New York: a Warhol sold for 85 million… in two minutes!

A monumental and emblematic painting by Andy Warhol from the 1960s, “White Disaster”, was auctioned Wednesday night at Sotheby’s in New York for 85 million dollars, below the American artist’s record. It took two minutes and a brief duel between two auction house representatives, who took orders over the phone, for this 1963 work to drop for $74 million at the hammer. That is 85,350,500 dollars with costs, while Sotheby’s estimated it at over 80 million.

The pop art master, who died in 1987, became an auction star, and the last time a monumental canvas from this series, known as the ‘Death and Disaster Series’, was sold, in 2013, it had established a new record for the artist, at 105 million dollars at Sotheby’s. Since then, a portrait of Marilyn Monroe, “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn” (1962), was auctioned in early May at Christie’s, also in New York, for $195 million, becoming the most expensive work by also from the 20th century sold at auction.

From its full name “White Disaster [White Car Crash 19 Times]“, the canvas sold on Wednesday evening, made with screen printing ink and graphite, represents 19 times in black and white the same image of a macabre car accident, with a scene sometimes dazzled, as if by the light of a flash. . It is 3.6 meters high.

“In late 1962, Warhol painted Marilyn Monroe, which marked the beginning of his fascination with celebrity images. But it was precisely Marilyn Monroe’s disappearance in August 1962 and the spectacle that surrounded her that captured her fascination and led her to create paintings of death and disaster in early 1963,” explains David Galperin, head of art Contemporary for the Americas at Sotheby’s.

Only three works of this incident image exist in this monumental format, one of which is in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. The one sold on Wednesday came from a private collection and Sotheby’s did not provide any information about the buyer, as usual.