Profession: curator

Koch, Ashbery and Mathews co-founded the magazine ‘Locus Solus’ with him. He and O’Hara shared an apartment, Auden employed him as a typist, and Ashbery collaborated on a novel with him. Ashbery was also a colleague working at ‘Art News’, as were Guest and Elaine de Kooning. Willem de Kooning and Fairfield Porter were among artists he became friends with through his activities as a critic, Porter (after a brief fling) becoming a lifelong friend. Schuyler lived in the Porters’ house as a guest for over a decade, following a breakdown; Myles later took care of him.

O’Hara met Gorey (a room-mate) and Ashbery while a student at Harvard. Koch, Schuyler and Guest were among the New York poets he mixed with. Rivers, his then lover, did drawings for his first volume of poetry; Krasner, Pollock, Rauschenberg, Johns, Porter, Katz, the de Koonings, Smith, Kline and Feldman were among other artists and musicians he knew socially, through his critical writings and his curatorial work at MoMA. He slighted and hurt Warhol. As well as Rivers, he collaborated with Hartigan (an intimate friend), Leslie and Brainard, and featured in work by Neel, Elaine de Kooning, Porter and Katz.