Prints gifted by Warhol to the surgeon who saved his life

Key Highlights

• On 3 June 1968 Andy Warhol survived a shooting thanks to emergency surgery led by Dr Giuseppe Rossi at Columbus Hospital in New York.
• Warhol thanked Dr Rossi with Marilyn screenprints from 1967 and Campbell’s Soup works that stayed with the Rossi family for decades.
• Six Marilyn screenprints from 1967 will be offered at Christie’s Prints and Multiples auction in New York on 14–15 April 2026.
• The Rossi family initially assumed the works were posters before realising they were original screenprints.
• Warhol stayed in touch with the Rossis, sending gifts and welcoming their son to the Factory.

A near-fatal afternoon in New York

On 3 June 1968 a gunshot victim was rushed into the Emergency Room at Columbus Hospital and declared clinically dead at 4.51 p.m., with three bullets in his chest and stomach. The surgeon on duty was Dr Giuseppe Rossi, a chest and vascular specialist described by his son Roberto as a “go-to person for gunshot wounds”, who only later learned the patient was Andy Warhol, shot earlier that day at his studio by Valerie Solanas.

Believing the man on the stretcher to be an older local resident, Rossi began treatment in the elevator and went straight to the operating theatre. Over more than five hours he opened the chest, massaged the heart, removed a shattered spleen and part of a punctured lung, and authorised a transfusion of 12 units of blood.

From medical drama to gifted prints

During his convalescence Warhol thanked Dr Rossi by sending Marilyn screenprints from 1967 and a full set of Campbell’s Soup prints. At first the Rossis saw them as images from a grateful patient rather than as works with market significance.

Gemma remembers Campbell’s Soup prints arriving in large boxes she assumed were posters and stored under the bed until redecoration prompted her to reopen them. Friends sometimes asked for a “Campbell’s Soup poster”, unaware they were original screenprints, and Gemma refused to part with them.

As awareness of Warhol’s market grew, the Marilyns and Campbell’s Soup cans moved from storage to the walls, still linked in the family’s mind to the operation rather than to collecting strategy. The group of six Marilyn screenprints from 1967 that Warhol sent in gratitude is being offered in Christie’s Prints and Multiples auction in New York on 14–15 April 2026.

Enduring ties between artist and surgeon

The relationship between artist and surgeon continued after the operation. Warhol returned to Dr Rossi’s office for check-ups, and each Christmas sent flowers, champagne or liquor with a card and “many thanks”.

As a child, Roberto visited the Factory to interview Warhol for his school newspaper; Warhol shook hands with the children, answered their questions and “was very gracious”. Years later, in what Roberto believes was 1984, he visited Warhol again while uncertain about his own path, passing through an office overseen by a golden-haired man he thinks was Fred Hughes before entering a corner office where Warhol sat and Jean-Michel Basquiat was a quiet presence.

When Warhol later went into hospital for the last operation before his death, Gemma recalls that he asked for Dr Rossi, but the Rossis were away. While sorting files, Dr Rossi found a $1,000 cheque signed by Warhol that had bounced and been returned by the bank, which Gemma framed as a modest relic of their friendship and of the episode that linked their lives.

Why it matters

For collectors in the GCC, these Marilyn screenprints offer visual impact supported by provenance directly from the surgeon who saved Warhol’s life. Rooted in a narrative of survival, gratitude and long-term friendship, they align with a regional focus on cultural significance and on the integrity of the stories behind major acquisitions.

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