Andy Warhol’s iconic 1964 silk-screen portrait of Marilyn Monroe sold for $195 million on Monday night in New York, the maximum bid ever spent for an American artwork at auction.
“Shot Sage Blue Marilyn” surpassed a historical record of $110.5 million paid in 2017 for a skull artwork by Jean-Michel Basquiat, over 60 years after the film star’s death. According to Christie’s, it was also the second-most expensive artwork ever sold at auction, behind Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi,” which sold for more than $450 million in 2017.
The Warhol portrait, dubbed “one of the greatest paintings of all time” by Christie’s art specialist Alex Rotter, went to dealer Larry Gagosian after only four minutes of bidding. He didn’t specify who he was bidding for. A request for comment from Christie’s was not immediately returned late Monday.
The sale on Monday night kicked off New York’s spring auction season, which is resuming after a two-year hiatus caused by the coronavirus outbreak.
The sale set a new record as buyers seek safe-haven investments like art amid global financial market anxiety exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The image was predicted to sell for up to $400 million before the auction. The entire cost was $195,040,000 in the end.
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Monroe’s death on Aug. 5, 1962, “hit a particular chord with Warhol,” according to Christie’s, who began including her in his work soon after, using a cropped press photo from the film “Niagara.”
After a fellow artist, Dorothy Podber, visited Warhol’s workshop in September 1964 and shot at the stack of prints with a pistol, the actress’s silk-screen series — each painted with a different backdrop colour — gained popularity. (Warhol was shot and seriously injured in a 1968 shooting.) He died of a heart attack in 1987.)
