Something was wrong. It was Sunday-flea-market day-and Andy still hadn`t called.
For four years now, Warhol had phoned almost every day at around 10-to talk about art, to gossip about Liza and Bianca and Halston, but mostly to discuss where they would shop that day. Once they`d made up their minds, Stuart Pivar, an art collector and his best friend since 1980, would pick up Warhol in his black, chauffeur-driven, Chrysler limousine and off they`d go.
In the next two to three hours, they`d hit shops on Madison Avenue, jewelry stores in the diamond district, antique dealers all over town, or the big-and not-so-big-auction houses: Christie`s, Sotheby`s, Christie`s East, Doyle`s, Lubin`s, Tepper.
Carrying a batch of copies of his magazine Interview and dressed in blue jeans, a black turtleneck and what one friend calls ”that absurd silver wig,” Warhol would stroll into a shop, offer the owner a free copy of Interview and ask in his deadpan monotone, ”Do you have any masterpieces?”
As they went from store to store, Pivar`s chauffeur, Beso, would follow after them in the car, and they would pile their purchases in the trunk.
”We frequently found masterpieces,” Pivar remembers, ”depending on how you define masterpiece. Sometimes it consisted of a really fine cookie jar. Other times, it could be a 19th Century painting. But it was rare for us to have a masterpieceless day.”
At Christie`s, Warhol would buy silver jewelry, which he preferred to gold. At the flea market, he`d buy cookie jars to add to his growing collection.
Almost everything Warhol bought went back to his elegant East 66th Street townhouse, where the cache of collectibles spilled out of closets and was stacked on the four staircases and piled on the floor-in bags, in boxes, loose. The flea-market outing was the biggest of the week-Warhol`s favorite-and Pivar was surprised he hadn`t phoned this Sunday.
But Warhol had checked into New York Hospital on Friday, after much prodding, to have his infected gallbladder removed. The artist, whose fear of modern medicine bordered on the paranoid, had told Pivar over and over, ”If I go in the hospital, I won`t come out.”
Pivar called Paige Powell, at the time the advertising director at Interview and another of Warhol`s closest friends.
”Why haven`t I heard from Andy this morning?” he asked.
”Because he`s dead,” Powell said.
Now, five years later, several of the treasures collected by the Pack Rat of Pop have yet to turn up-perhaps given away in an uncharacteristic fit of generosity, lost in the confusion after his death or stashed in a safe place until the market picks up.
What`s more, one of the wealthiest non-profit arts groups in the country, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts-set up at the artist`s direction to manage his assets and hand out cash to worthy artists and art-related organizations-may never see all the money due it. The president of its board of directors, where clashes are said to be common, at one point even went so far as to deny anything was missing.
And much of the legacy of America`s premier self-promoter remains in legal limbo, even though almost everyone involved agrees the whole mess should have been cleared up by now.
Warhol fiercely guarded his privacy, especially after he became famous. Many close friends were never even invited inside his townhouse. He had his reasons. If people had known how he lived, how rich he actually was, they wouldn`t have put up with his legendary stinginess. Also, customers might have balked at paying the prices he routinely charged for commissioned portraits:
$30,000 for the first canvas and $5,000 for each additional one.
Most artists don`t hit it big, and many of those who do are terrible businessmen. But Warhol, the icon of the radical `60s and the fixture of the flashy club scene of the `70s, was a wildly successful artist who also had a keen business sense. When the contents of his estate became public, people were shocked. His house was filled with the items he`d bought over the years: Navajo blanket rugs, rare pieces of furniture, jewelry, paintings, Puiforcat silver, Wedgwood Art Deco pottery, Fiesta Ware, cookie jars, and on and on.
Just as astonishing were his investments. Though he appeared scatterbrained, Warhol had bought prime real estate and owned stock in major companies. Of course, he also owned Andy Warhol Enterprises, Interview and all his unsold paintings. And finally, he had cash (roughly $1 million) and life insurance (four policies worth just over $4.5 million).
After Warhol`s death, it became the job of Fred Hughes-a friend, adviser and business manager who`d met the artist in 1966 and was involved in running Warhol`s career for the next 20 years-and Ed Hayes-counsel to Warhol and the inspiration for Tom Killian, the lawyer in Tom Wolfe`s ”The Bonfire of the Vanities”-to carry out their friend`s bequests and transfer everything to the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, a task Warhol hadn`t made easy.
One of the biggest problems facing Hughes was selling off what came to be known as the Andy Warhol Collection: the clutter of treasures and junk that had taken over Warhol`s townhouse. In late April 1988, Sotheby`s auctioned off nearly 10,000 items in a 10-day sale, the highlight of which was the afternoon that Warhol`s cookie-jar collection sold for almost $250,000, drastically more than the pittance he had invested in it. In all, the sale raised $25.3 million, twice as much as Sotheby`s had expected. Just over $23 million went into the foundation.
But court papers filed last year indicate the estate is worth more than 10 times that amount, much more than initial estimates. Warhol`s real-estate holdings, some of which have not yet been dealt with (another reason the estate cannot be closed out), were valued at just over $8.5 million, his stocks and bonds at just over $13.5 million. Besides the $5.5 million in cash and life insurance, there were extensive listings, notably $1.4 million in unsold personal property, $1.2 million for potential licensing agreements, and, the most significant entry, $244 million worth of original Warhol paintings, drawings, photographs and movies.
As of February 1991, Warhol`s estate was estimated to be worth $298 million at his death, of which some $290 million would be available to the foundation. (The rest would be used to pay debts and taxes.)
Still, it seems the estate may have missed several chances to grow even wealthier and be even more of a charitable powerhouse.
The liquidation process, under way for almost five years, has had more than its share of controversy.
For example, some people have questioned whether Hughes got top dollar for real-estate holdings. Others question whether everything Warhol bought over the years has been sold.
Not long after the spring 1988 auction, a cache of jewelry was found in the bottom of a filing cabinet at Warhol`s townhouse. The 300 items were sold at Sotheby`s in December 1988 for $1.64 million.
But almost everyone familiar with the estate believes that important objects, mostly furniture and jewelry, have not been sold, including Warhol`s favorite diamond ring, set in stainless steel. It wasn`t in the Sotheby`s sale; it has never surfaced.
Other items are not accounted for. For years, Warhol collected the jewelry of Seaman Schepps, the legendary designer whose shop is still located on Park Avenue at 58th Street. Store records indicate that over the years Warhol bought numerous pieces. But of all the Schepps items, only a few were sold in the sale.
Says Warhol counsel Hayes, ”We really looked (after Warhol died). We had a staff of people searching. . . . We found a huge fortune.”
Hayes believes Warhol rumors will always hound him.
”Andy`s somewhere with Elvis,” he laments.
