ANTHONY D'OFFAY

By the time d'Offay was 25, he was already running a tiny gallery off Regent Street. In 1969, he moved to nearby Dering Street and, over the next three decades, worked with everyone from the British duo Gilbert and George and Lucian Freud to international superstars such as Jeff Koons. In 1986, he did a show with Warhol, shortly before the American artist's death. "Andy said, 'You think of a subject'," d'Offay recalls. "I commissioned him to do a series of self-portraits. Recently, important ones have cost up to $10 million. They were my idea." What was Warhol like? "Extremely shy, very monosyllabic. Everything was 'just great', but what he was actually thinking was difficult to gauge. The only time he really came alive was when he was taking someone's portrait with his Polaroid camera."

-The Independent
April 17 2009