John O’Hara Offers His View of F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Fitzgerald was a better just plain writer than all of us put together.”

JOHN O’HARA writing to JOHN STEINBECK,

as quoted in The Selected Letters of John O’Hara (1978)

F. Scott Fitzgerald Envisions The Great Gatsby

In a July 1922 letter to his editor Maxwell Perkins, F. Scott Fitzgerald expressed his vision for his new novel. “I want to write something new — something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned.” Over the next few years, Fitzgerald wrote numerous drafts of the book that is now widely considered the very best American novel — The Great Gatsby, originally published in 1925.

Liz Taylor Thank You Note to Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol created his now-famous portrait of Elizabeth Taylor in 1963, but it wasn’t until 14 years later that Liz received a copy. The courteous actress was quick to thank Warhol for the signed edition. When Taylor passed away in 2011 at age 79, The Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh installed at its entrance two of the many versions that Warhol created.

Silver Liz [Ferus Type], 1963
silkscreen ink, acrylic, and spray paint on linen
40 x 40 in. (101.6 x 101.6 cm.)
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.1998.1.55