Warhol's Double Elvis. UPDATE: IT sold for $37,042,500
A Warhol portrait of Elvis Presley could make up to $50 million at Sotheby’s, New York, in May. According to the auction house Double Elvis (Ferus Type) epitomises Warhol’s obsessions with fame, stardom and the public image. The 1963 work is a seminal piece from the iconic series devoted to the singer and actor that was first seen at the Ferus gallery in Los Angeles that same year. It is estimated to fetch $30/50 million.
Like the Campbell’s Soup Can exhibition at the same gallery the previous year the Double Elvis show was built around a single unified theme. The paintings were to be displayed as a continuous surround, rather like the flickering images of an early film. The serial imagery seen in the work adds a sense of motion and gives the paintings a cinematic quality.
Coupled with his experimentation with film it marks a turning point in the artist’s career. He made the transition from a viewer of movies to a maker of them in his own right. The celebrities in Warhol’s portraits, Jackie Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe and Elvis among others, were presented as glamourous and powerful icons whose image was imprinted on the public consciousness.