This Warhol self-portrait more than doubled its top estimate at Christie's. (click on image to enlarge). Picture courtesy of Christie's Images.
A monumental-scale self-portrait by Andy Warhol (1928-1987) made £10,793,250 at Christie’s Post War and Contemporary Art evening sale in London on February 16. It had been estimated at £3-5 million. In a private collection since 1974 this previously unpublished iconic work which dates to 1967 was recently discovered. It was bought by an anonymous bidder in the room.
Warhol first used the image for a group of works in 1966, painted in a much smaller scale. The following year he produced 11 monumental works in large scale six foot square format. Six works from the series were shown at the American Pavilion at the 1967 Montreal Expo.
The sale brought in £61,380,500 and was 92 per cent sold by lot. It was the highest total for the category in London since June 2008. The Warhol was the top lot and 16 lots sold for over one million pounds. There were buyers from 21 different countries. Six artists records were set, for Jenny Saville, Martial Raysse, Miquel Barcelo, Wade Guyton, Ged Quinn and Adriana Varejao.
See antiquesandartireland.com post for January 11.
