Along with her paintings, there were also personal photos, letters and newspaper clippings that Lois had saved over the years. Lois even wrote a book, My Life at Grey Gardens: 13 Months and Beyond, "a true and factual book" based on the journals she kept, chronicling events there, as well as Big Edie's death.

The show was held at The National Arts Club in NYC. The minute I walked in, and saw this painting…

I recognized the handwriting immediately from a sign in the house, seen in the documentary.

I'd always assumed that Edie wrote that herself.

Being a huge fan of not only the original documentary, but of everything involving the lives of Big and Little Edie, I was totally excited to see these paintings and memorabilia. Particularly when I finally got to see a painting of Tom Logan (whom Little Edie refers to as "T. Logan" in the film). He lived at Grey Gardens and is mentioned often in the documentary, but the role he played in their lives was never recreated in the movie or musical versions.

There was also a fan (literally, not the girl standing next to it) there that was in the house, that Lois had painted on.

Some more work:

And a self-portrait of the artist as a young girl:

On the invitation, attendees were asked to dress as a character from Grey Gardens.

This is Celia Maysles, the daughter of one of the filmmakers of Grey Gardens, who co-curated the show.

This woman was my favorite:

I don't know what her name is or how she was affiliated with all of this, but she told me just about everything else, including details on her most recent knitting project, how she hated living in New Jersey, how she's a lawyer, how she doesn't know how to type, how she hates her Blackberry and raccoons, how long she's had to sit in traffic for various trips to the city from Long Island, and how her grandson's mock trial team finished second in the state.

The woman on the right is Ann Derby, Little Edie's cousin on her father's side.

She came up from Birmingham just for the exhibit. I asked her if she ever spent any time at Grey Gardens, and she said, "Yes it was beautiful. They had a luncheon for me there." I asked her what year that was, thinking it must've been sometime in the early '40s, and she replied, "Two years ago." I then asked if she ever spent time there when she was a child, and she shook her head no.

Lois also created a collage of clippings and personal photos.

I love how pissed off Little Edie looks in this picture.

There were newspaper clippings of Big Edie's funeral. Little Edie sang at the ceremony.

There were also personal letters from Little Edie to Lois, circa 1980, after she had moved out of Grey Gardens. True to form, her handwriting is intense, dramatic, beautiful, and difficult to read. (I've transcribed them below.)

Dear Lois,

No one seems to have gotten my letters—did the one I wrote you go [?]? I hung your three seascapes the other night and immediately felt better—so did the cats who stopped being home sick for Long Island! That boy that drove me down to my nephew's wedding was an [?] but never told me—you saw it in his palm. I found out afterwards—amazing. The wedding made me miss mother terribly. I was so tired from moving to N.Y. don't yet see how I made it! I sang "Toujours L'Amour" to the bride and groom as they cut the wedding cake. She is a German Catholic and ten years younger than Bouvier Beale Jr. They met out in San Francisco a year ago. Love at first sight! N.Y.C. is tough to live in—so many people—like an [?] city. I talked to Nancy T. yesterday. She and Jackie are coming over (or so they say).

Page II

Jackie never got my letter Nancy said. I wrote her before I left. Also {Michelle?} Putnam who never got hers! I can't say the relatives are overjoyed I am now living in the big city! But I managed to stay alive and will live where I please! Many complications to be ironed out. I will be busy the rest of my life with everything! I heard it will be very cold this winter and then read an article in the Times that said there will be no winter at all! More Cubans hit Key West and Miami and I decided not to go to Florida. No place like Montauk. I don't have a minute to go anywhere yet.

Love,
Edie

P.S. I thought you looked very well!

Here is the artist, Lois Wright, posing with me.

I showed her the Little Edie tapestry I created and have been working on. It's not yet finished, but she told me she liked it. She also told me she hates sewing.

Lois appeared briefly—during the birthday scene—in Grey Gardens.

She—and her paintings—are featured much more in The Beales of Grey Gardens, released by the Maysles in 2006.

Big Edie died in 1977, and shortly after, Little Edie put the estate on the market for $220,000. She turned down many offers, and finally sold it to journalists Sally Quinn and Benjamin Bradlee on the condition that they not tear the house down, and instead, restore it to its original condition. Mr. Bradlee said, "I wasn't sure I wanted to buy the house. There were 52 dead cats in it, and funeral arrangements had to be made for each one." (You can see what the grounds look like now, here.)

Inside Grey Gardens [NYT]
Secret Gardener [NYT]

Aside from the Edies' banter, the two aspects of the film that are most memorable are the Grey Gardens home itself, and Little Edie's fashion sense. In this clip, roduction and costume designers explain how they so accurately recreated the line between the past and the present.

Constructing turbans out of fabric and brooches was Edie's signature.

The costume designer on the film took great pains to exactly replicate some of Edie's outfits. (More on that, here.)

But even before she lost her hair, she was into hoods and hats.

She probably got this from her mother.

Even her younger brothers enjoyed ladies hats.

But that's probably because the parties that Mrs. Beale threw at Grey Gardens while Mr. Beale was working weren't confined by gender roles.

Or heterosexuality.

Speaking of coming out, Little Edie debuted in this dress.

The purpose of her debutante ball was to start the search for a husband. But Little Edie didn't ever want to get married. She said, "All I want in life is a dance partner."

Ultimately, her only dance partner would be her mother.

Way back when, her mother had a music partner: Mr. Gould. But Little Edie insisted that he didn't "satisfy her sexually." He was gay, so she was probably right.

Before she moved back to Grey Gardens, Little Edie spent a few years in New York City, modeling and trying to make it as an actress.

It would depress her when she was forced to return to East Hampton.

But she never let that reflect in her garments.

Big Edie, however, took to muumuus.

Little Edie thought she was the cat's pajamas in this.

Cats' poop, however, is not as fashionable.

After her mother died, Little Edie finally got to realize her dream of having a night club act.

But we still like thinking of the two of them together.

Related: 'Grey Gardens': It's Style, Darlings [LA Times]

Almost everything uttered by the mother and daughter in the Maysles' 1975 documentary, on which HBO's film is based, is quotable, but much of it came off as the delusional ramblings of two women suffering from folie à deux. But by digging into their backgrounds in the new film (starring Jessica Lange and a lispless Drew Barrymore), their motivations and bon mots become much clearer, and often brilliant. Like when Little Edie said, "The hallmark of aristocracy is responsibility." Her parents were pressuring her to get married, as soon as she turned 18, to a man who could secure her future and provide her with the same kind of lifestyle in which she'd been raised. Her father Phelan told her mother that marrying off Little Edie was her job and her "sole responsibility."

Little Edie had a pipe dream of entering show business and didn't want her ambitions to be stifled by marriage and children, the way that her mother's were. However, Big Edie's philosophy on life was a little shrewder, essentially telling Little Edie to marry for money, which will give her the freedom to do whatever she wants. This shed a whole new light on the conversation the two had in the documentary, in which Big Edie told her daughter that she's "not free if [she's] being supported, to which Little Edie replied, "I thought you said you're not free when you're not being supported."

The film shows how and why Little Edie gave up her life in Manhattan (which included an affair with married man Julius Krug, Secretary of the Interior, played by an aptly cast, bloated Daniel Baldwin) to live with her mother at Grey Gardens, as well as the breakup of Phelan and Big Edie's marriage of convenience, a situation that became increasingly inconvenient for Big Edie when she refused to scale back her lifestyle and burned through her Bouvier inheritance. She and Phelan never legally divorced — although he did eventually get a "fake Mexican divorce" — and Big Edie lived off the meager $150 allowance her ex-husband provided for her until his death, when all of his money was left to his "new fake wife."

The Beales' lack of financial stability was evident in the documentary, but no one really knew why they didn't just sell their massive East Hampton estate, as the land alone would've provided plenty of money for them to live comfortably. Here, Big Edie explains her reasoning, when her sons are pleading with her to be more financially responsible in the wake of Phelan's death.

After the county raided their home, Jackie O (Little Edie's first cousin and Big Edie's niece) finally stepped up to the plate and paid for cleanup and renovations to the dilapidated mansion. The relationship between Jackie and Little Edie was a tense one, due to Edie's jealousy over Jackie's celebrity. Her acrimony toward Jackie (played by dead-ringer Jeanne Tripplehorn) is seen here:

Perhaps the biggest question fans of the documentary have had is "What the fuck happened to Little Edie's hair?" It turns out that she had some kind of anxiety condition since she was young, which caused her hair to fall out. After her father died, she was left bald.

The best part about HBO's Grey Gardens is that — like the documentary — it shows these women to be nonconformists who would rather cut themselves off from society, than have to give in to its rules. They'd rather forfeit luxury than their dreams, even if it meant that they were just dreamers living in squalor. Finally getting to see the limited choices that life presented to them, their eccentricities now seem seem relatively sane.

It was also fun to see recreations of how the infamous estate looked before they let it go to pot.

And of course, there are plenty of Little Edie's fashions on display. (A gallery of Grey Gardens fashion is coming tomorrow.) And while this isn't the most revolutionary costume, I think it's the best costume for the day, you understand.

[Images via AP]

Earlier: Retro Fashion: Edie Beale On The "Best Costume For The Day"