On a Wednesday evening between two contemporary art evening sales, an Andy Warhol painting from his famous 1963 series “Death and Disaster” sold for $85 million at Sotheby’s New York. The result makes it one of the most expensive works ever sold at auction by a pop artist.
It is 30 feet tall and contains 19 black and white photos of a fatal car accident. White disaster (white car accident 19 times)It is estimated to fetch a price of over $80 million during the sale. (Supported by pre-sale financing, the work was offered this evening by irrevocable tender.)
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Two bidders competed on the phone with Gregoire Billaut, head of contemporary art at the house in New York, and David Schrader, head of private sales, for the huge silkscreened canvas. Despite the high price and this sale being the fourth most expensive work by Warhol to sell at auction, the environment in the sales room on Wednesday evening was rather muted. Bidding, which lasted less than two minutes, opened at $66 million and then quickly jumped to $70 million, before hitting the final hammer of $74 million. There was a slight applause from Sotheby’s employees after it was sold.
The last time a painting from the Death and Disaster series, which includes images dedicated to car crashes, riots and suicides, appeared at auction was in 2013, when Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) It sold for $105.4 million, setting a record for an artist at the time. That record was re-established earlier this year, when a picture of Marilyn Monroe sold for $195 million.
The white disaster The painting once passed through the hands of the dealer and collector Heiner Friedrich, who co-founded the Dia Art Foundation. The last time it was sold at auction was in 1987, when it sold for $660,000, it has been kept in a private collection for more than three decades.
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