ASPEN ART MUSEUM
DEC 03 2021 – MAR 27 2022
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Right Portrait of Ronald K. Greenberg with Andy Warhol in front of a portrait of Jackie Kennedy. Photo courtesy: Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn. Andy Warhol Artworks © 2021 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. /Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Opposite Andy Warhol, Liz #3 (Early Colored Liz) , 1963, acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen, 40 × 40 in. Gift of Edlis Neeson Collection (2015.160), The Art Institute of Chicago © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
whole night working, taking everyone’s picture, while they all drank, ate and danced. I wasn’t used to staying up late, but it wasn’t my turn to sit until 3am. I was a nervous wreck and the thing with a portrait is, whether you like it or not, it’s yours. So, I put on some white powder and red lipstick and Warhol took a Polaroid. The portrait arrived a few months later, and I loved it: a double portrait in blue and green. My father said, ‘What the heck do you need two for?’ My husband bought it for me a month later. I’ve thought about hanging all the portraits I’ve had done together, though I worry it might look a bit Helena Rubinstein. My Warhol portraits always hang in my bedroom. When I look at them, I see my youth, which was quite fun. If I could add any Warhol to my collection, it might be an electric chair, or one of the series in the South: they really represented our times. I’d also really love to have an Elvis—he was my generation. Though I wouldn’t turn down a Marlon Brando either. —Nancy Magoon is a collector and patron based in Aspen and New York. Gael Neeson When my husband and I started collect- ing in depth, our focus was on pop art: Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Larry Rivers, Tom Wesselmann … At that time, Warhol was just a wonderful living artist, so he was always on the horizon for the collection. In the late 1970s, the chance came
careful about the way he talked. He was almost religious about speak- ing—I think that all came from his church upbringing. When you went to his studio, he would have works stacked up against the wall—and he would pretty much go through whatever you wanted. Over the years, I had lots of work: a Jackie Kennedy, 20 Mao paintings, one of the Most Wanted Men, a soup can that I kept. I often bought things with Hans Mayer [the gallerist] from Dusseldorf: together we bought eight Campbell’s soup boxes, four of them were literally 3D boxes, like the Brillo boxes. Hans took the boxes and I took the paintings. I bought a self-portrait where he has his hand on his face, from 1967, and a self- portrait with fright wig; I had them hung across from each other. They reminded me of Andy but, also, they were a reflec- tion of what he did that I thought was so important: blowing the negative up and using it as a silkscreen. Andy created things to really look at, not just to glance at. I leased a lot of his work to the best restaurant in St. Louis: silkscreens under glass, Marilyns and flowers. People would always be happy with those around. —Ronald K. Greenberg is a collector and dealer based in Aspen and St. Louis, MO. He is the founder of Ronald Greenberg Gallery, St. Louis. Nancy Magoon About 50 years ago, I was working in a gallery in Miami. The gallerist loved Warhol’s work, so she asked me to invite a group of socialites to an event, where they could sit for their portraits by him. And they all did. Warhol spent the
had a large Marilyn, four feet by four feet, in turquoise. I think we had about one hour to buy it, so we ran to the Rizzoli bookstore across the street from us and looked up all the Marilyns to help us decide. It was a resounding yes. She lived with us for a long time. When you’re weighing up individual works from series like this, you look at the color and the print, the black line; the combination and the freshness. In our Marilyn, for example, the lips weren’t bleeding out—it’s a very fresh image. Many years later, a green portrait of Elizabeth Taylor, Liz #3 (Early Colored Liz) , 1963, came up at auction and we decided to go for that. One thing about Andy was that he was an exceptional colorist. We owned a Mao at one point, which was beautiful —again very clear and the colors were outstanding. We had an Elvis and several ‘disaster’ paintings: riot scenes, ambulances and an electric chair. Ours was one of the big electric chairs—there were only six at that size—and that was an extraordinary work to spend time with: it felt like it was on fire. Andy’s work was always bringing up truth—he looked at everything that was happening in American life. We loved Andy. I remember when he came to Chicago once with the dealer Thomas Ammann for a book signing and a party, afterwards, he came to lunch with us. Andy didn’t like to talk about his work, so we talked about jewelry, which he
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to buy a small double portrait of Marilyn Monroe at auction—a colored one and a black and white one together. About a year or so later, a dealer friend said she loved. He was a chronicler, just a brilliant artist, and was taken from us far too soon. —Gael Neeson is a collector and patron based in Aspen and Chicago. AND ME Matthew McLean is Creative Lead at Frieze Studios based in London, UK.
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