Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe Portrait Goes on the Block for $200 Million – The Wall Street Journal

The seller of this “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn” version is an eponymous foundation created by the well-known Zurich dealer

Doris Ammann,

who died at age 76 last year, and her late brother, Thomas, a dealer who helped sell and catalog the official inventory of Warhol’s works before Mr. Ammann died in 1993.

If successful, this example will smash the artist’s current auction record of $105.4 million set nine years ago when Sotheby’s sold 1963’s “Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster).” Potential bidders will need to spend far more to surpass private sales of Warhol’s work, though. In 2017, hedge-fund billionaire Ken Griffin paid the estate of publishing magnate

Si Newhouse

at least $200 million for the orange version from the same “Shot Marilyn” series, according to a person familiar with the deal.

The coming sale will test the ebullience of the global art marketplace following months of robust sales. Despite the war in Ukraine, auction houses say collectors feel increasingly confident putting record-setting asking prices on their art trophies headed for sale. 

Warhol collectors will also be following this sale closely. The artist created about 8,000 paintings and sculptures between 1952 and his death in 1987. His works turn up at auction so consistently—about 200 works a year—that they have become a bellwether for the entire art market. 

On Monday, Christie’s said it intends to auction off “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn” in New York in May with all the theatrical frenzy it gave five years ago to the overall titleholder, Leonardo da Vinci’s $450.3 million “Salvator Mundi,” which carried a $100 million asking price.

“This painting symbolizes everything that’s relevant to us about the 20th century—you can see all its beauty and tragedy in her face,” said

Alex Rotter,

Christie’s chairman of its 20th and 21st century art departments, during a press conference about the sale. “Whenever a painting like this comes to market, it changes the market, and not just for Warhol.”

It has been years since the upper reaches of Warhol’s market underwent a major test, dealers say. Meanwhile, his market pre-eminence has been challenged by younger artists he admired like

Jean-Michel Basquiat,

whose works have since sold for over $100 million; another example is estimated to sell for $70 million this May at Phillips. Yet collectors have been willing to splurge when prime examples by Warhol come onto the market, including last fall when Sotheby’s sold a nearly 7-foot-tall silk-screen of “Nine Marilyns” from 1962 from the Henry and Linda Macklowe collection for $47.4 million.

The rollicking back story of “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn” could give Warhol some added luster and justify the sky-high asking price, Christie’s said. 

Warhol created five silk-screens of the star in this particular “Marilyn” series and experimented with a new screen printing technique he developed and only used for this set, giving each a different background such as red, orange, blue, sage blue and turquoise. The group became the stuff of art-world lore after a performance artist,

Dorothy Podber,

spotted them stacked against a wall in Warhol’s studio in 1964 and asked if she could shoot them. Warhol agreed, thinking she intended to photograph the works. Instead, she took out a gun and fired at a stack of “Marilyn” works in Warhol’s East 47th Street studio, known as the Factory.

Warhol banished the vandal and repaired the red and blue works that were damaged; the others, including this sage-blue version, remained unscathed. Even so, the incident’s notoriety has since turned these “Shot Marilyns” into plums coveted by some of the art world’s biggest buyers. Owners of other examples of “Shot Marilyn” works include newsprint executive

Peter Brant,

who said he paid $5,000 for the light blue version in 1967. Greek shipping tycoon

Philip Niarchos

won the red version at auction for $3.6 million in 1994 when the art market was in a slump. In 2007, Chicago collector

Stefan Edlis

sold his turquoise version for $80 million to hedge-fund manager

Steven Cohen.

Ms. Ammann and her younger brother, Thomas, bought this sage-blue version from Mr. Newhouse, Christie’s said. Over the years it has been exhibited in museums such as New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Paris’s Centre Pompidou and London’s Tate. The Ammanns’ foundation, formed as part of Ms. Ammann’s estate and overseen by her gallery partner

Georg Frei,

said it plans to ply all the proceeds from the Warhol into charitable causes helping children.

Write to Kelly Crow at Kelly.Crow@wsj.com