Folk of Genius: The 5 unusual habits of Andy Warhol

Eccentricity and genius go hand in hand. Research suggests that peculiar habits are side-effects of the kind of clever thinking that gets results. As artistic oomph goes, one of the twentieth century greats is Andy Warhol. He was the mop-headed Pop Art supremo who screen-printed his way into every student bedroom in the Western world.

Beyond the art, Warhol maintained a series of specific and unusual habits. These behaviours defined his daily life and his legacy.

The trash man

Warhol was the undisputed king of the pack-rats. He collected airplane menus, unpaid invoices, pizza dough, pornographic pulp novels, newspapers, stamps, supermarket flyers and cookie jars.

He filled his four-storey townhouse and a nearby storage unit with what his friends referred to as Andy’s Stuff. The true extent of the collection was not discovered until after his death. The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh now holds 641 boxes of this material, known as Warhol’s Time Capsules. It is a valuable archive. He never decluttered.

Big wig

Warhol’s iconic hair was not his own. He owned over forty wigs. A New York wig-maker sewed them from hair imported from Italy. In 1985, a girl snatched off his wig at a book-signing. Warhol noted in his diary that he did not know what held him back from pushing her over the balcony.

Feet first

Warhol had a foot fetish. The Time Capsules contained many drawings of feet and shoes. They also contained a mummified human foot from Ancient Egypt. The curator of anthropology at Carnegie Museum of Natural History believes he bought it at a flea market.

Living on a prayer

Warhol was a practising Byzantine Catholic. This was a rare commitment in his social circles. In 1980, he had an audience with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican. When he became interested in crystal healing, he worried about how it might conflict with his religious faith.