was using a yellow-and-green print for the New York City poster and said Milton Glaser was working on it, a design approach Warhol disliked. The diaries do not settle the disagreement or explain the final poster’s production, but they preserve Warhol’s resistance to the direction of the design even as Henry continued advancing the project. A separate photographic caption records Henry posing atop radiator grillwork, a brief image that places him among the people and settings Warhol documented.

Access, favors, and shared occasions

Henry’s civic position also made him a point of contact when Warhol’s personal network needed help. Jon Gould asked Warhol to assist in securing a reservation at the new, very small restaurant 87 for his Gulf + Western boss Charles Bluhdorn, who hoped to take Barry Diller to dinner. Warhol called Henry, whom he addressed as the commissioner. Henry agreed to try because Bluhdorn had given two million dollars to the city the previous year, but the restaurant said the reservation was impossible. Warhol relayed the failure to Jon, who feared he would lose his job; the worry became moot when Bluhdorn canceled the dinner. Henry could make the call, but even his access could not overcome the restaurant’s refusal.

Henry also appeared in Warhol’s social life beyond office dinners. At an artists’ gathering at Gracie Mansion, he was there with Raymond among the other guests. At another party, Warhol and Ned were sitting alone at a table in the cold despite invitations to join the larger group. Henry asked them to come up, but Warhol stayed put until the artist returned and then left before dessert. The diary gives no account of Henry’s response; its emphasis is on Warhol’s feeling stuck and on the party becoming his last at the Heinzes’. Henry’s invitation nonetheless registers as one of several attempts to draw Warhol into the gathering.

On another evening, Warhol went to The Odeon with John Reinhold, found Henry dining alone, and invited him to join them. Henry told stories about Jean Stein. During the conversation, the idea arose that Henry should tell Stein that Warhol was doing a book on her. The episode shows Henry not only as a companion but as a link in Warhol’s literary and social dealings: an ordinary dinner became the setting for a proposed message about a book.

Collaboration, hurt, and the limits of closeness

The relationship could also carry an edge. Warhol recorded that he had been rude to Henry when Henry came over hoping for an introduction to someone. Warhol ignored him and admitted to himself why: Henry had hurt him many times, and he felt like returning the slight. The entry does not specify those earlier injuries, so the grievance remains unresolved in the account. Its significance lies in the contrast with the scenes of joking and practical cooperation: familiarity had not erased resentment, and Warhol could withhold the very social access that Henry sometimes sought from him.

At a later dinner organized by Lorne Michaels, Henry was present with Francesco Clemente. Warhol felt bad because he and Jean-Michel Basquiat were now making combined canvases without Clemente; those works were turning out well, while the canvases made with Clemente had brought them very little from Bruno. Warhol considered giving Clemente some rejected works to see whether he could do anything with them and noted that Clemente was sweet. Henry’s presence places him within a circle where artistic partnerships and their financial terms were actively shifting, although the diary does not assign him a role in the decision.

Across these encounters, Henry is neither reduced to a civic title nor presented as a simple confidant. The badge and the city-poster work connect him to public projects and practical influence; the dinners and one-liners make him a lively participant in Warhol’s social world; and the entry about being ignored preserves the friction beneath that sociability. The diaries leave the relationship open-ended, defined by repeated contact rather than by a final reconciliation or break.