Friday, March 16, 2012

(Not) in the Ghetto: Andy Warhol's Elvis Painting to Fetch $50 Million +


Update: Andy Warhol's silkscreen Double Elvis sold for $37 million at Sotheby's. One of 22 made by the pop artist, it's based on a movie still and depicts Elvis as a gun-toting cowboy.

A 1962 silkscreen painting by famed pop artist Andy Warhol featuring a gun-toting Elvis Presley is expected to bring in more than $50 million when it goes up for auction in May.

Famed auction house Sotheby's of New York City will be auctioning off the copy, known as "Double Elvis (Ferus Type)" and anticipate a starting bid for the painting at around $30 million. There are nine similar Elvis paintings hanging in museums around the world, but Warhol created a total of 22 paintings with the superstar singer as the subject matter at his studio in New York City's Union Square between the late 1950s and early 1960s.  The images for the paintings were taken from publicity stills for various Western movies Elvis acted in during his stint as a matinee idol, after becoming a top box office draw around the world.

The last time a Warhol Elvis painting went up to auction it fetched a record-breaking amount when an Italian private collector paid a staggering $100 million US for the work of art known as "Eight Elvises".



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