This spring auction is a bit strong: Andy Warhol's "Marilyn" sold for 1.3 billion yuan

21st Century Business Herald reporter Liang Xin comprehensive report

On May 9, local time, Christie's "Art of the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries" series of auctions in New York was raised as scheduled.

This season's Christie's Spring Auctions feature high-quality single collector's shows: the Thomas and Doris Ammann Foundation Collection, the Anne H. Bass Collection, and the Jacobs Couple's Collection of Masterpieces of SurrealIsm. There are also a number of masterpieces on display, including the works of Pop Master Andy Warhol, Impressionist Master Monet and Jean Michay Baschia, known as the most profitable artist on the art market. The luxurious lineup has made this auction highly anticipated by the market long before the auction begins.

On the morning of the 9th, the Thomas and Doris Ammann Collection Evening Auction took the lead in opening the auction for this season. An Andy Warhol "Shot Sage Blue Marilyn" led the auction. The work started at $100 million and was eventually bought by an American collector for $170 million, for a total of $195 million (about 1.317 billion yuan) plus commissions. Despite being lower than the previous $200 million estimate, the sale price set a record for the most expensive 20th-century artwork in auction history and is second only to Leonardo da Vinci's "The Savior" in 2017 for $450 million.

21Style reporters learned from Christie's that in the end, 34 of the 36 lots in the field successfully found a buyer, with a turnover rate of 94%, and the total turnover reached $317.8 million, exceeding the undervaluation of the pre-auction $284 million to $420 million valuation range. The auction also became the highest-grossing charity auction after the $830 million David Rockefellers Treasure Charity in 2018. All proceeds from the auction will go to charities that provide emergency medical and educational care for children in the future.

What's different about the legendary Marilyn?

In the decades since his death in 1987, Pop Master Andy Warhol has barely diminished his cultural influence. To this day, his signature high-saturation color palette is still a symbol of emulation in art circles and commercial design. Alex Rotter, Christie's 20th and 21st Century Arts President, said the 40-inch x 40-inch "Shooting Marilyn" was "the essence of Andy Warhol's work" and defined his place in art history and popular culture.

Alex Rotter said: "'Shooting Marilyn' is the pinnacle of American pop art. The painting transcends not only the genre of traditional American portraiture, but also the art and culture of the twentieth century. It can be ranked on a par with Botticelli's Birth of Venus, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, and Picasso's The Maiden of Avignon. ”

After the death of Hollywood's sexy goddess Marilyn Monroe in August 1962, Andy Warhol began working on her. The blueprint for "Shooting Marilyn" is a promotional still taken by Marilyn Monroe for the film "The Flying Waterfall" in 1953, and Andy Warhol has created five different background colors, namely red, orange, light blue, sage blue and turquoise.

The name of this series of paintings also has some origins. In the 1960s, Andy Warhol often hosted parties in his art studio and invited many celebrities from New York's art world to attend. Shortly after Andy Warhol finished painting his five Marilyn Monroe in 1964, his friends and a performance artist named Dorothy Podber visited his studio. At the time, Dorothy Podber saw his "Marilyn" series leaning against the studio wall and asked Andy Warhol if she could "shoot" them. Andy Warhol thought she meant to take pictures of the work and agreed. As a result, the performance artist pulled a gun out of his bag and fired at the Marilyn series, the bullet passing through four of the five works, with only the turquoise-colored version that was not stacked together survived. These five works are also named after them.

Each of the five works has its own subject

The Shoot Marilyn series is Andy Warhol's most unique work to date, and has long been sought after and loved by collectors in the art world, and thus has a legendary history of market trading.

In 1989, "Shooting Marilyn (Red)," which repaired the bullet hole in Marilyn Monroe's left eyebrow, sold at auction for $4.1 million, making it the highest price of any of Andy Warhol's works at the time. Currently, it is owned by Greek tycoon Philip Niarchos.

In 1998, Condé Nast tycoon and collector S.I. Newhouse auctioned off the orange version of the painting for $17.3 million, when the highest estimate was just $6 million. Later, after Si Newhouse's death in 2017, billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin privately bought the work for about $200 million, according to people familiar with the matter.

Newsprint tycoon Peter Brant bought the light blue version for $5,000 in 1967, and billionaire hedge fund manager Steve Cohen bought the turquoise version for $80 million in 2007.

Thomas Ammann and his sister Doris Ammann founded Thomas Ammann Fine Art AG in 1977, a legendary gallery in Zurich, Switzerland, dedicated to promoting Impressionist, modern, postwar and contemporary artists. After Thomas's death in 1993, Doris continued to manage the gallery until her death last year. It is reported that the auction of "Shooting Marilyn (Sage Blue)" was previously collected by several well-known gallerists of the twentieth century, and later about 40 years ago by the Ammann siblings from S.I. Newhouse bought it in hand.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to own this painting," says art dealer Alberto Mugrabi, "and I've talked to all the other people who own the Marilyn series of paintings and they say they'll never sell their collection." Alex Rotter said: "Every time a painting like this is auctioned, it changes not only the market for the artist's own work, but also the landscape of the entire art market." ”

A "test of the waters" in the art market

As people's artistic tastes have gradually shifted to a new generation of young artists in recent years, and the supply of subsequent pop artists' works in the auction market has gradually dried up, the recent price of contemporary art transactions with Andy Warhol has shown a downward trend. According to the Artnet Art Price Database, Warhol's works sold at auction for $347.6 million in 2021, down 34 percent from their peak in 2015.

Some insiders said that the auction of "Shooting Marilyn" is a deep "test" of the current art market. Although the auction of "Shooting Marilyn (Sage Blue)" was slightly below the $200 million estimate and far below the "ideal" price of $250 million to $300 million that many dealers had hoped for, the auction result was still seen by many in the circle as "people in a turbulent market cycle, casting a vote of confidence in art as a long-term means of preserving value." ”

Recently, the art market has been largely under pressure from falling stock markets and rising interest rates, while the turmoil in the international environment and situation has also raised questions: Are the prices of high-quality art still "standing"? How many buyers are willing to spend thousands of dollars on a painting? And this "Shooting Marilyn (Sage Blue)" is like a "reassuring pill" for the market. Andrew Fabricant, Chief Operating Officer of Gagosian Gallery, said: "This painting shows that quality and scarcity always push the market forward and impact everyone's mind and heart. ”

Over the next two weeks, Christie's and Sotheby's plan to launch more than $2 billion worth of blue-chip artwork. It remains to be seen whether the record-breaking and historic price of this "Marilyn" has greatly boosted buyers' confidence in other works of art.