WARHOL IN NEW YORK

The artist spent the prime years of his career in the Big Apple. Traces linger …

The Factory

Warhol’s famous studio had three Manhattan locations — of which the first, the so-called “Silver Factory”, where the walls were covered in tinfoil and silver paint, was probably the most revered. It occupied the fifth floor of a building at 231 East 47th Street in midtown, and was used by Warhol between 1962 and 1967. Alas, it was demolished soon afterwards — the spot is now the entrance to a car park.

Studio 54

Warhol was a regular guest at the nightclub which captured the disco explosion in New York. Opened in April 1977 by the entrepreneur Steve Rubell and the future hotelier Ian Schrager, its golden era — very much a time of sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll — lasted until February 1980, when it closed after its owners were convicted of tax evasion.

Its name echoes rather more loudly in history than in present-day reality. Although you still find a “Studio 54” at the same address, the building is now a theatre; the chic visitors — Mick Jagger, Debbie Harry, Grace Jones, Diana Ross — long gone to a different party.

The Museum of Modern Art

While the Andy Warhol Museum has the biggest selection of Warhol’s work, MOMA offers a fair tranche of his creativity in its permanent collection. These range from simple pencil sketches of the actor Roy Rogers finished in 1948 (soon after the artist’s arrival in the city) to a Double Elvis screen print (1963), which dovetails with the longer piece in Pittsburgh.

Where Andy ate

Serendipity 3, a coffee shop and bistro founded in 1954, used to attract a pre-fame Warhol who, legend has it, would pay with drawings rather than cash. Warhol was also fond of Mr Chow, a sophisticated Chinese restaurant. He immortalised Michael Chow, its owner and chef, in a 1981 screen-print portrait.