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An Andy Warhol portrait rejected by Donald Trump more than 40 years ago is up for auction — and the famed artist’s diaries reveal his first impression of the future president.
When Trump met Warhol in 1981, the former was burgeoning business mogul and the latter was among the most famous American artists of the 20th century.
Trump Tower on 5th Avenue was under construction at the time and The Donald was seeking out artwork to put up in the lobby — the very same one he’d descend into via golden escalator to announce his first White House bid in 2015.
Trump commissioned a series of paintings from Warhol depicting his new 58-story skyscraper, but ultimately declined to purchase the portraits, outraging the painter who later claimed he “hates the Trumps.”
Fast forward more than 40 years to today, when the work of art will be sold at a Park Avenue auction house for an estimated $700,000.
While the painting awaits the paddle of the highest bidder, diary entries from the prince of pop art offer unique insight into the New York high society that brought Trump to international fame — and the artist’s real-time impressions of the young real-estate titan.
“Had to meet Donald Trump at the office,” Warhol scribbled in April 1981, according to Phillips auction house. “Donald Trump is really good looking.”
The unlikely pair was introduced by the then-art director at Interview magazine Marc Balet, who was working on cataloging the stores that would open in the Trump Tower atrium.
It was Trump’s then-wife Ivana who suggested he meet with Warhol to discuss painting portraits of the building to hang inside, Balet told Gothamist from his home in Connecticut.
“It was so strange, these people are so rich,” Warhol wrote of Trump and his wealthy pals at their first confab. “They talked about buying a building yesterday for $500 million or something.”
“They raved about the Balducci’s lunch, but they just picked at it,” he recalled of their meeting at the since-shuttered Manhattan gourmet market.
“I guess because they go around to so many things where there’s food. And they didn’t have drinks, they all just had Tabs,” he continued, referring to the popular diet pop of the 1980s.
“He’s a butch guy. Nothing was settled, but I’m going to do some paintings, anyway, and show them to them,” Warhol concluded in his notes.
Trump ultimately decided to hire Warhol, so the artist visited his office to photograph the model of what Trump Tower would look like once completed.
He painted two different sets of the paintings, which he called “New York Skyscrapers” — four in gold and four in silver, intending to sell each set for $100,000, Balet told the outlet.
Warhol attempted to capture the modernity and glamor of the building with black, silver and gold hues — even coating the surface with “diamond dust” and sprinkling ground glass onto the wet paint, according to the auction house.
However, when Mr. and Mrs. Trump visited Warhol’s Factory, they were disappointed with the lack of color coordination. They decided not to purchase the paintings and never paid Warhol for his work.
“The Trumps came down … I showed them the paintings of the Trump Tower that I’d done. … [I]t was a mistake to do so many, I think it confused them,” Warhol wrote in Aug. 1981.
“I think Trump’s sort of cheap, though, I get that feeling,” Warhol went on. “And Marc Balet who set up the whole thing was sort of shocked.”
Balet claimed that the paintings were turned down because they were not up to snuff for the Trump standards.
“So then Andy took it out on me,” Balet told Gothamist. “He was furious that he did work for nothing and was super angry with me, and then he got over it.”
But Warhol appeared to hold his grudge against the Trumps for years.
When he ran into Ivana in Feb. 1983 at a birthday party for the infamous attorney Roy Cohn, the socialite appeared embarrassed when she saw the artist, and asked what had happened with the portraits.
“I had this speech in my mind of telling her off, and I was undecided whether to let her have it or not, and she was trying to get away and she did,” Warhol reportedly journaled.
A year later, when asked to judge cheerleading tryouts for Trump’s short-lived New Jersey Generals team, he recalled being deliberately late to stick it to the billionaire couple.
“I still hate the Trumps because they never bought the paintings I did of the Trump Tower,” he wrote at the time.
The six-figure price tag on the singular painting set to sell Tuesday could be worth even more than the auction house expected in light of the 2024 election, per Phillips auction house deputy chairman Robert Manley.
“I was speaking to a collector two weeks ago and his opinion was that if Trump lost, this would fail to sell and nobody would buy it, and if Trump would win, it would sell for a huge price,” Manley told Gothamist.
English (US)