newsfromchristies201102

Andy Warhol (1929-1987)
Self-Portrait, painted in 1967
with the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board, Inc., stamp and numbered 'A102.103' (on the overlap)
Acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas (182.9x182.9cm)

Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium £10,793,250 _ $17,441,892 _ €12,854,761 (Christie's London, February 16th 2011, Lot 11)
Estimate £3,000,000-£5,000,000
Lot sold to Anonymous

«'The Self-Portrait series of 1967, originally made for the American Pavilion (a huge geodesic dome designed by Buckminster Fuller) at Expo '67 in Montreal, constitutes the images by which Warhol is best known to the public. They came at the point in his career when he had the confidence to accept his status as star and celebrity, as their large, six-foot-by-six-foot scale confirms. They are Warhol's most archetypal projection - as iconic now as his portraits of Marilyn. Yet Warhol still insisted, for himself, on a certain obscurity. Posed with his fingers against the mouth (long a received symbol of contemplation), his face half hidden in shadow, it is Warhol as-observer par excellence: he sees us more clearly than we see him. The mottled paint accentuates the notion of the picture as an impenetrable surface. In their detachment, these 1967 self-portraits avoid direct, self-confident confrontation with the viewer' (K. McShine, 'Introduction', pp. 13-23, McShine (ed.), Andy Warhol: A Retrospective, exh. cat., New York, 1989, pp. 20-21) [...]

Provenance:
_ Property from an American Estate (acquired from the previous owner by the present owner in 1974).
_ Leo Castelli Gallery, New York.