Kennedy: ‘With affection’

London, Aug. 21: A signed nude photograph of Jackie Kennedy Onassis has been found among Andy Warhol’s possessions.

The photo, which show the former First Lady skinny dipping, is signed: “For Andy, with enduring affection, Jackie Montauk” — a reference to the artist’s beach front estate in Montauk, on Long Island.

The revealing photograph was discovered by archivists sifting through 610 cardboard boxes, filing cabinets and a shipping container that belonged to the pop artist. Researchers working for the Andy Warhol Foundation have also found a piece of crusty wedding cake and $17,000 in cash in amongst the junk.

The archivists, hired with $600,000 from the Andy Warhol Foundation and several other smaller grants, have six years to comb through everything from taxi cab receipts to fan mail, meticulously cataloguing, photographing and, when possible, researching the often bizarre items before entering them into a database.

“He really didn’t like organisation and there would be several boxes going at a time,” says Matt Wrbican, who is overseeing the project. Now the spouses of the 19 heads of states and representatives of the EU coming to Pittsburgh in September for the Group of 20 global economic summit may also get a peek at the papers, stamps, photos and gifts that made up Warhol’s life. “I would like to give them a Warhol experience,” said Thomas Sokolowski, director of The Andy Warhol Museum.