Muhammad Ali portfolio

The Muhammad Ali portfolio was a print project based on Andy Warhol’s paintings of Muhammad Ali. The diary catches it at a transitional point: on Christmas Eve 1978, Warhol decided to make prints from the Ali paintings; in January, Fred Hughes approached Peter Brant about possibly buying the portfolios. The entries document an intention and a prospective transaction, not a confirmed edition or sale.

From Paintings to Prints

On December 24, 1978, Warhol went to Union Square and brought Rupert Smith in to help him work. The decision to make prints of the Ali paintings appears in this account as part of a working day, alongside the practical act of getting help into the studio. The entry establishes that paintings already existed and that Warhol was considering their translation into prints, but gives no edition size, schedule, or account of the resulting production.

The distinction matters: the portfolio was not simply another name for the paintings. Warhol’s note marks a step toward reproducing and circulating their imagery in print form. The surviving account, however, stops at the decision to proceed and does not say how many prints were made or when they were finished.

Warhol’s Portrait-Making System

The project belongs to a broader portrait practice that remained a major part of Warhol’s work and income. His usual process began with about sixty Polaroid photographs of a sitter, taken with a Polaroid Big Shot camera. From those photographs he selected four for conversion into 8-by-10-inch acetate images; he then chose one, adjusted its crop, and retouched it to alter features such as the neck, nose, lips, and complexion. The chosen image was enlarged to a 40-by-40-inch acetate, from which a screen printer made the silkscreen.

For portraits, assistants prepared canvas in advance with flesh-toned backgrounds—one shade for men and a pinker one for women. Warhol transferred the image to the canvas, added painted areas such as hair, eyes, lips, ties, and jackets, and aligned the silkscreen with those colors. Small variations in registration produced the shifting effect characteristic of the portraits. This documented method supplies context for Warhol’s portrait production, but the diary does not specify which steps, if any, were used for the Ali prints themselves.

A Possible Sale

On January 15, 1979, Fred Hughes went to Connecticut to see Peter Brant about possibly buying the Muhammad Ali portfolios. Brant kept Hughes waiting for an hour, then criticized the fact that he and Joe Allen had yet to make money from their investment in Bad. The meeting therefore joined a potential market for the Ali portfolios to an already tense discussion of another investment; the account records no purchase agreement or outcome.

Taken together, the two entries show the project moving from a decision to make prints toward a possible commercial transaction within a matter of weeks. They leave its eventual scale and fate unresolved. The portfolio’s documented significance lies in that convergence of portraiture, print production, and the business negotiations through which Warhol’s work was circulated.