We Gave a Party for the Gods (2014)

Cadmium Yellow Deep watercolour on paper. Signed by the artist on the verso.

John Giorno was a contemporary American poet and artist known for his aphoristic poems, silkscreens, and installation pieces. His text-based work and poetry took on issues of sexuality, death, psychedelic drugs, and his life in New York. “Every person can look back on their life and see a great opera,” he once reflected. Born on December 4, 1936 in New York, Giorno studied at Columbia University before briefly working as a stockbroker. In 1962, the aspiring poet met Andy Warhol during an opening at Stable Gallery in New York. The two became close friends and occasional lovers, with Giorno famously appearing nude in Warhol’s iconic film Sleep (1963). Over the following decades, he befriended and collaborated with a number of famous artist and poets, including John Ashbery, Laurie Anderson, Patti Smith, William S. Burroughs, and Robert Rauschenberg, among several others. Giorno died on October 11, 2019 at the age of 82.

His works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and the Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane, among others.

John Giorno’s work has been offered at auction multiple times, the record price being 75,600 USD for Life is a Killer, Black & Bluesold at Sotheby’s, New York in 2022.