Maria Shriver

Maria Shriver’s place in Andy Warhol’s diaries is shaped by portraiture: she is first the subject of a painting unveiled at a Mattel exhibition, then of photographs and drawings that Warhol made for her wedding to Arnold Schwarzenegger. Across these appearances, her image moves through several hands and settings—from a commission whose origins Warhol did not know, to a portrait presented by her future husband to her family, to drawings carried to the wedding itself.

Portraiture and the Mattel commission

At a large Barbie exhibition at Pier 92, Mattel unveiled Warhol’s portrait of Barbie. Warhol disliked the painting and found the contemporary doll’s smiling expression difficult to relate to, contrasting it with the more closed mouth and sensual lips of the 1950s Barbie. He also recalled hearing that Arab clients had commissioned a larger Barbie, though he was unsure of the details. The commission had come through Billy Boy, who Warhol thought might have suggested him to Mattel; he planned to check the story with Fred Hughes. His uncertainty about how the portrait came about sits alongside its very public presentation: Mattel’s president had been eager to see it, and Warhol cringed as it was unveiled.

The diary thus places Shriver’s portrait within a chain of commissioning and mediation rather than presenting it as a purely private likeness. Billy Boy may have connected Warhol to Mattel, the company displayed the work, and its president anticipated the unveiling. Warhol’s account, however, records his own dissatisfaction with the result. The portrait’s public role and the artist’s private response do not coincide: the event celebrates the commission, while the maker registers an image he does not like.

A sitting and its photographic record

In April 1986, Warhol went downtown for a scheduled sitting with Shriver. He noted that she was pretty, talked a lot, and photographed well; his brief description also included a judgment about her figure. The entry treats the session as part of a working day, recording the cab fare as well as the encounter. Shriver is not given an account of her own, but her willingness to sit and converse is visible in the practical details Warhol chose to preserve.

That sitting belongs to a well-established portrait process. Warhol’s commissioned portraits generally began with about sixty Polaroid photographs made with a Polaroid Big Shot. He selected a small number for enlargement, chose and cropped a final image, and cosmetically altered it before it was transferred to canvas. Assistants prepared differently tinted backgrounds for men’s and women’s portraits; painted color and the screened photographic image could shift slightly out of alignment, giving the finished works their characteristic effect. The diary does not specify that Shriver’s sitting followed every step of this procedure, but it records her within the portrait practice that had become a substantial part of Warhol’s work and income.

The portrait as a wedding present

Shriver’s portrait acquired a family meaning at her wedding to Arnold Schwarzenegger. Before the ceremony, Warhol worked on drawings of her intended as a wedding present. At the celebration, he heard that Schwarzenegger had presented Warhol’s portrait to the Shriver family the previous evening, framing the gift as a way of gaining a wife while the family gained a painting. The family, Warhol was told, loved it. The painting therefore entered the wedding not merely as a likeness of the bride but as a gift linking the artist, the groom, and the bride’s family.

The drawings Warhol had made for the occasion followed a different route. After the ceremony, he had them with him but did not know what to do with them; Eddie Schlossberg offered to put them in the house. This small uncertainty distinguishes the intended gift from its eventual handling. Warhol had prepared the drawings for the wedding, but their placement was settled only after he arrived.

Public ceremony and the diary’s perspective

The wedding drew an unusually large crowd outside the church, where people called out the names of Shriver and Warhol. Oprah Winfrey gave a speech, and the service lasted an hour, while the wedding ceremony itself took fifteen minutes. The diaries also record the photographers’ view of the departing couple: Schwarzenegger and Shriver smiled and posed from the car. Warhol’s attention moves between the ceremony, the crowd, the gifts, and the behavior of people around the couple, making the wedding both a family occasion and a public spectacle.

Shriver’s entries remain limited, and the account largely reflects Warhol’s perspective as portraitist and guest. Still, the recurring sequence is clear: a commissioned image is publicly unveiled, Shriver sits for photographs, and Warhol’s portrait becomes part of the story of her marriage. In this record, the portrait is not a background detail; it is the object that connects his professional practice to the wedding and to the family receiving it.