Andy Warhol’s first “selfie” sold for £6 million at Sotheby’s contemporary art evening auction in London tonight. The work, from his first series of self-portraits, million / $7.7 was at auction for the first time 30 years after the artist’s death in 1987. After achieving renown for his candid portrayals of luminaries including Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Kennedy and Elizabeth Taylor in the early 1960s, Self-Portrait represents the moment that Warhol stepped out from behind the camera and into the glare of its flashbulb. This painting belongs to the very first sequence of self-portraits created by Warhol and was based on the first image in a strip of photo booth portraits. The use of such unconventional source material was, at this time, fiercely innovative.
“In the age of Instagram, Warhol’s fabled prediction that ‘in the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes’ has never felt more prophetic, and the artist’s first self-portraits – created using a strip of photographs taken in a New York dime store photo-booth – have never felt more relevant to contemporary culture. This is a work of immense art historical importance that marks the watershed moment when Warhol joined the canon of the greatest self-portraitists,” James Sevier, Senior Specialist, Contemporary Art, remarked.
The sale totalled £62.3 million, an increase of 20% on last year. Au Untitled work by Jean Michel Basquiat from 1983 made £6.4 million.