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Bought for $250, selling for $15 million: Warhol's vision of Monroe up for auction
03-21-2007
 By Louise Jury
When this portrait of Marilyn Monroe was exhibited in Andy Warhol's first one-man show in New York not long after her death in 1962, it sold for $250.
But now it is expected to make at least $15 million, a 60,000-fold jump, when the original American collector with an eye for a bargain puts it up for auction after treasuring it for the best part of half a century.
After Monroe overdosed on sleeping pills on 5 August 1962, the mix of death and celebrity was one the up-and-coming star Warhol could scarcely resist.
This work, Lemon Marilyn, was among 13 silkscreen portraits of her he produced, taking a bust-length promotional photograph of the blonde sex siren from her film, Niagara, for inspiration.
They were shown in the November at Eleanor Ward's Stable Gallery in New York in what was the first solo exhibition in America's art capital for Warhol. He was already known for works such as his paintings of Campbell's soup cans but had yet to achieve the fame of his Factory studio as depicted in the film Factory Girl, with Sienna Miller as his muse, Edie Sedgwick.
Others in this initial series of Monroe portraits included Gold Marilyn, Grape Marilyn, Mint Marilyn, Cherry Marilyn and Orange Marilyn, which sold in New York last year for $16.3 million. His silkscreen is a stretched fine mesh frame, using stencils and an accumulation of inks on, in this case, linen.
This unique example can be seen for the next two days at Christie's in London, before it returns to New York for auction on 16 May.
Pilar Ordovas, Christie's head of post-war and contemporary, said that it was "incredibly unusual" to have one of these original 13 Monroe portraits with the same private collector for more than 40 years.
Although Warhol was already a name from his fashion magazine and advertising work, other artists such as Picasso and Francis Bacon would have been more obvious contemporary purchases. “He was someone who was part of the scene and doing very exciting work, but was not established as other artists were. But with this series on Marilyn Monroe, Warhol's name and his reach went to a different height,” Ms Ordovas said.
One of the most important factors is the quality of the work because the silkscreen process was not always easy to pull off with precision.
“The quality and the freshness of the colours is important. In some of them, the screening is not so successful and the background is messy. But this is in absolutely pristine condition,” Ms Ordovas added. “It means it has all the ingredients. It was in Warhol's seminal show and it is being seen for the first time on the open market.”
The world record price for a Warhol was set at Christie's in New York last November when an Asian collector paid $17.4 million for a portrait of Chairman Mao.
*This article originally appeared in the Belfast Telegraph
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