a portrait of Marilyn Monroe by Warhol could go for 200 million dollars

By Sudouest.fr with AFP
Published on 07/05/2022 at 12:05 p.m.

After the Covid-19 pandemic, which had brought New York to its knees, the art market is picking up once more and heralding a unique season

Rain of new records in sight on the very lucrative art market in New York: Christie’s will sell on Monday a portrait of Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol which might go for 200 million dollars. The great New York competitor, Sotheby’s, will sell for a billion dollars worth of contemporary and modern works of art, including a second batch from the very famous Macklowe collection. Sotheby’s, which since 2019 has been owned by Franco-Israeli telecom magnate Patrick Drahi, crushed everything in November by totaling $ 676 million in sales in a single evening, just with the first batch of this Macklowe collection.

Experts believe that the Covid-19 pandemic had certainly wiped out in-person auctions but not the appetite and money of buyers, especially New Yorkers and Asians. In addition, NFTs (non-fungible tokens), digital objects certified as unique through blockchain technology, are considered the new goose that lays the golden egg. At Christie’s, owned by François Pinault, a very large French fortune, boasts that the painting “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn” painted in 1964 by Andy Warhol is the most important painting of the 20th century to be sold at auction in a generation.

Shot Sage Blue Marilyn in front of the Mona Lisa

Christie’s experts even compare this image of smiling Marilyn to the mysterious smile of the Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. If it goes “around 200 million dollars” as Christie’s hopes, the “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn” will break all records for a 20th century artwork auction. “This season is one of those unique moments” that only happens once a decade, said Alex Rotter, head of 20th and 21st century sales at Christie’s. The house will also sell three Claude Monets this week, for some $60 million each.