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Warhol painting sets sales record

17/05/2007

An Andy Warhol painting sold for $71.7 million (£36.3 million) in New York yesterday, beating a multimillion dollar record previously set for work by the pop art pioneer.

Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I) was one of a number of Warhol's works on sale at a Christie's auction last night, when art lovers parted with a total of $385 million (£195 million) to snap up paintings by their favourite post-war and contemporary artists.

In a statement ahead of the sale Christie's spokesman Brett Gorvy said the appearance of Green Car Crash in the auction would send "a shock of excitement" through the art world.

The 1963 painting features an overturned car on fire and forms part of Warhol's Death and Disaster series.

Speaking about the importance of the work Mr Gorvy added: "This is a painting that has been considered the holy grail by a legion of contemporary art collectors and for years this work has been on every major wish list."

The sales record for a Warhol piece previously stood at $17.4 million (£8.8 million), the amount which the artist's painting of Chairman Mao sold for last November.

Lemon Marilyn, another piece featuring actress and seminal Warhol subject Marilyn Monroe, also dwarfed the previous record. It fetched $28 million (£14 million) at the Christie's auction.

Self Portrait and Four Foot Flowers also beat pre-sale estimates, with the additional Warhol paintings fetching $8.2 million (£4.2 million) and just under $8 million (£4 million) respectively.

However none of the artist's works managed to match the $72.84 million (£36.9 million) fetched by a Mark Rothko piece at Sotheby's on Tuesday night, when a new record for post-war art sold at auction was set.


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