Auction For Andy Warhol Foundation Fetches $17 Million
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- The first in a series of live and online auctions to raise funds for the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has taken in over $17 million.
The auction Monday at Christie's in Midtown featured works by Warhol ranging from prints to photographs, some of which have not been seen by the public.
The top sale was "Endangered Species: San Francisco Silverspot," a print that fetched over $1.2 million.
Other highlights included "Jackie," a screen print and paper collage of Jacqueline Kennedy that sold for over $626,000, more than double its high estimate of $300,000.
The foundation said the money raised for its endowment from the sales would allow it to expand support of the visual arts, fulfilling Warhol's purpose in establishing the foundation.
Online auctions will begin in February.
The auction came as Warhol's legacy was coincidentally being celebrated at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The exhibition called, "Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years," featuring Warhol's own work alongside that of other artists who have reinterpreted or responded to it.
"We selected about 50 amazing works by this extraordinary artist, and juxtaposed them with about 100 works by 60 other artists – about three generations worth of artists who work after him and explore his themes in really exciting ways," assistant curator Ian Alteveer told CBS 2's Dana Tyler last month.
"Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years" was scheduled to be at the Met through Dec. 31.
Warhol was born in Pittsburgh in 1928, and produced his most seminal work in New York City. His studio, known as the Factory, was located at a since-demolished building 231 E. 47th St. in Midtown from 1964 to 1968, in the Decker Building at 33 Union Square West from 1968 to 1973, at 860 Broadway on the northern edge of Union Square from 1973 to 1984, and on Madison Avenue between 32nd and 33rd streets from 1984 until his death in 1987.
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