Posted on 11/17/2022 2:10:36 PM PST by nickcarraway
On Wednesday evening in between two contemporary art evening sales, a painting by Andy Warhol from his famed 1963 “Death and Disasters” series sold for $85 million at Sotheby’s New York. The result makes it one of the most expensive works by the Pop artist ever to be sold at auction.
[Who was Andy Warhol, and why is he important?]
Related Articles Large black and white painting in gallery. Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Auction Brings in $314.9 M., Buoyed by $85 M. Warhol and Records for Women Artists Banksy Comes Out On Top in EU Trademark Challenge, Allowing Him To Stay Anonymous Measuring 30-feet-high and featuring 19 black and white pictures of a fatal car crash, White Disaster (White Car Crash 19 Times), was estimated to fetch a price a price in excess of $80 million during the sale. (Backed by pre-sale financing, the work was offered this evening with an irrevocable bid.)
Two bidders on the phone with Gregoire Billaut, the house’s head of contemporary art in New York, and David Schrader, head of private sales, competed for the massive silk-screened painting. Despite the high price and this sale being the fourth-most expensive work by Warhol to ever sell at auction, the environment in the salesroom Wednesday evening was rather muted. Bidding, which lasted under two minutes, opened at $66 million and then quickly jumped to $70 million, before staggering to the final hammer of $74 million. There was mild applause from Sotheby’s staff after its sale.
The last time a painting from “Death and Disasters” series, which features appropriated images of car accidents, riots, and suicides, came up in a public sale was in 2013, when Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) sold for $105.4 million, setting a record for the artist at the time. That record was re-set earlier this year, when a portrait of Marilyn Monroe sold for $195 million.
The White Disaster painting once passed through the hands of dealer and collector Heiner Friedrich, who cofounded the Dia Art Foundation. The last time it was sold at auction was in 1987, when it went for $660,000, and it has been held in a private collection for more than three decades.
Not my kind of painting. This is what I have hanging in my house. https://www.aoc.gov/explore-capitol-campus/art/general-george-washington-resigning-his-commission
What a vile human being. Artifying black and white photos of fatal car accidents. Sick homo SOB...
I doubt he took those pictures himself. Basically stealing someone else’s work. The grift continues even after his death with this obvious money laundering move.
There is no one sniffing the hair of the two girls in the painting.
He was also very religious. To me he’s less an artist than a graphic designer.
My Mom was in an auto accident where the car looked worse, granted there wasn’t a telephone pole involved.
She survived too (or I wouldn’t be typing this!)
She didn’t shot very well. How can she be a feminist if she makes women look incompetent?
And he got very wealthy by posing as an “artist”. Proving that there really are stupid people with way too much money stumbling through life.
She is good at book titles though.
hey, Angelica Villa, it’s not a painting...
Andy was an amazing American. Incredible creativity. Not everything was a home run. Art is subjective. So what? He used people. People used him. He was an interesting and funny cat. Read The Andy Warhol Diaries. His untimely death was a tragedy.
I think it is only one car crash.
Sick nonetheless.
IMHO Warhol was overrated.
Warhol was RELIGIOUS???? Come on, man!! What Religion??
NO ONE that is SANE would BUY THIS CRAP for $1.00!! MONEY LAUNDERING??
is there an explanation somewhere? My guess:
Car struck sideways...impact caused driver’s body to force door open, ejected...passenger hit dash, returned to seat...
FTX funds purchased this “art?”
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