On June 3, 1968, Valerie Solanas walked into Andy Warhol’s studio, the Factory, with a gun and a plan to enact vengeance. What happened next came to define her life and legacy: She fired at Warhol, nearly killing him. She then turned herself in to the police.
Solanas was charged with attempted murder, assault, and illegal possession of a firearm. She was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and pleaded guilty to “reckless assault with intent to harm,” serving a three-year prison sentence, including treatment in a psychiatric hospital.
The incident reduced her to a tabloid headline, but also drew attention to her writing, which is still read in some women’s and gender studies courses today. After her release, she continued to promote the SCUM Manifesto.
For now, given the extent of his wounds, the artist’s survival was yet another example of the uncanny luck of the Warhols. Medically speaking, at least, he was in the right place at the right time. These four 1969 selfies of the post-shooting artist from his nearly death at the hands of Valerie Solanas:
(Images © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.)
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