A Supreme Court Ruling Has Sent the Price of Andy Warhol Prints Skyrocketing; Deemed Illegal Copyright Infringement

Andy Warhol's series of silkscreen prints of the late rockstar Prince were once a relatively obscure part of his body of work; even the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, PA, hasn't displayed them in years. But all that's changed thanks to a recent Supreme Court ruling on copyright law.

As The Wall Street Journal reports, the value of the silkscreens has jumped by hundreds of thousands of dollars in recent weeks. Ironically, this is all due to the Supreme Court ruling them an illegal violation of copyright law.

The case found that Warhol had violated the copyright of the photographer who took the Prince photo he adapted for his silkscreen print. The decision will limit the so-called "fair use" defense when it comes to copyright infringement in the visual arts.

There are 16 of the prints in total, but due to their relative unpopularity before the case, the location of many of them is unknown. The Andy Warhol Museum has four in storage, which it will now display in light of the court case. Others are believed to be in private art collections in Europe and Asia.

Experts estimate they could fetch up to a million dollars at auction, far more than the $173,000 previously paid for one at a London Sotheby's auction eight years ago.

“Paintings can become celebrities,” Richard Polsky, a private dealer and Warhol authenticator, told The Wall Street Journal. “Warhol’s ‘Prince’ became the subject of a Supreme Court ruling, so now it’s a bigger part of pop culture."