On the 25th anniversary of his death, Stylist examines the iconic artist’s complicated relationship with the opposite sex.

Words: Terri White

Additional Interviews: Mark Smith, Jo Usmar

She had been waiting for him on the north side of New York’s Union Square for three hours. When he arrived, they travelled up to his studio in the elevator. While he took a phone call from a friend, she slipped a gun out of a brown paper bag and, as he shouted “Valerie, don’t do it! No! No!”, fired three shots. One bullet hit him in the chest, causing near-fatal internal injuries. When arrested, she said that he “had too much control over my life… He had me tied up lock, stock and barrel.” The bloodied man was the 39-year-old father of Pop Art, Andy Warhol. The woman with the gun: radical feminist and writer Valerie Solanas. They’d had a dispute over a script.

Fortunately, Warhol survived the attack, but this violent episode, on 3 June 1968, has been seized upon by some as proof that the artist was a misogynist, a manipulator, controller and destroyer of the women who surrounded him. But he is also undoubtedly the creator of some of the most iconic, enduring images of femininity in history. According to those Stylist interviewed for this feature, he was also a good man and a great friend. So what is the truth about Andy Warhol’s complex relationship with women?

Twenty five years after his death, Warhol is one of the world’s most famous artists – not to mention the most lucrative, with his work accounting for one-sixth of all contemporary art sales. He was the father of the Factory, a studio populated by his ‘superstars’: a motley crew of intellectuals, drag queens, actresses, models, writers, socialites and artists. From there he produced films, paintings, scripts, photographs and even started a magazine, Interview, in 1969. He was fascinated by the concept of celebrity, long before such a thing really existed. In fact, he began collecting the autographs of Hollywood stars in his early childhood. His idea of a good picture was “one that’s in focus and of a famous person,” and he memorably said that “in the future, everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes”.

Pop Art (broadly defined as popular culture presented in an impersonal way) was his movement and Warhol’s subjects were diverse - they ranged from monarchs to movie stars but he was equally obsessed with iconic brands including Coca-Cola, Campbell’s Soup and cold, hard cash. “I’d asked around 10 or 15 people for suggestions. Finally one lady friend asked the right question, ‘Well, what do you love most?’ That’s how I started painting money,” he once said.

Warhol and his Women