Liza Minnelli

WALL LABEL: Andy Warhol and Photography: A Social Media, 2023

Warhol’s published diary for 17 February 1978 notes that ‘Liza came to the office today to have her portrait done’. ‘Liza’ was the actress and singer Liza Minnelli, who became an important member of Warhol’s inner circle in the late 1970s.

This Polaroid was one of many taken on the day of the photo shoot, for which Liza posed in several different outfits. In this image, she is dressed in her red-sequined Halston costume from the Broadway play The act.

Warhol’s grainy video Factory Diary from that day (on the adjacent wall) captures some of the costume changes and excitement of the day. Warhol remembered that the whole staff stopped work to watch her that day, as ‘whenever Liza walks into a room everything stops and people wait for the act to begin’.

Warhol selected one Polaroid from the day as the basis for his screenprinted portrait paintings of Minnelli, as well as for a small number of screenprints on paper (see adjacent work), and the cover of her record Liza Minnelli Live at Carnegie Hall.

Julie Robinson, Senior Curator, Prints, Drawings & Photographs