Carol Vogel has the news from Christie’s that it will sell two Warhols owned by a German casino chain which finally wants to sell after realizing a few years ago just how valuable the paintings were:
Two seminal paintings by Andy Warhol from the 1960s — “Triple Elvis [Ferus Type]” from 1963 and “Four Marlons” from 1966 — will be put up for sale at Christie’s Rockefeller Center auction house on Nov. 12. While Brett Gorvy, Christie’s worldwide chairman of postwar and contemporary art, is cautiously estimating the paintings could bring $140 million together, he added that each has the potential to top the $100 million mark, perhaps even outperforming Warhol’s “Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster),” a two-panel painting from 1963, which brought $104.5 million at Sotheby’s in November.
Of the two, “Marlon speaks to a younger audience, because there is a very raw sexuality to the image,” Mr. Gorvy said. “He’s the person every young actor wants to be.”
For years, dealers and auction house experts have courted officials at WestSpiel, the German casino company that owned the paintings. Controlled by the German government, WestSpiel runs six casinos; the paintings had been hanging in its casino in Aachen since the late 1970s.
Update: It won’t be shocking to anyone to discover that the works are guaranteed. Nonetheless, Christie’s confirms that the auction house has provided a guarantee to WestSpiel. It would be the prudent and logical thing for a corporation, especially a government-run corporation, to take a guarantee.
Warhol’s Presley and Brando Head to Auction (NYTimes.com)
