Sotheby’s will auction Andy Warhol’s first self-portrait in its June 28 post-war and contemporary art evening sale in London.
The silkscreen print dates to 1963. Warhol reproduced it from an image he took in a New York photo booth.
The self-portrait is one of an edition of 10
This lot is one of an edition of 10 in various colours.
Warhol began producing his iconic portraits of celebrities in the early 1960s, but had yet to appear as a subject himself.
It was Ivan Karp, a New York based dealer and collector, who convinced Warhol to appropriate his own image.
He said to Warhol: “You know, people want to see you. Your looks are responsible for a certain part of your fame – they feed the imagination”.
Warhol was convinced.
He would regularly revisit his self-portrait over the course of his career.
James Sevier, senior specialist in contemporary art at Sotheby’s, told the Guardian newspaper: “The artist’s first self-portraits – created using a strip of photographs taken in a New York dime store photo booth – have never felt more relevant to contemporary culture.
“This is a work of immense art historical importance that marks the watershed moment when Warhol joined the canon of the greatest self-portraitists.”
The work is valued at £5m-7m ($6.4m-9m).
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