Marilyn Monroe is in the news again just days after she popped up when Kim Kardashian was criticised for wearing the oconic’s actress’s dress diet for Met Gala. This time around pop artist Andy Warhol’s famed 1964 silk-screen portrait of one of America’s most loved cultural icons has sold for $195 million, becoming the most expensive 20th-century artwork ever sold at a public auction.
Shot Sage Blue Marilyn is one of a series of portraits Warhol made of the actress following her death in 1962 and has become one of pop art’s best-known pieces, according to an AlJazeera report.
It sold for exactly $195.04 million, including fees, in just four minutes in a crowded room at Christie’s headquarters in New York on Monday. Its estimate was $200 million.
“‘Shot Sage Blue Marilyn’ is the absolute pinnacle of American Pop,” Alex Rotter, chairman of 20th and 21st Century art at Christie’s, said in a statement announcing the auction. “The painting transcends the genre of portraiture, superseding 20th century art and culture.”
