Vanity Fair UK - 11.2019

THE POP CHARTS: Lesser-known Warhol portraits

WARHOL’S RISING STARS

By SIMON DE BURTON

T

he rise of social media has made true Andy

Warhol’s now clichéd prediction that “in the

future, everyone will be world-famous for 15

minutes.” However, while Warhol might well

have revelled in the celebrity opportunities provided by

YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, he didn’t need

any of them to achieve a level of fame that’s made him the

most bankable artist of his era.

And much of that fame is down to the famous—the great

and the good whom he captured in the ƒzzing colours of his

screen print portraits. These have come to be regarded as

the very quintessence of the Pop art movement and have

achieved the status of blue-chip collectables.

Warhol’s “lipstick and peroxide” images of Marilyn

Monroe, Chairman Mao, Liz Taylor and Jackie O will be 

familiar to all but, while these are the portraits that steal

the show at auction, there are numerous others for buyers to

choose from. The wide-ranging subjects include everyone

from Yves-Saint Laurent to Beethoven; from General

Custer to Ntombi Twala, former Queen of Swaziland.

According to the —irst Andy Warhol market report

produced this year by the Los Angeles-based Revolver

gallery, which specialises solely in his works, 1,064 prints

were sold in 2018 for a combined value of $43m (more than

43 per cent up on the previous year). The images of Marilyn

and Mick Jagger were named among the 10 most valuable.

Revolver claims Warhol prints across the board (not just

portraits) have shown an average 12.5 per cent yearly growth

in value over the past 20 years, with the artist’s popularity

receiving a further boost in 2019 as a result of the Whitney

Museum’s recent retrospective—the ƒrst of its kind in 30

years. The exhibition has now moved to the Art Institute

of Chicago (on show from October 20, 2019 to January

26, 2020). The report also highlights the huge growth in the

popularity of acquiring art for investment that has occurred

during the past decade. As a result, many advisors have

recommended Warhol prints as buys that are not only likely

to rise in value but are also easy to “understand” and will serve

as fun, instantly recognisable, kudos-boosting wall-ƒllers.

 Many people are baffled, however, by the seemingly

unstoppable rise in value of Warhol artworks that were

produced in huge numbers. The artist is believed to have

created 448 separate editioned prints, each in an average

run of 190 examples. That’s more than 85,000 pieces, not

counting the further thousands of unsigned, unnumbered

images produced for two years after Warhol’s death in 1987

by his favourite screen printer, Rupert Jasen Smith.

 But despite the quantity of prints made—both signed

and unsigned—the fact that they were regarded as relatively

disposable when ƒrst available during the 1960s (prices

ranged from $100–1,500) means that many are thought

to be in the hands of owners who are allowing them to

deteriorate. This may be eroding the supply of top quality

examples in a market where demand continues to rise.

This, at least, is something the shamelessly commercially

minded Warhol would have likely very much appreciated.

0

2006 2007 20082009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 20152016 2017 201820192020

10,000

20,000

30,000

40,000

50,000

60,000

70,000

80,000

90,000

100,000

110,000

120,000

Beethoven. £34,850,

Christie’s London

Louis Brandeis. $6,000,

Christie’s New York

General Custer.

$37,500, Christie’s

New York

Ingrid Bergman.

$43,750,

Sotheby’s

New York

Mick Jagger.

£43,750,

Sotheby’s

London

Teddy Roosevelt. $27,500,

Sotheby’s New York

Jane Fonda. £13,200,

Bonhams London

Lenin. $62,500,

Christie’s New York

Muhammad Ali.

$116,500, Christie’s

New York

Lillian Carter.

$1,912, Bonhams

San Francisco

WARHOL; © THE ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR THE VISUAL ARTS, INC./ DACS/ ARTIMAGE 2019 HARRY; WYATT; COLLINS; VON FURSTENBERG; © ARTWORK © 2019 THE ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR THE VISUAL ARTS, INC. / LICENSED BY DACS, LONDON. PHOTO © SEPT 1974 VOGUE / CONDÉ NAST ARCHIVE HALSTON; ARTWORK © 2019 THE ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR THE VISUAL ARTS, INC. / LICENSED BY DACS, LONDON. PHOTO © CHRISTIE’S IMAGES / BRIDGEMAN IMAGES MINNELLI; © THE ANDY WARHOL MUSEUM, PITTSBURGH; FOUNDING COLLECTION, CONTRIBUTION THE ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR THE VISUAL ARTS, INC. / LICENSED BY DACS, LONDON BERENSONARTWORKS © 2019 THE ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR THE VISUAL ARTS, INC. / LICENSED BY DACS, LONDON;COURTESY OF BONHAMS; SOTHEBY’S; CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LTD. 2019

NOVEMBER 2019 VANITY FAIR ON ART 55

11-19-Warhol-Portraits-Fraser.indd 55 20/09/2019 13:17