Warhol's deceit a 'black eye'

Joe Bauman and I saw the unmasking of Andy Warhol (Jan. 3) through different eyes. His eye was a sharply focused camera lens, mine the "black eye" given me by an artist who dipped his paint brush in deceit, not in solid colors.

I liked Bauman's story, even though it calls for a point of clarification. I learned at the informal post-show meal that Warhol was pulling a fast one. Years of careful practice and teaching of journalism had taught me to check out my source. Mine was Tony Smith, just starting a fine career as a member of the U.'s art faculty who had met the real Warhol in New York just a few months before. "This is not the same man," Tony whispered to me.

The next morning, I alerted my counterparts at three Western schools about Warhol's fraud. But it took me four months, countless phone calls and a trip to New York before his speakers' bureau confessed that Warhol had — they said — lied to them about his duplicity. As far as I'm concerned, any arts group can memorialize Andy Warhol whenever. I'll gladly send someone — openly — in my place.

Paul Cracroft

manager emeritus, Kingsbury Hall

Salt Lake City