Warhol's Famous Painting Of Blue Marilyn Monroe Auctioned Off For 195 Million Dollars.

The painting Shot Sage Blue Marilyn by Andy Warhol from 1964 was auctioned off on Monday for record 195 million dollars, becoming the most expensive art piece of the 20th century.  

The painting was auctioned for 4 minutes. Potential buyers could participate in the auction in person and online, but according to a statement given by Christie's auction house, who organized the auction, the highest bid was placed by a buyer physically present in the auction hall. The painting's new owner is the collector Larry Gagosian. 

Blue Marilyn defeated Women of Algiers by Pablo Picasso, the most expensive painting of the last century until now, auctioned off for almost 180 million dollars in 2015. With the price of 195 million dollars, Blue Marilyn became the most expensive piece of art by an American artist. 

Andy Warhol started working on the screen printing of Marilyn Monroe after her death in August 1962. He created four differently coloured versions of the same size, known as Shots Marilyn. In the painting Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, she has a pink face on a sage blue background, red lips, yellow hair and blue eyeshadow. 

The orange version of Warhol's Marilyn was sold by Sotheby's auction house in 1998 for 17 million dollars. 

 The auction house was selling the painting in the name of the Swiss foundation of Thomas and Doris Amman, with all proceeds going directly to this foundation, which attempts to improve living conditions of children worldwide. 

In under four minutes of bidding, Andy Warhol’s 1964 silk-screen “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn” sold for about $195 million at Christie’s in New York, making it the highest price achieved for any American work of art at auction. https://t.co/O5XOrG3n34

— New York Times Arts (@nytimesarts) May 10, 2022

Andy Warhol was a son of Slovak immigrants of Ruthenian origin into the United States, from the village Miková in the Stropkov region. He was born in 1928 in Pittsburgh, USA, and died in 1987 in New York. 

Even now, Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci, sold for 450 million dollars to a bidder from Saudi Arabian royal family in 2017, remains the most expensive painting ever auctioned. Whether the painting was truly painted by Leonardo da Vinci himself or one of his apprentices remains unknown to this day.