‘I Was Just Stunned. And Humbled’: In a New Book, Debbie Harry Reflects on the Time Andy Warhol Took Her Portrait

I’ve been thinking about Andy Warhol and what an impact he had
on my life. Andy was the master of blurring the line between art
and commerce. His art played with the conventions of
commerce—marketing, mass production, branding, popular culture,
advertising, celebrity. He also blurred the line between serious
and playful. He was very serious about his work, but he approached
it with a sense of humor. His work ethic was incredible. He would
wake up early every day and go to his studio and paint, break for
lunch, and work all afternoon—often spending hours on the
phone—then at night he would always go out and socialize. He went
everywhere. In fact, I first met him—and his dazzling
entourage—when I was waiting tables at Max’s. I admired Andy so
much. Like Andy, I felt the influence of Marcel Duchamp and a
kinship to Dada and Popism, which became foundational to what I was
creating.

To my amazement, we actually became acquainted. Chris [Stein] and I found ourselves on Andy’s invitation list. He would ask us to
dinner sometimes. He didn’t eat much; he’d often cover up his plate
with a napkin and take it with him and leave it on a ledge
somewhere for a hungry street person. Later on, he invited us to
his parties at the Factory on Union Square. Andy would invite all
kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds, uptown, downtown,
artists, socialites, eccentrics, you name it. Andy, in his way, was
very sociable and hung around with any-and everybody. One of his
great skills was that he was a very, very good listener. He would
sit there and suck all of it in. His curiosity was endless. He was
also extremely supportive of new artists. Chris and I adored
Andy—and to find out that he was a fan of ours was heavenly.

Andy put me on the cover of Interview magazine and he
threw a party for us at Studio 54 when “Heart of Glass” went to
number one in America. Now that we weren’t on the road, we had
gotten to know him a little, and the idea of Andy’s doing my
portrait came up; somewhere, at some point, Andy had remarked that
if he could have anyone else’s face, it would be mine.

How it worked was that first Andy took some photos of you. He
used one of those unique Big Shot Polaroid cameras that looked like
a shoebox with a lens on it. The Big Shot was designed for portrait
use only—and the quality of the shots was often striking. Perfect
for Andy. After taking the Polaroids, he would show them to us and
ask quietly—Andy was very soft-spoken—“Well, which one would you
like?” I saw a couple that I thought were good but I said, “That’s
really up to you.” He’s the artist; it seemed to be the safest
thing to have him choose. I’ve lived with that Andy Warhol portrait
for a long time now, so I’m much more used to it, but seeing all
these portraits of yourself for the first time, by an artist who
was so important to you, was startling. I guess I was just stunned.
And humbled. Over the years, Chris and I came across a lot of those
cameras from the early seventies and we would always buy them for
Andy. We’d find them in junk stores at around twenty-five cents a
pop. He’d always be very grateful. The portrait itself has taken on
a life of its own—reproduced countless times and exhibited in
numerous galleries worldwide. I still have that original Warhol. I
can’t imagine parting with it. Well, I will be parting with it
briefly next year, when I loan it to the Whitney for a
retrospective show of Andy’s work.

Later, Andy called and asked me to model for a portrait he was
going to create live, at Lincoln Center, as a promotion for the
Commodore Amiga computer. It was a pretty amazing event. They had a
full orchestra and a large board set up with a bunch of technicians
in lab coats. The techs programmed away with all the Warhol colors,
as Andy designed and painted my portrait. I hammed it up some for
the cameras, turning toward Andy, running my hand through my hair,
and asking in a suggestive Marilyn voice, “Are you ready to paint
me?” Andy was pretty hilarious in his usual flat-affect way, as he
sparred with the Commodore host.

I think there are only two copies of this computer-generated
Warhol in existence and I have one of them.

From Face It by Debbie Harry.
Copyright 2019 by Debbie Harry. Reprinted by permission
of Dey Street, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

The post ‘I Was Just Stunned. And Humbled’: In a New Book,
Debbie Harry Reflects on the Time Andy Warhol Took Her Portrait
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