Andy Warhol Marilyn Monroe

The price was the highest ever at auction for an American artwork. The portrait was auctioned by Christie's in New York.

You may click on “Your Choices” below to learn about and use cookie management tools to limit use of cookies when you visit NPR’s sites. If you click “Agree and Continue” below, you acknowledge that your cookie choices in those tools will be respected and that you otherwise agree to the use of cookies on NPR’s sites. NPR’s sites use cookies, similar tracking and storage technologies, and information about the device you use to access our sites (together, “cookies”) to enhance your viewing, listening and user experience, personalize content, personalize messages from NPR’s sponsors, provide social media features, and analyze NPR’s traffic.

Andy Warhol's 1964 portrait of Marilyn Monroe sold for $195 million at Christie's Monday night, becoming the most expensive work of American art ever sold.

The Marilyn, known as "Shot Sage Blue Marilyn," was one of five versions in different color schemes that Warhol painted in 1964, two years after Marilyn Monroe's death. Dealers say the sellers wanted to maximize the charitable proceeds, and guarantees typically require sellers to give up some of the price upside above the guaranteed amount. But the shooting added to their allure and became part of their titles. "It's the Mount Everest of its era," Fabricant said. The price suggests that the art market, at least at the very high end, is largely holding up to the pressures of falling stocks and rising interest rates. The buyer was not identified.

The famous print of Marilyn Monroe breaks the record for an American artwork, selling for an eye-watering $281 million.

and is like really capturing what the audience... Shot Stage Blue Marilyn is one in a series of portraits Warhol made of the actress following her death in 1962 and has since become one of pop art's best-known pieces. - The print by Andy Warhol is considered the pinnacle of American Pop art

Shot Sage Blue Marilyn” sold for nearly double the previously most expensive of Warhol's works at auction.

Warhol created “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn” in 1964—two years after Monroe’s sudden death—using a promotional photo from the actor’s 1953 film Niagara and gave the actress a pink face, blue eyeshadow and red lips against a sage background. That’s how much Leonardo da Vinci’s “ Salvator Mundi” sold for in 2017 to become the most expensive artwork to ever sold at auction. Andy Warhol has remained a pop culture icon more than three decades after his death in 1987.

Andy Warhol's iconic blue Marilyn Monroe artwork sells for $195 million. The print went to sale at a New York auction.

Some even predicted the artwork to sell for between $250 and 300 million dollars. Despite selling for 195 million dollars the artwork was predicted by art analysts to sell for over 200 million dollars. The print went for sale at an auction in New York at Christie’s and is now the most expensive piece of American art ever sold.

The Marilyn Monroe painting became the most expensive 20th century artwork to sell at auction.

In 1985, dealer Tony Shafrazi designed a poster promoting his show of paintings made jointly by the two artists that featured them in boxing gloves as if preparing to spar with each other. As he was leaving the sale, Mr Gagosian declined to comment. (Under normal circumstances, 8pm is the witching hour, when dealers and collectors pop out of their chairs to make dinner reservations.) The painting, Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, was created by Warhol in 1964. After just 3½ minutes, Mr Pylkkanen brought down the hammer at $US170 million. (The $US450 million Leonardo da Vinci is still in first place.)

Warhol's "Shot Sage Blue Marilyn" beat the record price for an American artwork at auction set by a Basquiat skull painting in 2017.

He died in 1987 of a heart attack.) A Christie’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Monday. (Warhol himself was badly injured in a 1968 shooting.

Silkscreen of iconic movie star commands highest-ever price for work by an American artist.

The iconic powder blue and hot pink portrait of Marilyn Monroe becomes one of the world's most expensive oeuvres.

“I realized that everything I was doing must have been Death,” Warhol said , describing those prints, and others he made around that time. Christie’s New York auction house announced the sale of "Shot Sage Blue Marilyn," Monday afternoon, one of five silk-screen printed Monroe portraits Warhol made in the aftermath of her 1962 overdose. Andy Warhol’s iconic powder blue and hot pink portrait of Marilyn Monroe has sold for $195 million, becoming one of the world’s most expensive oeuvres.

The 1964 silkscreen image of Monroe, which sold for a record $195 million on Monday, was made after the Hollywood star's death two years earlier.

The four others became known as the "Shot Marilyns." "Shot Sage Blue Marilyn is the absolute pinnacle of American pop," Alex Rotter, chairman of 20th and 21st century art at the auctioneer Christie's, said. The artist thought she meant photograph the paintings, but she actually meant shooting them with a gun. The 1964 silkscreen image of Monroe, called Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, was made after the Hollywood star's death two years earlier. Podber put on a pair of gloves, brandished a small revolver from her purse and fired a shot into the pile of four of the five Marilyn paintings, damaging them. Shot Sage Blue Marilyn was nearly part of a series of portraits of Munroe by Warhol called the "Shot Marilyns". Warhol painted Marilyns in 1964 with different colored backgrounds: red, orange, light blue and sage blue.

Warhol's 1964 silkscreen of Monroe, "Shot Sage Blue Marilyn," sold at auction in New York on Monday night for $195 million, the highest price tag for a piece of ...

Twenty percent of the proceeds will be allocated to a charity of the buyer's choosing. It sold after less than four minutes of bidding, per The Guardian. The previous record was $110.5 million for a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat that sold in 2017.