Until last night, the record price of a painting by Pablo Picasso from the series “Algerian Women” (Version O), which sold at Christie's in May 2015 for $ 179.4 million.
The work of Andy Warhol Shot Sage Blue Marilyn with Marilyn Monroe set a new record on Monday night as the most expensive work of art of the 20th century ever sold at auction, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The 1964 work – 40 square inches of acrylic and silkscreen – sold at Christie's in New York for $ 195 million, according to the auction house. Art dealer Larry Gagosyan was the buyer.
By Monday, the record for selling 20th-century paintings at auction was $ 179.4 million for Pablo Picasso's Les Femmes d'Alger (Version O), which was sold at Christie's in May 2015.
Read also: Theft of Scythian gold in Melitopol: museum curators have revealed details of the operation of the occupiers
Warhol's painting is part of a series of five paintings, four of which are called “Shot Marilyns”. Before it was sold, it sold for “about $ 200 million,” said Johanna Flaum, head of Christie's Postwar and Contemporary Art Division.This means that the painting also set a record as the highest pre-auction purchase for a work of art of any period to date. The price exceeds the value of the painting “Savior of the World” by Leonardo da Vinci, which was sold for $ 100 million before the sale of Christie's in November 2017. (It cost $ 450 million in the end.)
Shot Sage Blue Marilyn is one of Monroe Warhol's most notable characters, a signature work in his work, and a cornerstone of pop art.
“When we think of the most iconic images of art history,” Flaum said, “we think of paintings such as da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Picasso's Avignon Girls.” A portrait of Andy Warhol's brush maiden complements the list, she hinted.
Warhol never met Monroe in person, but painted her image dozens of times after she died of an overdose in 1962. In 1964, Warhol painted five of Monroe's works – “Blue Marilyn Shot Shot” was one of them – using precise but time-consuming techniques, which led to particularly accurate and smooth silkscreen printing.
We recently reported that < The forgery of Kandinsky's painting has been put up for auction to support the Russian army.
