There are few names in art that achieve market saturation, name recognition and pop culture icon status. In the modern era, none stands taller than Andy Warhol. You have to give a large portion of credit to the mans genius but you can’t overlook the fact that the man emanated from the advertising and marketing world. So it’s obvious he put his corporate skills to work in promoting his art as well as his brand (well before the art world became obsessed with brand identity).
The ubiquity of his work is palpable. Warhol, and his work have come full circle. Interview magazine, which he started, continues on, covering the avant guarde and the cool. Surviving and thriving in an increasingly shrinking market. His various screen prints live on, reincarnated as novelty art, screensaver/digital wallpaper, t-shirts, etc.
Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.
Andy Warhol
Yes, long after his death and 15 minutes, Warhol enjoys continued relevance and fascination. His polaroids are now on auction from Christies, the famed auction house.
It’s actually the second sale in a multi-year effort in which the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has enlisted Christie’s to liquidate thousands of the artist’s works. The foundation, headed by former Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs, aims to boost its endowment for grants to nonprofit visual arts organizations by more than $100 million.
The first sale, a traditional live auction in November at Christie’s in New York, took in more than $17 million.
The top sellers then were a screenprint collage of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis that fetched $626,500, more than doubling the pre-show estimate, and silkscreens of an endangered butterfly and bighorn sheep that fetched $1,258,500 and $842,500, respectively.
The Warhol Foundation stands to reap about $1.4 million to $2 million from the current online auction if all 125 lots sell within Christie’s estimates. It includes many pieces estimated to bring $5,000 or less, the most humble being two cute black-and-white prints of cats, with an opening bid of $500.
The five highest-priced pieces have starting bids of $40,000 and are estimated to fetch up to $70,000. As of Thursday evening, only one of them had gotten any action: Five bidders had jacked up the price to $48,000 for a mid-1980s black-and-white silkscreen-on-canvas advertising image of work boots.