Marilyn: Warhol's most Hère work
This May, the renowned auction house Christie's will put Andy Warhol's iconic painting "Shot Sage Blue Marilyn" up for sale in New York. Estimated at $200 million, this work is likely to become the most important work of the 20th century. the most expensive century in history.
This iconic work could dethrone "Women of Algiers" (1955) by Pablo Picasso, sold for $179.4 million in 2015, as the most expensive work of the 20th century. Remember that the most expensive work in the world is the very famous "Salvator Mundi" by Leonardo da Vinci, sold $450 million in 2017.
An icon from Hollywood became a Pop Art star
It is at It was after the death of Marilyn Monroe that Andy Warhol began to create silkscreen prints of her portrait. Two years later, he developed a very complex reproduction technique that allowed him to obtain these famous colors. He therefore created a very limited number of portraits of Marilyn. This work would become so legendary that it was studied years later by all art history students.
" Andy Warhol's Marilyn is the absolute pinnacle of American pop culture and the promise of the American Dream, encapsulating optimism, fragility, celebrity, and iconography all at once. " according to Alex Rotter, one of Christie's co-directors.
The painting has traveled the world since it was exhibited in the most prestigious institutions such as the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Tate Modern in London, the Centro de Arte Reine Sofia in Madrid, the Royal Academy of Arts in London, the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art and the Beyeler Foundation in Basel.
Andy Warhol and the Art Market
In 1998, the last time one of Andy Warhol's five precious Marilyns was sold At auction, the estimate of between 2 and 3 million dollars was largely exceeded to reach $17 million. Today, the auction house expects to shatter the artist's auction record, previously held by Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) (1963) sold for $105.4 million at Sotheby's in New York in 2013.
