Christie’s announces that the iconic Shot Sage Blue Marilyn by Andy Warhol will lead its Marquee Week of sales in May.

Christie’s announces that the iconic Shot Sage Blue Marilyn by Andy Warhol will lead its Marquee Week of sales in May.

Among the most iconic paintings in history, Shot Sage Blue Marilyn is expected to fetch around a whopping $200m (£151m), according to auction house Christie's. “The most significant 20th-century painting to come to auction in a generation, Andy Warhol’s Marilyn is the absolute pinnacle of American Pop and the promise of the American Dream encapsulating optimism, fragility, celebrity and iconography all at once,” says Alex Rotter, Christie’s Chairman, 20th and 21st Century Art.

Warhol first began creating silkscreens of Marilyn Monroe following her death in August 1962. He would create reproductions of her visage multiple times in bright colours, often with the features somewhat askew. In 1964, he developed a more refined and time-intensive screen printing technique, antithetical to the mass production he was best known for and created a limited number of portraits of the Hollywood legend. This technique was so difficult in fact, that he never returned to it again and yet the image remains burned in the visual lexicon of art history.

The work comes to Christie’s from the Thomas and Doris Ammann Foundation Zurich. All proceeds of the sale will benefit the foundation, which is dedicated to improving the lives of children the world over by establishing support systems centred on providing healthcare and educational programs.

With 100 per cent of the proceeds going to charity, the sale of this single painting will constitute the highest-grossing philanthropic auction since The Collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller in 2018.

Header Photo: TechiAI