Here Is a Rare Andy Warhol of Senator Ted Kennedy
A glimpse of a Senator Ted Kennedy portrait by Andy Warhol sets Jack Yeaton on a years-long quest to obtain the piece for his home.
Photo by Sophie Adams
At a friend’s home more than a decade ago, Jack Yeaton came upon a framed portrait of Senator Edward Kennedy by Andy Warhol. “It was created in 1980 to raise funds for Teddy’s presidential campaign,” says Yeaton, who leads creative and marketing for Jamestown’s New England holdings, which includes the Boston Design Center. The depiction of Kennedy comes from a Polaroid taken by Warhol and is one of 300 signed and numbered prints made as gifts to Democratic Party donors. Warhol, who was vastly interested in political figures and was doubly interested in the Kennedy family, made another print of the Massachusetts politician, as well as a portfolio of the death of John F. Kennedy along with a Jacqueline Kennedy series.
“I just loved it. From that moment on, I kept chasing it down,” Yeaton recalls. He was still searching in 2020 when he discovered that a gallery in Georgetown had one of the prints for sale. “I went back and forth with the gallery owner on the price, but it was early in the pandemic when we thought the world was going to end, and I kept thinking I was going to get a better deal,” says Yeaton, who lost out on the piece. His luck changed in 2023 when another print, number 18, came up for sale in London. This time, a deal was quickly brokered.
The piece now hangs above the fireplace in Yeaton’s Beacon Hill living room. “I love Warhol’s work; all of his pieces are so iconic,” he notes. “They evoke conversation, whether from a color story, a political story, or a moment in time; his work gets people talking.” Having Teddy, known as the “Lion of the Senate,” come back to Beacon Hill where he spent more than 40 years as a legislator, is a story in itself, says Yeaton. “The Kennedy storyline is so woven into this state, conversation always ensues when people notice the piece, and that’s a really fun part about it.” The other aspect, he continues, is that he feels a personal connection to the print. “When it comes to art, we should acquire things we love.”
First published in the print edition of Boston Home’s Fall 2024 issue, with the headline, “Political Power.”
