Marilyn Monroe's lips by Andy Warhol sell for 40 times their estimate at auction
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Your support makes all the difference.The enthusiasm for work by Andy Warhol at auction continues undimmed as the first online-only sale of his work raised $2.3m, double the pre-sale estimate.
I Love Your Kiss Forever Forever, a lithograph that depicts Marilyn Monroe’s lips, proved the most lucrative of the Christie’s auction selling for $112,500, almost 40 times its estimate.
The auction attracted 65,000 visitors, which generated 1,500 bids. Among the other top sellers was New Coke, executed in 1985, which went for $93,750, and a self-portrait photograph that reached $35,000.
The works are part of a wider sale by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Its chairman Michael Straus said the online sale “has advanced both our philanthropic programmes and our work in keeping Andy’s legacy Alive”.
Foundation president Joel Wachs said the organisation would look to carry out more online auctions, following yesterday’s success. The next one will take place in April, and covers Warhol’s legacy at Studio 54 nightclub.
The Self-Portrait with Fright Wig screenprint on a t-shirt went for $47,000, while all the Warhol photographs, which represented almost half the lots, were sold.
Amy Cappellazzo, chairman of post-war and contemporary development at Christie’s, said the format saw bidders from 36 countries participate “most of who had never had access to a Warhol work before”.
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