Displaying items by tag: silver car crash (double disaster)

On November 13, Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale in New York realized an impressive $380,642,000 – the highest price achieved for any sale session in the auction house’s history. The 61-lot auction carried an estimate of $280.7 million to $394.1 million and saw records set for seven artists including Andy Warhol.

Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster), the last of four in a series of the artist’s paintings depicting car crashes, sold for $105.4 million, shattering Warhol’s auction record of $71.7 million. The work, which is believed to have come from a private Swiss collection, has belonged to a number of important collectors including Bruno Bischofberger, Gian Enzo Sperone, the Saatchi Collection and Thomas Ammann.

Other highlights from the auction included Gerhard Richter’s large-scale A.B. Courbet, which sold to a telephone bidder for $26.5 million; Cy Twombly’s 24-piece Poems of the Sea, which garnered $21.7 million; Willem de Kooning’s Abstract Expressionist canvas Untitled V, which realized $24.8 million; and Barnett Newman’s abstract By Twos, which sold to dealer David Zwirner for $20.6 million.

Two monumental works by Andy Warhol could garner over $120 million when they head to auction this fall. Silver Car Crash (Double Distaster), a 8 x 13 foot silkscreen from the artist’s Death and Disaster series, will be offered during Sotheby’s contemporary art sale on November 13 and Coca-Cola (3), one of Warhol’s most famous pop art paintings, will be sold during Christie’s post-war and contemporary auction on November 12.

Silver Car Crash, which has only been seen in public once in the last 26 years, is expected to bring around $60 million while Warhol’s black-and-white portrait of a coca cola bottle will likely sell for $40-$60 million. Silver Car Crash has been in the same private collection since 1988 and will go on display at Sotheby’s London on October 12 and in New York on November 1.

A highly influential artist who continues to command high selling prices, Warhol’s works fetched $329 million at auction last year.