She was riveting to look at, a sprite of the zeitgeist, the living distillation of the over-amped vision of New York in the mid-sixties. Like many exotic creatures that Andy Warhol shed his light on, she initially bloomed - became the symbol for all that was hip and stylish - and just as quickly began to disintegrate. Told with unsparing candor, and with images that capture her at the peak of her Factory stardom, Edie Factory Girl is the short but enduring cultural story of Edie Sedgwick - releasing in time for the film of the same name starring Sienna Miller, and including rare photos of Miller as Edie.
David Dalton was just a teen when he became one of Warhol's first assistants, and was present for the arrival of Edie: witnessing her rise, her Factory superstardom, and subsequent unraveling. Like an anthropologist thrown together with a tribe of “wild” people, Nat Finkelstein entered the Factory just as Warhol was emerging as the supreme catalyst of the sixties. Among the freaky menagerie, Nat found Andy's misbegotten princess the most fascinating and enigmatic character of her time, and with a compassionate lens recorded her fragile, fleeting beauty. Edie Factory Girl is a privileged glimpse into Warhol's inner sanctum, via revealing interviews with intimates, friends, and scenesters, in which Edie orbits around the likes of Bob Dylan, Salvador Dali, Betsey Johnson, Lou Reed, Judy Garland, and many more, before departing as quickly as she came.
About the Author: Nat Finkelstein was born in Brooklyn in 1933. He studied photography under Alexey Brodovitch, the legendary art director of Harper's Bazaar, and worked as a photojournalist for the picture agency Black Star, reporting primarily on the political developments of the subculture of New York City. In 1964 he entered Andy Warhol's factory, where he participated as “court photographer” within the group for over two years, capturing remarkable images with his camera. Finkelstein's photography has been featured at the Whitney Museum and Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Palais des Arts and Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Tate Modern in London, among other institutions. His books include Andy Warhol: The Factory Years 1964–1967 (powerHouse Books, 2000), The Andy Warhol Index (Black Star, 1967), and Girlfriends (Art Limited, 1990). A highly-acclaimed photojournalist and video artist, he currently divides his time between New York and Amsterdam.
David Dalton is the author of more than fifteen books of biography, fiction, history, and essays, including A Year in the Life of Andy Warhol (Phaidon, 2004) and The Rolling Stones: The First Twenty Years (Random House, 1984). A former Rolling Stone writer, he has also worked as the writer on the autobiographies of Meatloaf and Marianne Faithfull.
