He was gone in four minutes for a record sum. Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, a portrait of Marilyn Monroe executed in 1964 by Andy Warhol, two years after the tragic death of the glamorous Hollywood icon, went for $195.04 million, including fees, to a crowded room at headquarters from Christie’s on Monday evening in New York. Which makes the painting the most expensive 20th-century work of art ever sold at public auction, a hell of a move to kick off the famed house’s spring auction season.
Dozens of Christie’s intermediaries were present, hanging on their phones to take orders from buyers. But it is from the room, where the work was enthroned, that the last offer left, victorious. According to several auction specialists present on the spot, it came from the American art dealer Larry Gagosian, owner of the galleries of the same name, but it was not known whether he was acting on his behalf or that of a client. Christie’s, owned by the very large French fortune François Pinault, did not wish to comment on the buyer.
Shot Sage Blue Marilyn fell short of the estimate of $200 million put forward by Christie’s before the sale, which does not prevent it from beating the previous record for a 20th century work at auction, Women of Algiers (version 0) by Pablo Picasso, which went for $179.4 million in May 2015. The absolute record for all periods remains held by the Salvator Mundi attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, sold in November 2017 for $450.3 million.
Proceeds from the sale will go to a charitable foundation
The portrait of Andy Warhol was part of a collection put up for sale on Monday evening by the Zurich-based Thomas and Doris Ammann Foundation, named after Swiss art dealer and collector Thomas Ammann, a friend of Warhol’s who died of AIDS in 1993, and of his sister Doris. All proceeds from the sale, or $317 million made on 34 of the 36 lots sold, will go to this foundation, which is dedicated “to improve the lives of children” via health and education, according to Christie’s.
Painted with silkscreen ink and acrylic, Shot Sage Blue Marilyn is one of five one meter by one meter portraits of vivid, saturated and contrasting colors that the New York artist made in 1964 from a photo for the promotion of the film niagara in 1953. Pink face, blond hair and pronounced lipstick, the actress reveals an enigmatic smile, on a turquoise blue background. For Richard Polsky, who runs an art authentication company, including Warhols, Shot Sage Blue Marilyn succeeds in combining two icons. “Marilyn Monroe was an icon in America […] it is part of popular culture. And Warhol, it’s like the Beatles, every year he’s more popularhe points out. When you put them together it’s an explosion, it’s like a chemical reaction.»
In 1962, Warhol had already made works from the same photo of Marilyn Monroe: a canvas with fifty faces, Marilyn Diptychnow on display at the Tate Modern in London, as well as a Gold Marilyn Monroe which adorns the walls of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. But four of the five “Shot” of 1964 take their name from an incident that makes their legend. In the Factory, Andy Warhol’s studio in Manhattan, a visiting artist, Dorothy Podber, had asked if she could “photograph” the paintings (“shoot” in English). Warhol had accepted, not understanding that she was then going to pull out a revolver and shoot four portraits. To the naked eye, no trace appears today of this incident on the work.