Sold for $195 million, Andy Warhol’s ‘Shot Sage Blue Marilyn’ sets new auction record

Andy Warhol’s iconic “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn” set a brand new document Monday night time as the costliest twentieth century paintings ever to promote at public sale.

The 1964 work — a 40-square-inch acrylic and silk display on linen — offered at Christie’s in New York for $195 million (hammer worth plus purchaser’s premium), the public sale home reported. The client, who was current on the public sale, was Larry Gagosian. Previous to Monday, the public sale sale document for a twentieth century portray was $179.4 million for Pablo Picasso’s “Les Femmes d’Alger (Model O),” which offered at Christie’s in Might 2015.

“Shot Sage Blue Marilyn” is a part of a five-painting sequence, 4 of that are known as the “Shot Marilyns” (extra on that later, however suffice to say it includes a efficiency artist and a gun). Previous to the sale, it was estimated to promote “within the area of $200 million,” stated Johanna Flaum, head of post-war and modern artwork at Christie’s — which means the portray additionally set a document as the best pre-auction estimate for any paintings, of any interval, thus far. The estimate surpasses Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi,” which was calculated to promote for $100 million upfront of a November 2017 Christie’s sale. (It ended up going for $450 million.)

“Shot Sage Blue Marilyn” is considered one of Warhol’s most vital photographs of Monroe, a signature work in his oeuvre and a cornerstone of Pop Artwork.

“After we consider probably the most iconic photographs of artwork historical past,” stated Flaum, “we consider work like Da Vinci’s ‘Mona Lisa’ and Botticelli’s ‘The Delivery of Venus’ and Picasso’s ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.’ That is that very same lineage — it’s that iconic picture from the second half of the twentieth century. And, in a really Warholian means, has been reproduced endlessly.”

Warhol by no means met Monroe in individual, however he painted her picture dozens of instances, starting after she died of an overdose in 1962. There’s the “Gold Marilyn Monroe” (1962), now on view on the Museum of Fashionable Artwork in New York; the 50-image “Marilyn Diptych” (1962), on view on the Tate Fashionable in London; and the “Marilyn (Reversal Collection),” a number of silk screens produced between 1979-1986, through which the tonal values within the works are reversed, like a photographic unfavorable, amongst others.

In 1964, Warhol painted 5 Monroe works — “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn” was considered one of them — utilizing a exact however laborious method that resulted in a very lovely and aligned silk display.

“They’ve a rare high quality while you stand in entrance of them,” Flaum stated of these works. “Nevertheless it took too lengthy for him [to execute], frankly, as somebody whose studio was known as the Manufacturing unit, and he by no means went again to that method. So these Marilyns stand as these unbelievable examples [of silk-screening] and are very uncommon.”

The “Shot Marilyns” are aptly named. Within the fall of 1964, Warhol had simply created the 5, 40-square-inch Monroe work — one in sage blue, one described as gentle blue, and crimson, orange and turquoise ones. 4 of them (all however the turquoise) had been stacked in his studio when a pal introduced efficiency artist Dorothy Podber to Warhol’s studio. She requested to shoot the 4 works, and when Warhol obliged, pondering she was going to take photos, she pulled out a gun and shot the canvases, piercing holes in a number of of them. They had been subsequently repaired, however the title caught.

“Shot Sage Blue Marilyn” was initially bought by New York promoting govt and Pop Artwork collector Leon Kraushar. Amongst its different house owners: modern artwork seller Fred Mueller, who acquired it within the early ’70s, in addition to S.I. Newhouse, of the Condé Nast empire, who additionally bought it round then. The late Swiss artwork seller Thomas Ammann — who co-founded Thomas Ammann Nice Artwork in 1977 in Zürich together with his sister Doris Ammann — bought “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn” within the early ’80s.

The Monroe work was supplied for public sale by the Thomas and Doris Ammann Basis, a brand new charity fashioned after Doris Ammann handed away final yr. Greater than 100 works from their non-public assortment are being offered throughout two stay auctions (the second is a day sale on Might 13). A hundred percent of the proceeds from each gross sales, minus the patrons’ premiums, will go to the inspiration’s efforts devoted to healthcare and schooling for underprivileged youngsters internationally.

Which units one other document: The occasion is the “highest worth philanthropic sale at public sale,” Flaum stated, since Christie’s offered the gathering of Peggy and David Rockefeller in 2018 for $835 million.

Monday’s sale is important for but one more reason: “Each time considered one of these 40-inch Marilyn work involves market,” Flaum stated, “it resets the marketplace for Warhol, but in addition the complete modern artwork market.”

Many Warhol work of Monroe have come to public sale through the years, she added, “however they don’t maintain a candle to this sequence by way of significance. They’re simply not of the identical caliber by way of rarity and demand.”