One of Andy Warhol’s iconic 1964 Marilyn Monroe stencils, “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn,” will sell at Christie’s Rockefeller Center for a record starting price of $200 million.
An unbelievably high asking price, which will simply cause bidding to begin before buyers raise their bids, puts the artwork among the best-selling artworks of all time. Warhol’s best-selling work, “Silver Crash (Double Crash)”, was auctioned nine years ago at Sotheby’s in London for $117.1 million.
According to The Wall Street Journal, hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin paid the Si Newhouse estate at least $200 million for an orange version of Marilyn Shot—ten print versions in total, all in different colors. , such as sage blue, blue, orange, red, and teal.
Greek shipping magnate Philip Niarchos won the red version at a $3.6 million auction in 1994, during a downturn in the art market. However, in 2007, Chicago collector Stefan Edlis sold his turquoise print for $80 million. Newspaper executive Peter Grant paid only $5,000 for the blue version in 1967.
The three-foot print was inspired by a publicity photo of Monroe from the 1953 film noir thriller Niagara. Warhol reimagined the black-and-white headshot by painting the actress striking blue eyeshadow, ruby red lips, and a bubblegum-colored face that contrasts with the engraving’s dark blue background.
Legendary American pop artist Andy Warhol is pictured in front of two of his “Marilyn Shot” prints at the Tate Gallery in Millbank in 1987. asking price $200 million
Andy Warhol’s iconic 1964 silkscreen of Marilyn Monroe’s “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn” will be auctioned at Christie’s at Rockefeller Center for a record $200 million reserve price.
The most expensive painting ever sold, Leonardo da Vinci’s The Savior of the World, was also auctioned at Christie’s. In 2017, Badr bin Abdullah Al Saud purchased a piece written in the 1500s for an unfathomable sum of $475.4 million, according to The Wall Street Journal.
For reference, this work had an estimated price tag of $100 million—half that of Shot Sage Blue Marilyn—meaning that Warhol’s engraving could end up eclipsing it.
The three-foot print was inspired by a publicity photo of Monroe from the 1953 film noir thriller Niagara. Warhol reimagined the black-and-white head shot, painting the actress with striking blue eyeshadow, ruby red lips and a bubblegum face that contrasts with the reproduction’s sage-blue background.
The name of the painting appeared after a visitor to the Warhol studio, artist Dorothy Podber, allegedly shot at a stack of paintings in 1964.
Podber famously asked Warhol if she could “take off” a stack of Marilyn paintings – the artist suggested she intended to photograph them. Instead, she drew her gun and fired at the East 47th Street studio, damaging the red and blue versions of the print that Warhol had fixed after he kicked Podbear out.
Monroe died of a drug overdose in 1966, two years after the prints were made. She was 36 years old and Warhol’s imagery helped cement her place as a pop culture icon.
Warhol’s best-selling work, Silver Crash (Double Crash) nine years ago, sold at Sotheby’s in London for $117.1 million.
The most expensive painting ever sold, Leonardo da Vinci’s The Savior of the World, was also auctioned at Christie’s (pictured).
Leonardo da Vinci’s The Savior of the World was purchased in 2017 by Badr bin Abdullah Al Saud, who purchased the painting, painted in the 1500s, for a record $475.4 million.
Prior to its recent sale, Shot Sage-Blue Marilyn has been exhibited in galleries around the world, including the Leon Kraushar Galleries in New York, which also exhibited pop-art portraits of Warhol by Jackie Kennedy and Elizabeth Taylor; the Guggenheim Museum; Center Georges Pompidou in Paris; Tate Modern in London; the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid; Royal Academy of Arts in London; Museum Ludwig in Cologne; New National Gallery in Berlin; and the Chicago Museum of Modern Art, among others.
It is owned by a fund set up by prominent Zurich dealer Doris Ammann, who died at age 76 last year, and her late brother Thomas, a dealer who helped catalog Warhol’s official inventory until Thomas Ammann’s death in 1993.
Warhol created about 8,000 paintings and sculptures from 1952 until his death in 1987. His works are an indicator for the art market as a whole, because they are regularly put up for auction – about 200 times a year.
Despite the reaction of the world economy due to the conflict in Ukraine, auction houses are reporting months of intense sales, and the results of the auction will be a test of the viability of the global art market.
Alex Rotter, chairman of Christie’s 20th and 21st century art departments, said at a press conference for the sale that “every time a painting like this hits the market, it changes the market, and not just for Warhol.”
“This picture symbolizes everything that has to do with the 20th century for us – you can see all its beauty and tragedy in her face.”
WARHOL COMED UP THE PHRASE “15 MINUTES OF FAME”
Born in Pittsburgh in 1928, Andy Warhol worked as a successful commercial illustrator until his art began to take off in the 1950s.
His pop art depictions of mundane objects or famous celebrity photographs initially shocked art aficionados, but quickly gained popularity.
He created the New York studio The Factory, which became known as a mecca for Big Apple figures including David Bowie, Holston, Debbie Harry, Madonna, Mick Jagger and Keith Haring.
Much of The Factory’s artwork was sexually explicit, and the studio is credited with helping to push homosexuality and transgenderism into the mainstream.
Warhol was out of his mind and proud that the gay liberation movement had exploded and was nearly killed after radical feminist Valerie Solanis shot him at The Factory in 1968. Solanis got her revenge after Warhol refused to produce a script she had written.
Warhol also coined the term “15 minutes of fame”, writing on a program in 1968: “In the future, everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes.”
Despite his growing success in the 1970s and 1980s, Warhol felt very insecure. He had nose surgery to improve his appearance. His boyfriend John Gould died of AIDS at the age of 33 in 1986.