My move is less than a week away now. My roommates all left a little early, so I’m here for the last week by myself. It’ll be interesting to see how I adjust to this new solo (+ cat) reality after about 2 decades of the roommate thing, and of course living at home which is basically like being roommates with your family. Fortunately, my friends are my landlords and will be living downstairs, so I don’t think I’ll get super lonely. I’m hoping the more consistent home environment will make me more creative and productive. Cheap rent is good, but it comes at a price of greater emotional labour (like roommate meetings, chasing people for bills, the eternal dialogue regarding chores, finding new roommates, the inevitable annoyances, and so on).
Anyways, a lot of the stuff from Part II comes from this 1983 Andy Warhol photo exhibition which was bookmarked by the artist in one of the magazines I found. I decided to censor the name of the artist (who likely tossed this stuff), but there’s not really much info on them out there, nor can I find any indexed versions of these particular photos. However, they must have been close enough to Andy Warhol to get some photos of him.
These are all pretty big photos. I don’t have it in front of me, but I’d guess that this one is about 15 x 15″.
This photo collage is probably around 30 x 15″. It has some damage around the edges and some tape residue, which might come off with goo gone.
Andy on the phone is one of the smaller photos, measuring maybe 14 x 9″ (from memory).
My favourites are these coloured ones, but I’m a sucker for bright colours. These are about the size of your average poster.
This one in particular is pretty fun. That’s all I have of Andy, and two years after finding them I still don’t really have any idea what they’re worth. Like someone suggested in my last post, this kind of stuff might be best suited for an art auction. After I’ve moved, maybe I’ll look into that more.
There were a few other photos, however. This is Keith Haring, who was a pretty prominent artist himself and was friends with Warhol.
I don’t know who any of these last people are. I thought I figured out who the guy on the left was when doing research previously, but I have no idea now. It’s a similar style to the other photos though, so I wonder if he’s another New York art guy. They all look like characters regardless. If you happen to recognize any of them, let me know in the comments!
Regardless of value, there’s some interesting stuff here. Unfortunately, this was a one hit wonder, and I never found anything there beyond this one night.
That was an interesting period in art in New York. I hope some of your readers can give you some notion of the value of these finds, and the ID of the people you haven’t been able to identify.
I’d totally buy one of those Andies from you, Martin. We’re visiting in September so let me know if you’ve not shifted them by then.
If these are original photos, before doing anything with them I’d definitely get them checked out by an appropriate expert or major art auction house. I’ve seen this type of thing on Antiques Roadshow and original photos of famous people, especially pop icons, can go for very high prices.
I’ve got an art degree & would still advise to contact an auction house. What’s the photographer’s name listed in the article & what is the year? Anyone could’ve had those photos, an assistant, galleries, collector, printer etc. The portrait of the dark haired guy looks like an artist I can’t place, and the lady photo reminds me of Cindy Sherman’s self portrait work. Photographers working in large B&W format included Richard Avedon. I’d love to help research some more. I’ll check back on the blog later. Thanks for the fun stuff.
The portrait of the dark haired guy may be Jeff Koons. Found a great website w/portraits of 1980s artists, including Cindy Sherman. Koons has/had attitude like in that shot & a good looking guy. 🙂 A link to the site w pics – https://www.thebroad.org/art/timothy-greenfield-sanders/portrait-jeff-koons . Hope it’s ok to put a link.
The dark haired guy could be Robert Longo, too. See the same website as the reference. Maybe the final photo of the guy in front of the window is Gerhard Richter? And that’s definitely Cindy Sherman. Fun to play with this. 🙂 Hope some of it is helpful. Congrats on no more roommates!
I thought that the dark-haired guy looks a little like David Byrne, but then again I am absolutely useless at recognizing people out of context. The other commenters are undoubtedly on the mark. Sounds like you might have some valuable things on your hands, so kudos! I hope you take the advice above and get them seen by an auction house. Good luck and please keep us posted!
Hi – Martin. Fingers crossed you found your lifetime prize. Here is AI’s response : To sell original photographs by Andy Warhol, you should contact specialized art galleries, auction houses, and reputable online platforms that deal with high-value art. Revolver Gallery is known as a major buyer and seller of Warhol artwork. Auction houses like Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips are also good options, though they take a larger percentage of the sale price. You can also explore other online marketplaces like Artsy or Invaluable that focus on fine art.
I hope that these photos turn out to be worth a surprising amount of money, Martin. You deserve a big payday!