Trump stiffed Andy Warhol who did several famous images of my kin, Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor. We share the same great grandfather, James Rosamond, who was the brother of Captain Samuel Rosamond, the Patriot. Liz would be happy to have known about her all American family who immigrated from Ireland. She did not know her cousin was the famous artist, Christine Rosamond Benton, who married into the Benton family of American artists. This history and genealogy was compiled by Jimmy (James) Rosamond, and myself after Christine and Liz, died.  Jimmy descends from James.

My late father and Trump are like twins. Vic hated art, but became a player and partner of Christine, as did Larry Chazen, a CEO of Noble Oil. Rick Perry is on the board of the pipe company that is fighting the Sioux. Chazen is a partner of the Getty oil family who own one of the largest art collections in the world. Trump owns no original art, and defunded the National Endowment of the Arts. Not since the Medicis and Habsburgs, have we seen such a cluster.

Warhol was fascinated with the rich, powerful, and famous. My family tie to Trump is thru art.  My credibility and stock – is thru the roof, thanks to Trump becoming President. This blog is a historic prophecy, and Bohemian archive. I prepared the way for the coming of Trump – the real Mad Man! If he had not been elected, then my family and ex-friends could go back to ignoring me. This an Cultural Reboot. Protestors are at our airports fighting for deportees and refugees. Christine’s place in the rea art world, has been secured. This is what she wanted. She headed a Women’s Movement in the 70s.

Here is Christine Rosamond’s ‘Denim and Silk’. She looks like Elfin Muse.

Trump and the extreme-right are going to do even more crazy and dangerous things. They are very destructive. Someday, this blog will be the stepping stones for the – return to sanity! It will be a famous art lesson for future generations who are making history in the streets! A new pertinence is being constructed before our eyes!

Trump is the No.1 enemy of art, and just about everything else. If he met Julia Childes, he would scarf down her food at the studio, then barf it out in the parking lot, making sure that was caught on film. In the  world according to Trump, most people are con-artists, fakes, crooked ‘The Enemy’. What he really thinks about evangelicals, is waiting in the wings. Trump is ‘The Lawnmower Man’. For this reason, I and may others, may not have anything to say because he is altering reality at an incredible rate. We find little time to do things that used to amuse us. Why go to a movie, when you got a marathon thriller on T.V. – for free! Trump is a great teacher! All the lessons I have been blogging, now make sense in every blatant action he takes. He is Trump College. Learn how to be a Bohemian by opposing him at every turn. Fight fire, with fire!

“Hell no! We won’t go!”

“I’ve always felt that a lot of modern art is a con, and that the most successful painters are often better salesmen and promoters than they are artists.”

This is to say, artists are like Trump, rather then like other artists. Trump is the artist’s, artist. There can only be one winner – and one Trump! He is not going to let anyone -play! He owns all the toys. Trump is…….The Supreme Creator! He only pretended he was going to let his daughter in, let her steer the ship of state. Ivanka has a minor collection of New York Artists. I will be contacting her.

Rosamond was more than a Popular Artist. Her images of Beautiful Liberated Women, were Protest Posters that millions of women hung on the walls of their abodes. My heart stood still as I beheld my new muses long eyelashes. Here is Simone Rosamond. She told me she got them from her mother.

The Rose of the World is our Lady Liberty that stands in New York Harbor holding up a light for the whole world to see these words, her words……..The Mother of Exiles!

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Jon Presco

President: Royal Rosamond Press

Copyright 2017

Besides being a Warhol muse, Elizabeth Taylor was the daughter of art dealer Francis Taylor, whose Beverly Hills Hotel gallery catered to old-time Hollywood collectors like Greta Garbo, Vincent Price, and James Mason. Liz herself became a substantial collector, owning works by Cézanne, van Gogh, Picasso, and Matisse. Francis launched his daughter’s collecting with a Frans Hals as a wedding gift for her first marriage (to Nicky Hilton). During Liz’s short marriage to Mike Todd (1957-8), the couple bought paintings by Degas, Vuillard, and Utrillo from Aly Khan for $71,428. “They’ll think I’m crazy when they hear about this in Hollywood,” Todd said. “Paying that much for pictures that don’t even move.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/23/womens-march-poster-munira-ahmed-shepard-fairey-interview

http://www.warholstars.org/1963.html

“There’s a certain amount of bravado in what I do these days, and part of that bravado is to make it look easy. That’s why I’ve often referred to business as being an art. I’ve always liked Andy Warhol’s statement that, ‘making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.’ I agree.” (Think Like a Champion, 57)

On April 24, 1981, Trump visited Warhol’s studio, known as “The Factory,” after a mutual colleague set up a business meeting. In his posthumous “The Andy Warhol Diaries,” the late artist wrote:

“He told Donald Trump that I should do a portrait of (Trump Tower) that would hang over the entrance to the residential part. …

“Donald Trump is really good-looking. … It was so strange, these people are so rich. They talked about buying a building yesterday for $500 million or something.”

Warhol notes that Trump’s party “didn’t have drinks,” and:

“He’s (Trump’s) a butch guy. Nothing was settled, but I’m going to do some paintings, anyway, and show them to them.”

Warhol ended up painting eight portraits, “in black and grey and silver which I thought would be so chic for the lobby. But it was a mistake to do so many, I think it confused them.”

Trump, Warhol wrote:

“Was very upset that it wasn’t color-coordinated. … They’re going to come down with swatches of material so I can do the paintings to match the pinks and oranges. I think Trump’s sort of cheap, though, I get that feeling.”

But Trump never purchased Warhol’s portraits and in his 1987 book “The Art of the Deal,” he may have alluded to why:

“I’ve always felt that a lot of modern art is a con, and that the most successful painters are often better salesmen and promoters than they are artists.”

Warhol echoed that in a way, as the artist liked to say, “Art is what you can get away with.” But Trump is as much an expert at self-branding as Warhol was. He commanded $2 billion worth of free media attention during the Republican primary.

Warhol nursed Trump’s slight of never purchasing his paintings for years. In January 1984, he showed up for a 12 noon meeting at Trump Tower two hours late, explaining, “this is because I still hate the Trumps.”

And driving past a Trump-owned skyscraper prompted this diary entry from May 1984:

“And I just hate the Trumps because they never bought my Trump Tower portraits. And I also hate them because the cabs on the upper level of their ugly Hyatt Hotel just back up traffic so badly around Grand Central now and it takes me so long to get home.”

But, in the same way, Trump compliments or calls out individual reporters covering his campaign, he flatters Warhol in two of his books, as The Andy Warhol Museum’s blog notes.

Warhol’s remark, “Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art,” comes from the 1975 book ”THE Philosophy of Andy Warhol.”

The line appears in the introduction to Trump’s “Think Like a Billionaire” and is referenced multiple times in “Think Like a Champion”:

“There’s a certain amount of bravado in what I do these days, and part of that bravado is to make it look easy. That’s why I’ve often referred to business as being an art.

“I’ve always liked Andy Warhol’s statement that, ‘making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.’ I agree.”

But politics is an art, as well, and Donald Trump is the middle of forging the future of it. His business, his reputation, and the future of the country rest on what he creates or, indeed, fails to.

Does the Internet need another blog post about Donald Trump? Probably not. But Andy Warhol always followed the headlines and depicted the trending topics of the time in his artwork. Warhol would take a famous face from newspapers and magazine covers that you were about to get sick of, and reproduce it dozens—if not hundreds—of times on his silkscreened canvases. So at The Warhol it seems fitting to offer insight on The Donald, a man who has been rich and famous since Warhol’s time.

Andy Warhol met Donald Trump and his first wife, Ivana, on multiple occasions. The first mention of Trump in The Andy Warhol Diaries is from February 22, 1981, when they attended the birthday party of infamous McCarthy-era attorney Roy Cohn. Two months later, on April 24, 1981, Trump visited Warhol’s Factory. They had a business meeting arranged by Marc Balet, the art director of Interview magazine for eleven years. Thus, the saga begins:

“Had to meet Donald Trump at the office. Marc Balet had set up this meeting. I keep forgetting that Marc gave up architecture to become an art director, but he still builds models at home, he told me. He’s designing a catalogue for all the stores in the atrium at the Trump Tower and he told Donald Trump that I should do a portrait of the building that would hang over the entrance to the residential part. […] It was so strange, these people are so rich. They talked about buying a building yesterday for $500 million or something. […] He’s a butch guy. Nothing was settled, but I’m going to do some paintings anyway, and show them to them.” (The Andy Warhol Diaries, 375–376)

A few weeks after that, Warhol and his assistant Christopher Makos met with Balet at Trump Tower, which was still under construction. Makos photographed the architectural models of the building; his photos were used as the source images for Warhol’s portrait of the tower. Warhol also created line drawings from tracing the photographs and burned them onto separate silkscreens. The result was a beautiful series of multilayered paintings in black, silver, and gold; some with a sprinkling of Warhol’s glittering diamond dust. Although the commission had not been officially settled, as the Trumps had not paid for any work, Warhol felt confident:

“Monday, June 1st, 1981
Marc’s arranged it so that the catalogue cover he’s designing will be my painting and then the Trumps would wind up with this painting of their building. It’s a great idea, isn’t it?” (The Andy Warhol Diaries, 386)

When the Trumps returned to the Factory on August 5, the deal didn’t go as expected:

“The Trumps came down. […] I showed them the paintings of the Trump Tower that I’d done. I don’t know why I did so many, I did eight. In black and grey and silver which I thought would be so chic for the lobby. But it was a mistake to do so many, I think it confused them. Mr. Trump was very upset that it wasn’t color-coordinated. They have Angelo Donghia doing the decorating so they’re going to come down with swatches of material so I can do the paintings to match the pinks and oranges. I think Trump’s sort of cheap, though, I get that feeling. And Marc Balet who set up the whole thing was sort of shocked. But maybe Mrs. Trump will think about a portrait because I let them see the portraits of Lynn Wyatt behind the building paintings, so maybe they’ll get the idea….” (The Andy Warhol Diaries, 398)

 

 

Warhol never did satisfy the Trumps. After this failed commission, Warhol expressed seeming resentment of the Trumps in his diaries for the next few years. The next Trump-related diary entry is from another birthday party for Roy Cohn on February 26, 1983:

“[…] And Ivana Trump was there and she came over and when she saw me she was embarrassed and she said, “Oh, whatever happened to those pictures?” and I had this speech in my mind of telling her off, and I was undecided whether to let her have it or not, and she was trying to get away and she did….” (The Andy Warhol Diaries, 487–488)

On November 30, 1983, Trump Tower opened to the public. The mixed-use skyscraper—comprised of apartments, offices, an atrium, and stores on the ground levels—has hosted an eclectic variety of events over the years. When Warhol was invited to judge cheerleading tryouts at Trump Tower on January 15, 1984, he complied:

“It was the first tryout, and I was supposed to be there at 12:00 but I took my time and went to church and finally moseyed over there around 2:00. This is because I still hate the Trumps because they never bought the paintings I did of the Trump Tower.” (The Andy Warhol Diaries, 549)

To make room for Trump Tower, a location of great significance in Warhol’s Pop art exhibition history—and also his pre-Pop work—had to be torn down: the Bonwit Teller Department Store. Warhol did many of the store’s huge window displays from the 1950s up to 1968. The most significant of these was that of April 1961, which included his earliest Pop paintings, reproducing popular culture images such as comics, a crossword, and advertisements.

On one occasion, driving by another Trump-owned skyscraper aroused this diary entry from May 2, 1984:

“And I just hate the Trumps because they never bought my Trump Tower portraits. And I also hate them because the cabs on the upper level of their ugly Hyatt Hotel just back up traffic so badly around Grand Central now and it takes me so long to get home.” (The Andy Warhol Diaries, 571)

Interestingly, Donald Trump has not publicly expressed any ill will toward Warhol. In fact he has quoted Warhol in two of his books. It’s actually the same quote; the line “Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.” from Warhol’s 1975 book, THE Philosophy of Andy Warhol, appears in the introduction to Trump’s Think Like a Billionaire and is referenced three separate times in his Think Like a Champion:

“There’s a certain amount of bravado in what I do these days, and part of that bravado is to make it look easy. That’s why I’ve often referred to business as being an art. I’ve always liked Andy Warhol’s statement that, ‘making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.’ I agree.” (Think Like a Champion, 57)

“We are all businessmen and women, whether you see it that way yet or not. If you like art and can’t make money at it, you eventually realize that everything is business, even your art. That’s why I like Warhol’s statement about good business being the best art. It’s a fact. That’s also another reason I see my business as an art and so I work at it passionately.” (Think Like a Champion, 86)

Perhaps Warhol would have written differently about Trump if the painting commission had worked out. Two of the Trump Tower portraits are now in The Warhol’s permanent collection. The rest of the paintings and drawings are scattered in galleries across the globe. Will Trump’s presidential campaign result in a new level of importance for these paintings?