Rupert Smith

Rupert Smith is one of the recurring workers in Andy Warhol’s diary, appearing as a silkscreener, studio collaborator, and sometimes makeup artist. The relationship is defined by an uneasy combination: Warhol depends on Smith’s labor and recognizes his ability, yet resents his absences and unauthorized decisions. As Smith’s own silkscreen portraits begin to resemble Warhol’s, the diary records a practical working partnership turning into a dispute over control, originality, and who gets to use a recognizable style.

Identity and Working Life

Warhol identifies him as Rupert Jason Smith and describes him as living in a loft on White Street. Smith was considering buying not just the building where he lived but the adjoining building as well. Warhol speculates that he must have plenty of money to contemplate the purchase, then turns to a family detail: Smith’s mother was from Palm Beach, and, when Smith once went to a party in drag, Warhol thought he looked just like her. The anecdote gives a brief glimpse of Smith outside the workplace, filtered through Warhol’s amused, appearance-conscious attention.

At the office, Smith’s work crossed between technical production and artistic decisions. He helped Warhol with painting and printmaking, and the diary places him beside works including the Ali paintings, the Shadows, and the shoe prints. Warhol also relied on him during busy periods when several projects needed attention. These entries show Smith as more than a pair of hands: he could finish work on his own initiative, make choices about its appearance, and sometimes act without waiting for Warhol’s approval. That independence was valuable when work was moving, but it also became a source of friction.

Prints, Paintings, and Studio Decisions

One early entry describes Smith helping Warhol experiment with painting using a brush and urine. Warhol later brought Smith in to help make prints of the Ali paintings. In another episode, Smith reduced the Shadows by two inches from the size Warhol had specified. He had simply decided on the change himself. Warhol was furious, and the stretchers had to be made smaller to fit the altered dimensions. The quarrel makes the studio’s division of authority tangible: Smith could affect the object itself, while Warhol still regarded the final dimensions as his decision.

Smith also completed a set of shoe-print proofs without showing them to Warhol first. By the time he brought them in, the shoes were finished with diamond dust. Warhol found the intervention startling, but acknowledged that Smith had been artistic. The work connected with Warhol’s stated return to his roots, and he considered whether he should make nothing but shoes. In this instance, Smith’s initiative produced a finished result that Warhol could respond to with interest, even as the lack of prior consultation unsettled him. The same independence that made Smith useful could cross, in Warhol’s eyes, into overstepping.

Other entries record Smith bringing work to the office, including images of Mickey and Garbo that Warhol thought looked great. He also worked with Warhol on drawings and paintings. These moments sit alongside the disputes: the diary does not present a simple story of an assistant whose work Warhol rejected, but a relationship in which successful collaboration and resentment continually coexist.

Dependence, Absence, and Conflict

Smith’s availability mattered to Warhol. When Smith left for Jamaica for several weeks and some of his assistants were also going on vacation, Warhol became angry and warned one assistant, Horst, that he might find another silkscreener. Horst joked that a rose might improve Warhol’s mood. Warhol answered by recalling how he had found a replacement when Alex Heinrici had once taken a long vacation, insisting that he could do so again. The episode reveals a practical vulnerability beneath the artistic disagreements: work depended on skilled people being present, and Warhol understood replacement as both possible and threatening.

The diary’s description of Warhol’s usual manner sharpens the contrast. He was generally courteous, asked rather than ordered, and expressed gratitude for employees’ conscientious work. Against that background, his anger at Smith’s changes to the Shadows and his warning during the Jamaica absence stand out as moments when dependence and frustration overcame his ordinary politeness. The entries offer no parallel account from Smith, so his reasons for his decisions or absences remain outside the record.

Smith also handled an unexpected interruption at the office. When Warhol arrived to meet him, the elevator doors opened onto a man and woman whom Warhol described as Rastafarians. Warhol backed away and went outside; Smith arrived, went in, and told the pair to leave. They did so. The incident is brief, but it shows Smith taking direct action in the shared workplace while Warhol watched from outside.

An Independent Silkscreen Practice

The clearest conflict over artistic identity came when Warhol received an invitation to an exhibition of silkscreen portraits based on photographs by Francesco Scavullo, made by Smith. Warhol worried that the works would look like his own. He thought Smith should have told him about the project, and interpreted the failure to do so as evidence that Smith knew he was doing something wrong. Warhol’s response was not only about the resemblance: he believed Smith had adopted recognizable features of his own portrait practice without speaking to him first.

After people who had seen the exhibition described its portraits, Warhol became more specific about what troubled him. He said Smith had colored the eyes and lips and made double portraits, identifying these choices as similar to his own. He gave Smith the cold shoulder. Fred Hughes advised Warhol not to yell at him, but the diary records no resolution. Smith’s show therefore appears not simply as a successful extension of his studio skills, but as an assertion of authorship that Warhol experienced as a breach of trust. The underlying dispute remains unresolved in the supplied entries: Warhol’s suspicion and anger are recorded, but Smith’s explanation is not.

A Diary Portrait in Fragments

Smith’s character is assembled through workdays, arguments, and occasional social details rather than through a continuous account of his life. The diary records him working late with Warhol, helping prepare prints, and contributing to projects; it also catches him away from the studio, contemplating property or appearing in drag at a party. On one trip connected with Halston’s preparations for travel to the Far East, Smith served as a makeup artist. He helped make up two women after dinner, working with the group until around two in the morning; Warhol noted the difficulty of matching one woman’s pale complexion with the others’ suntanned looks and the use of a great deal of white makeup.

That episodic view is shaped by the diary’s publication history. Pat Hackett explains that she condensed an original 20,000 pages, cutting whole days and weeks as well as many names, and limited editorial explanations so that Warhol’s voice could remain prominent. The published record also removes much of the direct interaction between Warhol and Hackett. Smith consequently appears through selected scenes rather than a complete chronology, and the sharpest account of their artistic disagreement is Warhol’s own. What survives nevertheless traces a consequential tension: Smith’s competence made him important to the studio, while his independent decisions made the limits of that working relationship impossible to ignore.