Andy Warhol's Marilyn Becomes the Most Expensive Piece of American Art Ever Sold at Auction
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Update: On May 9, 2022, "Shot Sage Blue Marilyn" sold to an unknown buyer for nearly $195 million, giving the painting the distinction of being the most expensive piece of American art ever sold at auction. Mega-dealer Larry Gagosian placed the winning bid at Christie's, but it's not yet clear who the new owner of the Andy Warhol painting will be.
Sixty years after Marilyn Monroe’s death, the late actress might be bigger than ever. Take, for example, Netflix’s forthcoming Monroe biopic Blonde, based on a book by Joyce Carol Oates and starring Ana de Armas, or Michelle Morgan’s upcoming book When Marilyn Met the Queen: Marilyn Monroe's Life in England.
Perhaps the most notable—or at least the most expensive—example of Monroe’s posthumous star power was revealed by Christie’s today when the auction house announced that Andy Warhol’s “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn” will lead its marquee week of sales this May, with an estimate around $200 million.
“The most significant 20th-century 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,” says Alex Rotter, Christie’s Chairman of 20th and 21st Century Art. “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 Demoiselles d’Avignon,’ Warhol’s ‘Marilyn’ is categorically one of the greatest paintings of all time and it’s a once in a generation opportunity to present this masterpiece publicly at auction.”
The painting is being sold by the Thomas and Doris Ammann Foundation Zurich, and proceeds from the sale will benefit the organization, which says it plans to use them to fund philanthropic initiatives around children’s healthcare and education. Christie’s posits that the sale will be “the highest grossing philanthropic auction since the Collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller in 2018.”
Marc Porter, Chairman of Christie’s Americas, says, “At Christie’s, charitable sales drive us. Philanthropy is core to our mission and we are proud to have raised significant funds for foundations and non-profit organizations alike. As a global company, we believe it to be absolutely essential to engage in a dialogue of effecting social impact worldwide. Today, we could not be prouder to partner with the Thomas and Doris Ammann Foundation in the sale of ‘Shot Sage Blue Marilyn’ as we support the siblings’ valiant endeavor to create healthcare and education programs that will have a direct and lasting impact on the lives of children for the better.”
If the 1964 silkscreen of Monroe sells for its estimated price, it will become the most expensive 20th-century work ever sold at auction. (It would almost double the standing record for Warhol of $104.5 million, set in 2013 by the sale of “Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster).”) The painting is based on a promotional still of Monroe’s 1953 film Niagara and was made with a screen-printing technique that proved so difficult, Warhol abandoned it after this series. Another distinguishing characteristic? The piece was one of four shot with a pistol by a visitor to Warhol’s studio the year it was made.
Georg Frei, chairman of the board of the Thomas and Doris Ammann Foundation, says: “Andy Warhol’s picture of Marilyn, surely now more famous than the photograph on which it is based, bears witness to her undiminished visual power in the new millennium. 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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