The Metropolitan Museum of Art enters the diaries as more than an exhibition venue: it is a place where public spectacle, elite sociability, and the changing lives of artworks and objects meet. The entries connect the museum to a major gathering attended in limousines, to Diana Vreeland’s costume show, and to paintings whose donors Warhol believed belonged together in the institution.

A stage for gatherings

At one museum occasion, the party arrived in four limousines. Warhol described it as the biggest event of its kind the museum had ever held; when Diana Vreeland walked through, the assembled guests kissed her. The scale and ceremony of the gathering made the museum a social stage as well as a cultural institution. At dinner associated with the occasion, Bianca passed Warhol her panties; he pretended to smell them, tucked them into his handkerchief pocket, and noted that he still had them. The irreverent private gesture sits alongside the event’s grandeur, showing how the diary’s account of the museum moves between public ritual and intimate social play.

Vreeland’s costume show and the elephant

The museum’s association with Vreeland’s costume show extended beyond the exhibition itself. Warhol recalled buying a pink elephant for the show, intended to carry Marilyn Monroe. After the show, the elephant went to Fred Hughes at The Factory. Jean-Michel Basquiat and Victor painted on it, though Warhol thought their contribution slight; he said he would have kept it as a Basquiat work anyway. Fred Hughes instead had the elephant painted white so Keith Haring could paint on it. The object’s changing surface and ownership turned a museum commission into an ongoing record of decisions among artists and Warhol’s circle.

Paintings and the question of collection

At a Shiseido party at the museum, Warhol saw two large Flower paintings, both peach with black outlines. He thought Shiseido might have funded Vreeland’s costume show. One painting had been given by Peter Brant, the other by Irving Blum, whom Warhol had not known owned one. Their presence together prompted his view that the museum should acquire the other paintings too: in his words, they were meant to be together. The episode links the museum’s exhibition role to a larger question of how works are dispersed through gifts and gathered into a collection. For Warhol, the paintings’ shared appearance made their separation feel like an unfinished institutional arrangement.