New record in sight on the very lucrative art market in New York: Christie’s will sell in May a portrait of Marilyn Monroe painted by Andy Warhol and estimated at 200 million US dollars, which would make it the work of XX artand most expensive century ever sold at auction.
During a press conference on the subject kept secret until the last minute, Christie’s, which dominates with Sotheby’s the New York and world auction market, presented the painting Shot Sage Blue Marilyn painted in 1964 by Andy Warhol, “the most important painting of the XXand century to be auctioned off in a generation”.
The famous image of Marilyn Monroe, American actress and world icon with a tragic destiny (1926-1962), belongs to the Zurich foundation Thomas and Doris Ammann (a brother and a sister), which will devote the proceeds of the sale “to the improvement of the lives of children around the world through health and education programs,” according to Christie’s.
The house values it “around 200 million dollars”.
Philanthropy
“With 100% of the sale of a single painting going to charity, this is the highest auction for a philanthropic purpose since the collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller in 2018,” boasted Christie’s.
For the anecdote — and the legend — the four “Shot Marilyns” works, including this Shot Sage Blue Marilyn — a square one meter on a side — take their names from an incident that occurred in 1964 in Andy Warhol’s studio in Manhattan: a woman asking the artist if she could “photograph” the paintings (” shoot in English) shot it with a revolver.
For Georg Frei, president of the Ammann Foundation, “the image of Marilyn by Andy Warhol, certainly more famous today than the original photo taken from the film niagara by Henry Hathaway, attests to its intact visual power in this new millennium”.
This “spectacular portrait separates the person from the star”, deciphered Mr. Frei.
“Marilyn, the woman, is no more, the terrible circumstances of her life and her death are forgotten. All that remains is that enigmatic smile that brings her closer to another mysterious smile of a distinguished woman, the Mona Lisa,” Mona Lisa of Leonardo da Vinci, he said.
The modern Mona Lisa
If it sells well around 200 million dollars, the Shot Sage Blue Marilyn will break all records for an auction of works of art from the XXand century.
According to a ranking established by Agence France-Presse, the absolute record – all periods combined – for a sale of a work of art at auction is held by the Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci, auctioned in November 2017 for $450.3 million by Christie’s in New York.
For the works of the XXand century, Women of Algiers (version 0) by Pablo Picasso ($179.4 million in May 2015) and the Reclining Nude by Amedeo Modigliani (170.4 million in November 2015), were both sold at Christie’s.
Another copy from the same series by the Italian painter also reached $157.2 million in 2018 at competitor Sotheby’s.
NFT
Despite the pandemic that brought New York to its knees in 2020, its art market has never done so well and is setting records thanks to the city’s great fortunes and increasingly young Asian buyers.
Last fall, Sotheby’s put on the market, for some 600 million dollars, the Macklowe collection, resulting from the divorce of the New York real estate magnate Harry Macklowe and his ex-wife Linda.
And almost unknown a year ago, NFTs (non-fungible tokens), digital objects whose ownership is traceable, represent for some experts the new goose that lays the golden egg on the contemporary art market.