Since last month, the news that one of the legendary masterpieces of the famous pop artist Andy Warhol, "Shooting Marilyn (Blue Sage)", will be auctioned at Christie's has frequently appeared in the headlines of major media. An important expectation was mentioned in all reports: it was expected to become the second most expensive art in history, as well as the highest priced art in history in the 20th century.
Now, this prediction has been perfectly fulfilled: on the evening of May 9 (the morning of Beijing time 10), the "Thomas and Doris Oman Collection" from the famous Swiss art dealers Thomas Aman and Doris Aman's brothers and sisters was held at Christie's New York headquarters.
The painting "Shooting Marilyn (Blue Sage)" was unveiled as a special lead, starting at $100 million, dropping the hammer for $170 million, and selling for a total of $195 million (about 1.3 billion yuan) plus commission, second only to the most expensive Da Vinci "Savior" ($450 million, about 3 billion yuan) in auction history so far.
"Shooting Marilyn (Sage Blue)"
The reason why this auction has attracted the attention of the global art world is that whether it is the popularity of the artist, the popularity of the characters depicted, and even the drama of the birth of the painting and its encounter, including the status of collectors in the industry, all the eye-catching elements are absent.
First of all, the famous Andy Warhol needless to say, his silkscreen prints have long become an incomparably classic part of the history of 20th-century art. The sexy goddess Marilyn Monroe, as the protagonist of the painting, adds a legendary color to it.
On August 5, 1962, Monroe died suddenly at the age of 36. This tragic news deeply touched Warhol, who was just beginning to create silkscreen prints. "I wanted to create a silkscreen print of her (Monroe's) beautiful face, and the first Marilyn works were born."
In 1964, Warhol created five Marilyns (including this lot), and he cleverly aligned the colored parts of the human hand with a layer of screen printed colors, so that the lines and colors were seamlessly connected, forming a neat and clear light and dark effect. Because of the difficulty of this technique and the difference between his mass-produced approach, Warhol created only five paintings in this series — red, orange, light blue, sage blue and turquoise on the background.
In the fall of the same year, Dorothy Pod, a female artist known for her "deviant performance art," visited Warhol's studio, and when she saw the silkscreen prints, she asked Warhol if she could "shoot them."
The word "shoot" means both "shoot" and "shoot," which Warhol understood at the time, and he agreed when he thought Bode intended to take pictures of the paintings. Unexpectedly, Boulder took a pistol from his handbag and shot at the paintings...
That's why "Shoot Marilyn" got its name. Of the five paintings, four were hit by Boulder's bullets, and only one with a turquoise background escaped the attack because it was placed in another place. From then on, Warhol forbade Boulder to enter his studio again.
The original photographs on which Warhol created the series
Alex Roth, President of Christie's 20th and 21st Century Art Department, believes that "Shooting Marilyn (Sage Blue)" is definitely the pinnacle of American pop art. "The painting combines optimism, human fragility, celebrity effects, and idolatry, transcending not only traditional American portraiture genres, but also 20th-century art and culture."
Artist Tu Hongtao, who has long been concerned about Western contemporary art, told Red Star News that he had specifically seen Andy Warhol's semi-autobiographical work "Pop Apocalypse". In this book, the artist expresses his experience and thinking about art and life very frankly, and also leaves many "golden sentences" for future generations.
"Andy Warhol never wanted to be a noble artist, he had a great passion for desire, money and fame, but also a critique and irony of capital, and the pursuit of freedom, which is a completely contradictory synthesis." Tu Hongtao said, "Perhaps it is such contradictions and struggles that typically represent a spirit of the era and environment in which he lived." With his amazing talent and creativity, he transformed all of this into a classic work of art. ”
Red Star News reporter Qiao Xueyang
Edited by Li Jie