The $120 Million Scream: Edvard Munch Painting Sells for Record Sum

Update after iconic painting fetches record amount at Sotheby's auction house in New York City.

(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".

The $120 Million Scream: Edvard Munch's Iconic Painting Sells for Record Sum

Update: Edvard Munch's iconic painting The Scream broke all the records when it sold at auction last night for almost $120 million, Sotheby's is reporting. This is the largest sum ever paid for a painting. The previous record was $106 million for a Picasso painting. The winning bid came via telephone. The auction house has not yet disclosed who the winning bidder is.

A world-famous painting by celebrated Norwegian artist Edvard Munch is set to be auctioned off in May, and the starting bid is an earth-staggering $80 million!

This is the fourth version of the  iconic painting titled The Scream, which will go to auction at New York City's famed Sotheby's on May 2. The pre-sale bid of $80 million is the highest starting bid for any item in the history of the prestigious auction house. The 1895 pastel-on-board work of art is the only privately owned version of the renowned painting, belonging to a Norwegian businessman whose father was Munch's friend and patron. Two versions of the work belong to the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway, while another is at the National Museum, also in Oslo.

The painting rose in notoriety with the release of the Wes Craven directed horror movie Scream in the mid-90s. The killers in the film wore masks that were said to be modeled on the screaming figure in the expressionist painting.