Photo By Gail

For almost two decades, beginning in 1952, Julia Warhola managed her son Andy Warhol’s New York home, cooking and cleaning, making donations to churches, and contributing to his commercial work with her award-winning penmanship. By 1971, in poor health, Julia returned to  Pittsburgh, where she passed away the following year.

Warhol kept his mother’s death to himself, but confesses in his diaries, “At Christmas time I really think about my mother and if I did the right thing sending her back to Pittsburgh. I still feel so guilty.”

In 1974, he created nine posthumous portraits of Julia based on a photograph by Edward Wallowitch, acclaimed photographer and one of Andy’s first boyfriends. These images feature the same technique used in Warhol’s lucrative portrait commissions.

Photographed in the Brooklyn Museum.