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And when you ask Makos what it all adds up to, he shrugs, devilish grin intact. “I had the best fun of anyone.” Which may be the truest legacy of all. Because in the end, Makos didn’t just photograph the party—he was the party, a one-man bacchanal with a Nikon for a chalice, forever baptizing us in the holy sweat of the moment.

The Magic of the Image

Born in Lowell, Massachusetts, Christopher Makos grew up in California before moving to New York after high school. He later moved to Paris where he studied architecture and worked for a time as an apprentice to Man Ray. In 1969, he decided to return to New York to take up photography in a serious way, but this activity was very expensive at the time. Christopher Makos had to sell his images to be able to continue making them. Rolling Stone magazine was his first client.

He also organized his first exhibition, “Step On It”, at 492 Broome Street. He presented photographs spread out on the gallery floor, covered with sheets of Plexiglas – allowing visitors to literally walk on his photographs. Bob Colacello, at the time editor of Interview magazine, which was owned by Warhol, attended the exhibition and subsequently arranged for Christopher to meet Andy at Warhol’s Factory. This meeting allowed the photographer to join the Interview Magazine team. The latter, attracted by the fact that photography is faster than painting, explored this new medium thanks to Christopher Makos. On his side, he further developed his style, a mixture between art and photojournalism with a more graphic touch. 

The “king of Pop art” was one of Christopher Makos’s favorite subjects. “Andy just wanted to be pretty. He wanted to be one of the cool kids,” Makos told AIR MAIL. “He wanted to fit in, and he never considered himself attractive or handsome, or pretty, so in the case of the modeling, he was really great … you could see his naïveness in front of the camera

My desk is the center of my universe. It’s the heartbeat of where everything ultimately gets decided! It is where my past, my present, and the not-too-distant future collide—where the whole world can participate with what I do.

The photographer Christopher Makos and Andy Warhol were prolific collaborators before the latter’s death in 1987. They were close friends and admirers of each other’s work — Warhol learned his skills behind the camera from Christopher, and the two spent a decade or more together, in The Factory taking pictures, crossing continents, and meeting some of the most iconic artists of the era, like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring.

The Hiltons are coming to the Hamptons! No, not those Hiltons. (Although, Paris and Nikki have been known to summer Out East.) In this case, the anticipated arrival refers to photographers Christopher Makos and Paul Solberg, who collaborate as “The Hilton Brothers”–named in tribute to two Siamese twins on the 1930s vaudeville circuit.

"A career overview featuring mostly unseen work from every stage of the artist’s life. Dirty features a selection of 40 vintage photographs, collages, and assemblages that celebrate the daring, decadent, and delectable moments of life with equal panache.”

Кристофер Макос прославился еще в 1970-х годах своими фотографиями панк-сцены Нью-Йорка. После этого было знакомство с Энди Уорхолом, тусовки с Джоном Ленноном, Миком Джаггером и Дебби Харри, сотрудничество с Жан-Мишелем Баския и Китом Харингом. Макос был одним из тех, кто находился в самой гуще событий, — знакомство и дружба с главными людьми эпохи помогли ему сделать снимки, по которым теперь можно изучать историю.

Walter Hunt was an amazing tinkerer (improving the design of boot heels and shirt collars) and also terrible at business (helping invent the sewing machine and then failing to get paid properly until over two decades later).

With his ubiquitous presence on the New York cultural scene at parties, vernissages, retrospectives and fashion shows, Warhol shaped the relationship linking art, fashion and celebrities as we know it today.