Andy Warhol at Gristede’s on 2nd Avenue in New York City, taken by Bob Adelman for Esquire, 1964.
“When I photographed Andy for Esquire, I’d only been making a living as a professional photographer for a year or two. I took him into Gristede’s on 47th & 2nd Avenue, this tiny bodega around the corner from the silver studio, his first Factory. It was not a large supermarket. It was poorly lit with fluorescent lights. I asked Andy to fill up the cart with his things. He walked around [picking up Campbell’s soup cans and Brillo boxes| saying, ‘Beautiful... beautiful!’ in this grim place. I guess he was putting me on.
“As a journalist, I’d wander over to The Factory and hang out there. It was the Sixties and people were off the charts. I went to parties with Andy. I have like 50-60 rolls of him, mostly candids. Andy’s first studio was a big loft, a big workplace with silver foil on the walls to give it the allure of glamour. I photographed Andy and Gerard, his assistant, in the silver bathroom. I don’t think there was anything going on [between them]; Gerard was heterosexual.
“I first met Andy in the Sixties at Leo Castelli’s townhouse apartment on Madison & 78th, when Leo was selling art on the first floor. I lived on 72nd. Leo had openings on Saturday afternoons and all sorts of people would turn up, especially his artists. I saw Andy’s importance immediately, but I never found him someone who magnetized me. He seemed like a very strange human being.” — Bob Adelman via “Warhol: Dylan to Duchamp.”
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