New York City - Andy Warhol, Donald Rubin, Museums, and Cityscapes

Artwork and text by Maura Moynihan

When I moved to New York City in the early 1980s, I met Andy Warhol, who became my beloved friend and mentor. He made me an Interview Covergirl, and for years I worked with him at Interview Magazine and Andy Warhol’s TV. Andy was brilliant, witty, generous, and fiercely disciplined; he painted every day in his Union Square Studio, I often watched him working with Basquiat on their collaborative murals, and admired how he encouraged young painters, musicians, dancers, actors, he went to their exhibitions and performances and put them in Interview Magazine. He encouraged me to pursue the arts, and thanks to Andy, I composed several albums of music, filmed music videos and painted, in all the cities I lived in after I left New York: Bangkok, Delhi, and Kathmandu.

Andy’s Covergirl 1981 – a typical night with Andy started with an art exhibition, cocktails in a 5th Avenue penthouse with patrons of his portraits, followed by a Broadway show, the opera or ballet, dinner at Odeon or Mortimers, after hours with English rockers in a dive on Avenue A. He chronicled every evening with tapes and photographs, always picked up the tab and was the singularly original, hilarious, magnanimous life of the party.

Modeling creations from a friend’s Columbus Avenue boutique - George Balanchine & ballerinas - The Statue of Liberty – one night in New York City

I left New York in the early ’90s and returned in the 21st century. The art world wasn’t the same without Warhol, but New York is a treasure house of museums and I took refuge in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Frick, The Morgan Library, The Brooklyn Museum, and the splendid new 21st century museums, Neue Gallery and The Rubin Museum of Art.

Somewhere in Manhattan with Andy Warhol, at the Rubin Museum of Art with Don Rubin, who wears an antique Lhasa hat, brought from Tibet by Rupert Smith of Rupert Smith Textiles - https://rupertsmithtextiles.net/wangdenrugs/

New York visionary Donald Rubin, founder of the Rubin Museum of Art, where I had the great privilege of working with Donald for many years. During the years Donald built his company, he amassed a large and unique collection of Tibetan and Himalayan artworks. One day he walked past the elegant new Barney’s building on 17th Street and saw that it was for sale. Donald had an epiphany, bought the building, filled it with his collection, and created a great Asian art museum and New York cultural institution for the 21st century. 

The Rubin Museum partnered with many museums, and to this day I purchase annual museum memberships and spend weekends sketching and painting in New York galleries, where you can find the ancient medieval and modern: Egypt, Greece, Rome, India, China, Japan, Monet, Toulouse Lautrec, Rembrandt, Van Dyke, Tiepolo, Titian, Vermeer, Klimt, Mucha, and of course, Warhol. 

With Wow Khoman, my Bangkok sister, at the 2019 Warhol Whitney show  

Andy hosting my 25th birthday party in NYC - Dining with Andy and Cornelia.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, known to many as The Temple of Beauty and Wisdom, is filled with collections from all 5 continents. The Met staff helps artists with chairs and easels to paint in the galleries. Members can dip into the lounge for a drink and repast and browse through the library of exquisite art books from past exhibitions.  

In the past 3 years, I studied the Met’s Greek, Roman and modern European galleries and painted the myths and Gods of the Greco-Roman Pantheon.

Oedipus and the Sphinx, painted one evening at the Met

MINERVA – Roman Goddess of A Thousand Works, inspired by Gustav Klimt

MINERVA OMINA PARATUS – READY FOR ANYTHING - Divine protector Hercules, Ulysses, Perseus

MINVERA TUTOR ET ULTOR – To Protect and Avenge

ORPHEUS wanders the Earth in mourning for Eurydice

PARIS gives the Golden Apple to Venus/Kama, rejecting Athena/Dharma, and Juno/Artha, and brings ruin to Troy and Greece

The Ghost of Emperor Septimius Severus attacks his son Caracalla after the fratricide of Geta, after Jacques-Louis David

I miss the Warhol days when we could smoke in bars, I confess I am a clandestine part-time smoker, often when I’m working on painting series.

NYC 2023, contemplating the Palace of Zeus

Galatea and Venus at the Met

Rodin and Perseus at the Met

THE SYBIL SERIES – inspired by Daniel Chester French, Gustav Klimt and Alphonse Mucha

THE SYBILS

Walking home through Central Park after visiting the Met, Frick or Neue Gallery, I started painting watercolors of New York cityscapes.

Central Park West

Rainstorm on 59th Street

10th Avenue Sunset

Brooklyn across the East River

Warhol was never a smoker but most of the artists of his era had a pack of Dunhills or Djarams available. My preference was Indian bidis, which you can still purchase at certain delis in the East Village. I surrendered bidis in the late 20th century, but the scent ever conjures winter in New Delhi.

Central Park South

10th Avenue

West 67th Street

Park Avenue

Central Park after the snow

5th Avenue

My next mission: Catskill Landscapes

Woodstock nocturne

New York is filled with artists of every variety, especially makeup artists, without whom no photo shoot is complete.