ANDY WARHOL NEWS ARCHIVE - FEBRUARY 2006

BILLY NAME, GERARD MALANGA, CARL FISCHER AND CURTIS KNAPP CELEBRITY PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE WARHOL FACTORY YEARS

"Celebrity Portraits from the Warhol Factory Years" opened at the Irvine Contemporary Gallery in Washington D.C. on February 18, 2006 and continues through Friday, March 31st. The exhibition features signed and numbered limited edition photographs by Billy Name, Gerard Malanga, Carl Fischer and Curtis Knapp ranging in price from $1,800 to $6,000. Guests at the opening party were treated to Andy Warhol cookies featuring an image of the artist by Knapp. A percentage of the sales will go to support the Patricia Sitar Center for the Arts which sponsors art programs for disadvantaged young people.

LOU REED BEGINS EUROPEAN TOUR

Lou Reed begins his European tour tonight, Thursday, February 23, 2006 at the Torino Winter Olympics Piazza Castello in Italy, followed by performances in Florence, Milan and Rome, with the tour ending on March 17 in Prague. Reed had planned to perform in New York prior to the tour, but had to cancel the New York dates due to illness.

BLACK MOUNTAIN IN CAMBRIDGE

Kettle's Yard in Cambridge, England is currently having an exhibition on the artistic legacy of Black Mountain College with work by Robert Motherwell, Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Jack Tworkov, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly and Ray Johnson. A lecture series is planned and the gallery will also be hosting a Black Mountain Music weekend in March 2006 featuring the music of John Cage, Lou Harrison and Stefan Wolpe.

BEVERLY GRANT

Jacob R. Clark, who is writing a book on Warhol star Beverly Grant, is seeking to contact anyone with information about Grant and has requested that I post the following notice:

Jacob R. Clark:

"For an oral biography on Beverly Grant, an actress who appeared in 13 Most Beautiful Women, Batman Dracula and in films by Jack Smith, Ron Rice and Gregory Markopolous, as well as numerous off-off-Broadway productions in the 1960s, I am seeking any information from anyone who might have known or worked with her. Ms. Grant was also married to experimental filmmaker Tony Conrad. I would like to conduct face-to-face tape recorded interviews if possible, and plan to be in New York for a couple of weeks this summer to do research. If you can help with the project, please contact Jacob R. Clark at email address jrobertclark@hotmail.com or by snail mail to: Jacob R. Clark, P.O. Box 11, Alexandria, Ohio 43001."

MAO 7 MORE THAN TRIPLES ITS ESTIMATE

Prices for Warhol's work at auction continue to hit the roof. At last night's Sotheby's auction Mao 7 (1973) went for £ 1.4 million, more than tripling its high estimate of £ 350,000. The painting went to an anonymous American collector after enthusiastic bidding by Asian collectors. The auction, which took place February 9, 2006, set eight records. About 8% of the buyers were Asian. Tobias Meyer, Sotheby's chief of contemporary art, who acted as auctioneer on the night noted in the post-auction press conference, "We've been courting Asian wealth, and they're happy to buy great 20th-century works.''

THE LAST SUPPER: $ 4,699,128.00

Warhol's Last Supper (1989) went for twice its estimate in last night's auction (February 8, 2006) at Christie's in London, selling for £2,969,000 ($4,669,128.00). A Warhol Dollar Sign went for £2,584,000 ($4,503,912), the highest price ever paid for a work in this series - considerably higher than its estimate of £600,000. It was purchased by the Russian émigré dealer Alex Lachmann from Cologne who was reportedly buying the painting for an unnamed Russian collector.

Ten records were set at the auction which was attended by more than 500 people, including Larry Gagosian, Andrew Fabrikant, Iwan Wirth (of Hauser and Wirth) and Ivor Braka.

MISHA SEDGWICK

New York actress Misha Sedgwick is not the niece of Edie Sedgwick as she has previously claimed. Her real name is Misha Moore. Misha appeared in the off-Broadway play Andy and Edie which opened in New York on May 3, 2004 and was written and co-produced by Peter Braunstein. Braunstein's original website for Andy and Edie can be found at:
here.

Jonathan Sedgwick (Edie's brother):

"Misha admitted to my daughter, the real niece, that (in her words) "I'm only VERY distantly related to her (Edie), even though I have the same last name... I think he (Peter Braunstein) started the rumor and people just picked up on it because my last name is the same. I played her in an off-broadway play and some gossip papers in NY thought i was closely related... which started the whole thing... but I'm not.'"

In addition to her role in Andy and Edie, Misha also appeared in The Dead Life, a film directed by Warhol star Ivy Nicholson and Carlito's Way: Rise to Power (2005) with a cast that included Mario Van Peebles and Sean "P. Diddy" Combs.

SONY SUES FACTORY GIRL

The producers of the Edie Sedgwick biopic, Factory Girl, are being sued by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment for $6 million in a lawsuit filed at the Los Angeles Superior Court on Monday, February 6, 2006. Sony alleges that producer Holly Wiersma and Lift Productions broke a previous rights agreement made with Sony in October 2005 when they recently sold the rights to the film to the Weinstein Company.

PAUL SWAN

Paul Swan seems to be flavor of the month in February. Janis and Richard Londraville's book, The Most Beautiful Man in the World: Paul Swan, from Wilde to Warhol, is now shipping to retail outlets and an exhibition of Swan related art and ephemera opens at the The Ringling Museum of Art (State Art Museum of Florida) in Sarasota on Monday, February 13, 2006 in the Astor Cream Salon.

Gerald Bartell in The Monthly Kirkus Reviews:

"The life of artist and actor Paul Swan also brims with passion and contrasts as the Londravilles make clear in The Most Beautiful Man... A young man of stunning good looks, he married and fathered two daughters while also engaging in amorous relationships with men... In Paris, he danced nude at salons. In Greece, he became preoccupied with Hellenic images of youth and beauty... In Hollywood, he donned togas to appear in the first film versions of Ben-Hur and The Ten Commandments. In 1965, Swan became the subject of an Andy Warhol film. A cruel camera captured the crumbled beauty of a man who applied shoe black to his bald pate, lined his eyes like Nefertiti and stuffed socks into his pants."

to March 2006