The Factory

Andy Warhol was shot on June 3, 1968 by Valerie Solanas at his New York studio, the Factory. She was apparently mad at him because he didn’t like a script she had given him to read. It turns out she was pretty loopy, and Warhol was hurt pretty bad and almost died. In a way, the gunshot did eventually kill him; his death after a routine gallbladder surgery in 1987 might not have happened but for complications from the lasting damage of that gunshot wound.

Anywho, I was told by Grandpa’s cousin, Goti, that this print depicts the rooftop pool on that very building where Andy Warhol was shot. I cannot scienfically verify that to be true, but this is a fairly abstract print so I think we are entitled to stretch the truth if need be. Goti (Agathe Sorel, link to her work here) made this in 1966, and her artwork was all around my grandparents house growing up. When I got my first office after law school I wanted to decorate it with something from her, and fortunately she still had a copy of this one at her studio. I now work at a tech company with an open floor plan (shakes fist introvertedly) so the print hangs in my home office.