'There was a magical chemistry between Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat'

As an exhibition of Andy Warhol's work takes place at the Hugh Lane in Dublin, his friend Vincent Fremont relates tales from the Factory and encounters with Bowie and others 

Vincent Fremont with one of the pieces in Andy Warhol Three Times Out, an exhibition at the Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin.  Picture: Naoise Culhane 

Andy Warhol was one of the most recognisable artists of the 20th century. A pale-faced enigma in designer glasses and an extraordinary succession of wigs, he first found success in New York in the early 1960s with his Pop Art paintings of the humblest of subjects; a collection of Campbell’s soup cans, in all 32 flavours.

Warhol’s subject matter soon extended to famous figures such as Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley, whose newspaper and publicity photographs he reproduced using screen printing, a technique associated with commercial art, and a lurid palette of colours.