Last night we went over to the Glenn Horowitz Gallery where he was exhibiting and selling memorabilia and art belonging to Brigid Berlin, the Andy Warhol Factory member who appeared in some of his films and played an important part in the development of Interview magazine which was revolutionary at the time (early 70s).

Brigid’s father was Richard Berlin, the right hand man of William Randolph Hearst who was widely credited with having saved the then sinking Hearst empire after the “Chief’s” death in 1951, restoring it to a road where today, the family owned company has made the family even richer than the patriarch founder. Brigid’s mother “Honey” Berlin was a former Ziegfeld girl who after marriage integrated herself very stylishly into the New York smart set. So when daughter dear joined the Far Out (to put it mildly) Warhol Factory gang, things were not, shall we say “copasetic” around the Berlin mansions.

The collection on view at the Glenn Horowitz Bookshop are well worth the look (and maybe the purchase if you’re at all interested in the Life of Andy and his Factory). There are Polaroids Brigid took of Andy’s scar-crossed chest and stomach after the Valerie Soulanas attack as well as many of the Warhol people in their prime and some others too, including a photograph of an unrecognizable Dennis Hopper who forty years ago looked gaunt and Fonda-esque if you can believe it.

There is also a series of needlepoint pillows (Brigid is a compulsive needlepoint artist) that Brigid made for Dominick Dunne, referring to several of his famously covered trials – including Michael Jackson, Jon-Benet Ramsey and a combo of Saddam and Michael Jackson. There is also a needpoint covered fauteuil she did that is amazing. There are lots of diaries and books and one particular book that has an interesting beginning and a spectacular conclusion.

One wet and cold wintry day back in about 1969, Brigid was walking down Broadway around the Strand bookstore when she popped into a nearby bookshop and found a beautifully bound thick old book referred to as the Bible, containing entirely empty pages. So she bought the book and got into the habit of asking people to draw their portrait of a penis on each page. All kinds of people did, including Ned Rorem, Jane Fonda, Peter Fonda, Jean-Michel Basquiat,etc. She filled the book with the art-whim-porn and called it her “Cock Book.” Recently, going through her millions of boxes of memorabilia from those days, she realized that the book contained so many famous people including many artists, so she put it up for sale. And she sold it. For $175,000 to an artist – Richard Prince. A Warholian art story if there ever was one.

JH got a shot of Bob Colacello leaning over a display case reading something from one of Brigid’s books. Bob got his start with Warhol, working on the original Interview and now gives lectures called From Warhol to Reagan (in reference to his biography of the Reagans – Ron and Nancy). All these years later, despite his close association with Andy he remains amazed at the profound impact of the artist whom many regard as influential in the last part of the 20th century as Picasso was in the first half.

On our way out JH caught some of the Warholian personages including the Dupont twins, Richard and Robert, who are in New York for the Thanksgiving holiday; film director John Waters, and Ultra Violet, and two of Brigid’s young nieces. The influence of Andy Warhol on creative sensibilities is now deeply established. The Brigid Berlin collection has aged in that the papers have darkened or the images have faded some, time-worn in fact, but still contemporary in content as if they were made only yesterday.