A WORLD WITHOUT WARHOLS
by Charlie Finch



A few years after Andy died in 1987, whispers abounded that, if you visited a certain tavern in Hell’s Kitchen and asked the right bartender, you could purchase one of the silkscreens that Rupert Smith used to create many late Warhols, get your own squeegee and make "Andys" yourself. Allegedly Smith, dying of AIDS, felt embittered by his treatment by Warhol’s minions and sought revenge. I myself viewed a "Warhol" Last Supper in a basement on Bond Street in the early ‘90s, nearly buying it for a few hundred dollars, but I was outbid.

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