by Art Chantry (art@artchantry.com)
my old pal, nathan gluck, was a man of many wonders. one of the more intriguing aspects to his long life was the odd fact that, back in the 1950′s, he worked as a young andrew warhola’s in-house graphic designer. this was back when andy was ‘merely’ a commercial artist/illustrator. in fact, his great genius seems to be so rooted in his commercial experience, that it seems he gained fame from simply ‘sidestepping’ into the ‘fine art world. he dragged along all of his learned work habits and ‘the factory’ was, in reality, a simple design studio. he sort of revived the concept of the ‘artist’s studio’ (a standard throughout the history of art that had been lost in the modern era) and re-introduced it to the modern art world. in that process, he rather wiped out the notion of the “lone gunman” artist, the great genius in the gable, etc. etc. now, all fine art is created by studio employees and the name on the door goes on the final piece – just like a graphic design studio.
---AC:i actually MET andy warhol once. i was hanging out in london (o fall places) and noticed a huge line of weird looking people (this was about 1980) streaming into a book store. i asked what was going on, and i was told that warhol was doing a book signing. so, i got in line. i had to think of something for him to sign in the meantime. an hour or more later, i meet the guy face to face. he looked up into my eyes and said in an incredibly soft voice, "what do you want me to sign?" i took off my old ww2 bomber jacket a(which had a white quilted lining in it) and spread it out on the table and said, "sign it here, as big and sloppy as you want." then he asked , in the same soft quiet voice, "what do you want it to say? " i said i didn't care. so, he drew a big heart with an arrow through it and signed it big and sloppy. it covered the whole inside lining. i wore that jacket for years, until the autograph and the drawing had started to fade away. eventually, i gave that coat to my (then) girlfriend, ashleigh talbot. she gave it away to somebody else when we split up. so, i assume it's gone now. i imagine it's completely faded away by now.
sadly, one of the things that andy didn’t drag over into in his new career was nathan. for a long time nathan ran warhol’s ‘commercial art’ studio while andy played the fine artist. but, in time, andy closed his old studio and nathan was sent packing. they rarely saw each other again.
the reasons were fairly simple and complex at the same time. to begin with, nathan was an old school closeted gay man who frankly, didn’t feel comfortable in a public exposure to his private life until he was in his late 70′s. when he came out, everybody said, DUH! (total anticlimax).
nathan was old school enough that he didn’t really approve of the crowd that andy was surrounding himself with at the factory. nathan felt extremely uncomfortable there – especially with all the drug use. he thought of that crowd as a sort of lowlife trash that andy shouldn’t really be associating with them.
Warhol Factory. 1963. photo Dennis Hopper. Read More:http://ifitshipitshere.blogspot.com/2010/05/dennis-hopper-behind-camera-and-canvas.html
the other, more subtle side of the reason behind the split is that often, when a mentor and student part ways (nathan taught andy many many commercial design techniques (including silkscreen) and also was responsible for the physical creation of much of the work that came out of the studio – in fact many of the things and pieces that are credited to andy’s ‘genius’ and development are actually solely the work of nathan. like i said, that’s the way a commercial art studio works.
what often happens (as i’ve experienced first hand) is that when you mentor (or are mentored) by somebody and the time comes to leave each other’s influence, there is a split that happens that becomes a chasm. the mentor/student relationship is so large of a power differential, that it becomes almost impossible to bridge the gap and become friends. it’s very hard. i think this is part of what happened to andy and nathan. as andy grew away, he found it increasingly difficult to acknowledge his debt to nathan and found it easier to avoid him. happens all the time. it’s not a condemnation of andy, but an accurate description of what happens when a mentor and student part. commonplace.
this photo was taken by a friend of nathan’s and andy’s . sadly, i’ve forgotten his name. he died very young (a suicide, if i remember correctly). nathan had a number of really wonderful prints the guy had given him – nathan alone, nathan with andy, other faces from that period of his life. they were quite good and never published anywhere. three handsome young men hanging out in nyc in the mi
fties. i hope somewhere the stash of images was preserved and will get published. the photographer was extremely talented and his work right at the cutting edge of photography of the era.
this is a photocopy of a print. it’s all i have (save a couple of nathan.) it shows a very young commercial artist/illustrator named ‘andy warhol’. it think it’s one of the finest photos of him ever taken. but, then, i have my prejudices…
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