Andy Warhol’s Marilyn is the absolute pinnacle of American Pop and the promise of the American Dream encapsulating optimism, fragility, celebrity and iconography all at once.
An iconic portrait of Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol goes on sale in May at Christie's with an estimate of $200 million, the highest estimate ever recorded for a work of art at auction. Shot Sage Blue Marilyn (1964) is being sold by the Thomas and Doris Ammann Foundation in Zurich and all proceeds will go to charity, particularly for children in need and for health and education programs. With the sale of a single painting, this could also become the highest grossing philanthropic auction, following the sale of the collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller at Christie's in 2018.
Shot Sage Blue Marilyn is a well-defined work within Warhol's oeuvre, contemporary art and the art historical canon. Warhol began creating screen prints of Marilyn Monroe after the actress's tragic death in August 1962. He created reproductions of her face in bright colors and in 1964 developed a more refined and time-consuming screen printing technique and produced a number of limited portraits of the Hollywood icon.
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The painting is part of the "Shot Marilyns" series that also includes four other versions in red, orange, blue and turquoise. The title derives from a curious incident, when the performative artist Dorothy Podber asked Warhol for permission to shoot the works in 1964. But, instead of photographing the works, Podber pulled out a revolver and fired at the stack of canvases. Thus was born the series “The Shot Marilyns." This blue work was acquired by Thomas and Doris Ammann, siblings who ran Thomas Ammann Fine Art, a gallery in Zurich, from Si Newhouse, the Conde Nast heir, in the 1980s. The four other "Shot Marilyns" versions are owned by hedge fund manager Ken Griffin, magazine publisher Peter Brant, hedge fund manager Steven Cohen, and shipping heir Philip Niarchos.
“Andy Warhol’s picture of Marilyn, surely now more famous than the photograph (an original publicity still for the 1953 film Niagara by Henry Hathaway) on which it is based, bears witness to her undiminished visual power in the new millennium," said Georg Frei, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Thomas and Doris Ammann Foundation. "The spectacular portrait isolates the person and the star: Marilyn the woman is gone; the terrible circumstances of her life and death are forgotten. All that remains is the enigmatic smile that links her to another mysterious smile of a distinguished lady, the Mona Lisa.”
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This is echoed by Alex Rotter, President of 20th and 21st Century Art at Christie's, who recently stated: “The most significant painting to come to auction in a generation, Andy Warhol’s Marilyn is the absolute pinnacle of American Pop and the promise of the American Dream encapsulating optimism, fragility, celebrity and iconography all at once. The painting transcends the genre of portraiture in America, superseding 20th century art and culture. Standing alongside Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and Picasso’s Les Demoiselle d’Avignon, Warhol’s Marilyn is categorically one of the greatest paintings of all time and a once in a generation opportunity to present this masterpiece publicly at auction."
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Warhol's auction record hasn't been called into question since 2013, when the 1963 Silver Car Crash (Double disaster) sold for $105.4 million at Sotheby's. The painting's $200 million estimate is poised to place Marilyn second on the list of the most expensive paintings ever sold, a title which is currently held by Picasso's masterpiece Les Femmes d'Alger (1955), which sold for $179.5 million in 2015.
