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  • WARHOL’S DEBBIE HARRY AT SOTHEBY’S IN JUNE

    Debbie Harry by Andy Warhol (1928-1987) (copyright Sotheby's). (Click on image to enlarge) UPDATE: IT MADE £3,737,250

    Andy Warhol’s 1980 acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas of Debbie Harry, lead singer with Blondie, heads Sotheby’s sale of Contemporary Art in London on June 29.  Debbie Harry became a friend of the artist after they met in Manhattan.  In an interview with Cheyenne Westphal, Sotheby’s Chairman of Contemporary Art Europe, she described what it was like to sit for Warhol: “He was the master of understatement. He’d say ‘Try looking over here’. He was very softly spoken and used a funny Polaroid portrait camera. It was an easy environment and not really a pressured situation. He made it very easy.”

    Selected as the cover image for the major survey of Warhol’s portraiture published by Phaidon in 2005, Debbie Harry, from 1980, is one of Warhol’s most accomplished portraits of celebrity. One of only four such portraits of the Blondie star in this rare 42 inches format – two of which are in the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh – this pink version has become one of the best recognised images in Warhol’s oeuvre and the definitive portrait of the 1980s style icon.
    It is from a European private collection and is estimated at  £3.5-5.5 million.  The sale coincides with the release of Blondie’s new album Panic of Girls.
    Sotheby’s has also announced that it will offer a group of works by Damien Hirst, Gilbert & George and Angus Fairhurst from the collection of award winning musician, songwriter and record producer Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics.  He is a friend of Damien Hirst.  The seven artworks – estimated to bring in £1.3 million – will be included in the contemporary art evening and day auctions on June 29 and 30. The collection will be led by Dantrolene, an early Hirst pharmaceutical painting and one of the largest one inch spot paintings to appear at auction in latter years. It is estimated at  £600,000-800,000.
    UPDATE: IT MADE £3,737,250

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