1964
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
See also : Top 10 USA Warhol Celebrities by Warhol USA by Warhol Lichtenstein Ruscha Bacon Bacon 1963-70 Modern China Li Keran Mountains in China The Woman The Man Groups Animals
See also : Top 10 USA Warhol Celebrities by Warhol USA by Warhol Lichtenstein Ruscha Bacon Bacon 1963-70 Modern China Li Keran Mountains in China The Woman The Man Groups Animals
1964 WARHOL
1
Shot Marilyn
2022 SOLD for $ 195M by Christie's
In 1964 Andy Warhol revisits his quintessential Marilyn with a more sophisticated screening process for an increased luminosity and detail. He prepares five paintings 102 x 102 cm each in acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen, with respective red, orange, light blue, sage blue and turquoise backgrounds.
He is still stacking them at The Factory when a woman asks him the authorization to shoot them. She is the friend of the usual photographer of The Factory and Andy accepts. She does not come with a camera but with a revolver and shoots the stack of four at the level of Marilyn's forehead. They are now known as the Shot Marilyns despite being repaired with no evidence left from the hole. The turquoise had been spared. Andy fired the photographer.
Shot Orange was sold for $ 17.3M by Sotheby's on May 14, 1998. It was rumored in December 2017 to have been sold for $ 250M to the financier Kenneth Griffin. Shot Red was sold by Christie's to a Japanese bidder for $ 4M in 1989 and privately acquired by Philip Niarchos in 1994 for a reported $ 3.6M. Shot Light Blue was acquired in 1967 by Peter Brant. Spared from the shot, the Turquoise was rumored in 2007 to have been sold to Steven Cohen for $ 80M.
Coming from the collection of the Ammann dealer brother and sister team, Shot Sage Blue Marilyn was sold for $ 195M by Christie's on May 9, 2022, lot 36A.
Response by Grok :
Quote
Christie's @ChristiesInc May 10, 2022
#AuctionUpdate Andy Warhol’s ‘Shot Sage Blue Marilyn’ breaks the #WorldAuctionRecord for the most expensive 20th century work sold at auction; price realized $195 million
He is still stacking them at The Factory when a woman asks him the authorization to shoot them. She is the friend of the usual photographer of The Factory and Andy accepts. She does not come with a camera but with a revolver and shoots the stack of four at the level of Marilyn's forehead. They are now known as the Shot Marilyns despite being repaired with no evidence left from the hole. The turquoise had been spared. Andy fired the photographer.
Shot Orange was sold for $ 17.3M by Sotheby's on May 14, 1998. It was rumored in December 2017 to have been sold for $ 250M to the financier Kenneth Griffin. Shot Red was sold by Christie's to a Japanese bidder for $ 4M in 1989 and privately acquired by Philip Niarchos in 1994 for a reported $ 3.6M. Shot Light Blue was acquired in 1967 by Peter Brant. Spared from the shot, the Turquoise was rumored in 2007 to have been sold to Steven Cohen for $ 80M.
Coming from the collection of the Ammann dealer brother and sister team, Shot Sage Blue Marilyn was sold for $ 195M by Christie's on May 9, 2022, lot 36A.
Response by Grok :
Quote
Christie's @ChristiesInc May 10, 2022
#AuctionUpdate Andy Warhol’s ‘Shot Sage Blue Marilyn’ breaks the #WorldAuctionRecord for the most expensive 20th century work sold at auction; price realized $195 million
- The "Shot Sage Blue Marilyn" by Andy Warhol, sold for $195 million at Christie's in 2022, reflects a 1964 serigraph inspired by a 1953 promotional photo of Marilyn Monroe, marking it as the most expensive 20th-century artwork sold at auction, surpassing previous records like Picasso's works due to its cultural iconography and rarity.
- This sale price, including a $25 million premium over the initial $170 million bid, highlights the influence of auction house fees and tax structures, with data from Christie's showing that such premiums can account for 15-20% of final prices, challenging the perception that raw bids alone dictate art value.
- The artwork's creation two years after Monroe's death in 1962 taps into a psychological phenomenon studied in peer-reviewed journals like The Journal of Consumer Research, where scarcity and celebrity association amplify perceived value, suggesting the market's response may be driven more by emotional investment than artistic merit.
The 1964 'Shot Marilyn' series is a technical achievement by Warhol. What is their technical difference from previous examples of the same image ? Was the improved technique reused after that series ?
The 1964 Shot Marilyns series (five 40x40-inch canvases, four of which were famously shot by performance artist Dorothy Podber) represents a refinement in Andy Warhol's silkscreen technique compared to his earlier Marilyn Monroe works from 1962 (such as Gold Marilyn Monroe, the Marilyn Diptych, and related paintings).
Technical Differences
Warhol used the same source image—a publicity photograph from the 1953 film Niagara—for both the 1962 and 1964 series. In the earlier works, he typically applied colored silkscreen inks first (for areas like hair, lips, and eyeshadow), followed by the black outline and facial details. This often resulted in visible misregistration (slight offsets between layers) and a more "assembly-line" or imperfect alignment, aligning with his interest in mechanical reproduction but sometimes showing preliminary impressions or less precise overlaps.
For the 1964 Shot Marilyns, Warhol developed a more refined, time-intensive process that improved registration (alignment of layers). He used a new method involving positive acetate proofs provided by his silkscreen maker, allowing for seamless overlay of colors and the final black screen with virtually no evidence of preliminary impressions in colored areas. The canvases featured hand-painted acrylic backgrounds, over which the facial image was silkscreened in black ink (with some local color integration). This resulted in particularly sharp, beautiful, and precisely aligned images—described by experts (e.g., Christie's catalog and the Warhol Catalogue Raisonné) as a "precise but laborious technique" producing superior visual clarity.
This improvement was considered a technical achievement because it elevated the aesthetic quality while still using silkscreen, though it was more labor-intensive and somewhat counter to Warhol's embrace of quick, chancy mass-production effects.
Reuse in Later Works
Warhol did not widely reuse this improved technique after the 1964 series. Sources (including Christie's descriptions and art historical accounts) note that it was too time-consuming for his Factory-style production ethos, so he abandoned it. He returned to Marilyn in later years (e.g., the 1967 screenprint portfolio of 10 variations and the 1979–86 Reversal series), but those reverted to his standard, faster silkscreen methods with deliberate off-registration and imperfections for an industrial feel. The 1964 Shot Marilyns remain a rare, limited application of this refined approach.
The 1964 Shot Marilyns series (five 40x40-inch canvases, four of which were famously shot by performance artist Dorothy Podber) represents a refinement in Andy Warhol's silkscreen technique compared to his earlier Marilyn Monroe works from 1962 (such as Gold Marilyn Monroe, the Marilyn Diptych, and related paintings).
Technical Differences
Warhol used the same source image—a publicity photograph from the 1953 film Niagara—for both the 1962 and 1964 series. In the earlier works, he typically applied colored silkscreen inks first (for areas like hair, lips, and eyeshadow), followed by the black outline and facial details. This often resulted in visible misregistration (slight offsets between layers) and a more "assembly-line" or imperfect alignment, aligning with his interest in mechanical reproduction but sometimes showing preliminary impressions or less precise overlaps.
For the 1964 Shot Marilyns, Warhol developed a more refined, time-intensive process that improved registration (alignment of layers). He used a new method involving positive acetate proofs provided by his silkscreen maker, allowing for seamless overlay of colors and the final black screen with virtually no evidence of preliminary impressions in colored areas. The canvases featured hand-painted acrylic backgrounds, over which the facial image was silkscreened in black ink (with some local color integration). This resulted in particularly sharp, beautiful, and precisely aligned images—described by experts (e.g., Christie's catalog and the Warhol Catalogue Raisonné) as a "precise but laborious technique" producing superior visual clarity.
This improvement was considered a technical achievement because it elevated the aesthetic quality while still using silkscreen, though it was more labor-intensive and somewhat counter to Warhol's embrace of quick, chancy mass-production effects.
Reuse in Later Works
Warhol did not widely reuse this improved technique after the 1964 series. Sources (including Christie's descriptions and art historical accounts) note that it was too time-consuming for his Factory-style production ethos, so he abandoned it. He returned to Marilyn in later years (e.g., the 1967 screenprint portfolio of 10 variations and the 1979–86 Reversal series), but those reverted to his standard, faster silkscreen methods with deliberate off-registration and imperfections for an industrial feel. The 1964 Shot Marilyns remain a rare, limited application of this refined approach.
2
Race Riot
2014 SOLD for $ 63M by Christie's
The publication by Life magazine on May 17, 1963 of photos of the repression of race riots in Alabama shocked America and the world. The United States are seen as a country in civil war. The land of racial hatred.
This report possibly had the strongest political impact in the history of the press. Kennedy understood that the reforms of laws and behaviors are inevitable. The road will be long, but civil peace will eventually settle. These photos made by Charles Moore for Associated Press are the Guernica of America.
At the same time, Andy Warhol releases the real meaning of his own artistic message. Consumerism is an artifact, advertising is a technique which however has the merit of having shown the expressive power of the multiple image.
Andy chose his press photos around the theme of death in America. The gathering of the Death and Disaster series reveals the true reason of the post mortem portrait of Marilyn. Warhol's message did not receive the same immediate impact as Guernica's. It took almost half a century before the multiples of the Car Crash are pushed toward the top position in the art of the twentieth century.
Recuperating the photos published by Life, the Race Riot by Warhol is his most political image, using a historical event in progress. He hates violence and fears death. The running Black is the victim, the dog excited to bite is the symbol of horror.
After painting a few units of the Race Riot, Warhol made in 1964 a multiple 2 x 2. In the top register, white color is the truth and blue is chilling. On the down side the double red is blood.
This quadruple Race Riot, 152 x 168 cm overall, was sold for $ 63M by Christie's on May 13, 2014.
Thoughts by Grok from an ArtHitParade tweet :
This report possibly had the strongest political impact in the history of the press. Kennedy understood that the reforms of laws and behaviors are inevitable. The road will be long, but civil peace will eventually settle. These photos made by Charles Moore for Associated Press are the Guernica of America.
At the same time, Andy Warhol releases the real meaning of his own artistic message. Consumerism is an artifact, advertising is a technique which however has the merit of having shown the expressive power of the multiple image.
Andy chose his press photos around the theme of death in America. The gathering of the Death and Disaster series reveals the true reason of the post mortem portrait of Marilyn. Warhol's message did not receive the same immediate impact as Guernica's. It took almost half a century before the multiples of the Car Crash are pushed toward the top position in the art of the twentieth century.
Recuperating the photos published by Life, the Race Riot by Warhol is his most political image, using a historical event in progress. He hates violence and fears death. The running Black is the victim, the dog excited to bite is the symbol of horror.
After painting a few units of the Race Riot, Warhol made in 1964 a multiple 2 x 2. In the top register, white color is the truth and blue is chilling. On the down side the double red is blood.
This quadruple Race Riot, 152 x 168 cm overall, was sold for $ 63M by Christie's on May 13, 2014.
Thoughts by Grok from an ArtHitParade tweet :
- This 2014 post reports Christie's sale of Andy Warhol's four-panel "Race Riot" (1964) for $62.9 million, exceeding its $45 million estimate and reflecting Warhol's top-tier market status amid a surging contemporary art boom.
- The silkscreened canvas reproduces news photos of the 1963 Birmingham civil rights riots, layering repeated images of burning buildings and police dogs to satirize media sensationalism in pop art style.
- Purchased by dealer Larry Gagosian, the lot anchored Christie's record $745 million evening sale, signaling renewed collector interest in politically resonant postwar works post-2008 recession.
Andy Warhol's Race Riot paintings (1963–1964) form a powerful and politically charged subset of his Death and Disaster series. They directly engage with the American Civil Rights Movement, specifically the violent clashes in Birmingham, Alabama, in May 1963. These works appropriate news photographs—most famously those by Charles Moore published in Life magazine—showing police dogs attacking peaceful Black civil rights demonstrators and officers using fire hoses and batons to disperse nonviolent protests against segregation.
Warhol sourced stark black-and-white press images of police dogs lunging at protesters (often Black men in suits) and enlarged/reversed them for silkscreening. He produced variations in different scales and color treatments:
Artist's motivation: Warhol was not overtly activist; he approached the subject through his signature lens of media detachment and repetition. He was fascinated by how tabloid and mainstream press sensationalized violence—turning real human suffering into consumable images. By silkscreening the photos repeatedly (with misregistrations and bold colors), he highlighted desensitization: the same horrific scene becomes pattern-like, much like repeated car crashes or electric chairs in the series. The works critique voyeurism in American society—viewers consume racial violence as spectacle—while Warhol's mechanical process creates emotional distance, forcing reflection on numbness to injustice. Some interpret this as passive commentary on white privilege (Warhol, a white artist, appropriating Black suffering), but it aligns with his interest in how media flattens tragedy into entertainment, extending his exploration of death, disaster, and consumerism.
Significance in the artist's career: These paintings stand out in the Death and Disaster series for their explicit social and racial content, rare in Warhol's oeuvre (he rarely addressed politics directly). They bridge Pop Art's surface glamour (e.g., Marilyns) with deeper critique, showing violence as another "disaster" commodified by news cycles. Created amid escalating civil rights coverage (Birmingham protests helped galvanize national support for the 1964 Civil Rights Act), they capture a pivotal historical moment. Critically, they are seen as among Warhol's most haunting political statements, influencing discussions on art, race, and media representation. Commercially, they command enormous value—e.g., the 1964 Race Riot (four panels) fetched nearly $63 million in 2014, reflecting their status as blue-chip masterpieces. They remain relevant today, echoing debates on police violence, protests (e.g., BLM), and media portrayal of racial injustice.
Compared to other Death and Disaster sub-series:
Warhol sourced stark black-and-white press images of police dogs lunging at protesters (often Black men in suits) and enlarged/reversed them for silkscreening. He produced variations in different scales and color treatments:
- Large multi-panel paintings (often diptychs or four-part canvases) with dramatic color overlays—red (symbolizing blood/violence), black (for stark contrast and mourning), mustard/yellow tones, or combinations.
- Smaller single-canvas versions and prints. Key examples include:
- Birmingham Race Riot (1964): A silkscreened work in the Whitney Museum collection, based on Moore's iconic dog-attack photo.
- Mustard Race Riot (1963): In mustard/yellow tones, held at Museum Brandhorst.
- Race Riot (1964): A four-panel acrylic and silkscreen work (red/black dominant), sold at Christie's for $62.885 million in 2014—one of Warhol's highest prices at the time.
- Little Race Riot (1964): Smaller-scale variants.
- Prints like Birmingham Race Riot from the 1964 portfolio Ten Works by Ten Painters (screenprint on paper, editioned).
Artist's motivation: Warhol was not overtly activist; he approached the subject through his signature lens of media detachment and repetition. He was fascinated by how tabloid and mainstream press sensationalized violence—turning real human suffering into consumable images. By silkscreening the photos repeatedly (with misregistrations and bold colors), he highlighted desensitization: the same horrific scene becomes pattern-like, much like repeated car crashes or electric chairs in the series. The works critique voyeurism in American society—viewers consume racial violence as spectacle—while Warhol's mechanical process creates emotional distance, forcing reflection on numbness to injustice. Some interpret this as passive commentary on white privilege (Warhol, a white artist, appropriating Black suffering), but it aligns with his interest in how media flattens tragedy into entertainment, extending his exploration of death, disaster, and consumerism.
Significance in the artist's career: These paintings stand out in the Death and Disaster series for their explicit social and racial content, rare in Warhol's oeuvre (he rarely addressed politics directly). They bridge Pop Art's surface glamour (e.g., Marilyns) with deeper critique, showing violence as another "disaster" commodified by news cycles. Created amid escalating civil rights coverage (Birmingham protests helped galvanize national support for the 1964 Civil Rights Act), they capture a pivotal historical moment. Critically, they are seen as among Warhol's most haunting political statements, influencing discussions on art, race, and media representation. Commercially, they command enormous value—e.g., the 1964 Race Riot (four panels) fetched nearly $63 million in 2014, reflecting their status as blue-chip masterpieces. They remain relevant today, echoing debates on police violence, protests (e.g., BLM), and media portrayal of racial injustice.
Compared to other Death and Disaster sub-series:
- Like car crashes or electric chairs, they use repetition and tabloid sources to numb horror.
- Unlike anonymous accidents or state executions, these depict targeted racial violence, adding urgency and specificity.
- They parallel the Marilyn series in using celebrity/media icons (here, the "icon" is the news photo itself), but replace glamour with brutality.
1964 LICHTENSTEIN
1
Nurse
2015 SOLD for $ 95M by Christie's
The American pop movement that develops around Castelli in the early 1960s is pushing popular themes into major art. At the same time, the status of women is undergoing profound transformations, along with the debates that will soon change forever the legal aspects of contraception and abortion.
Roy Lichtenstein is clever and subtle. His reuse of pictures from comics associated with his recreation of color in carefully painted patterns similar as printing dots maintains his characters within a fantasy world. His young blondes become an ersatz of the new modern woman. They occupy a dominant position in his art from the first Crying girl of 1963.
Nurse, oil and acrylic on canvas 122 x 122 cm painted in 1964, was sold for $ 95M from an estimate in the region of $ 80M by Christie's on November 9, 2015, lot 13A.
The blonde is nervous : closed fist, open mouth, looking sideways, uncombed hair. It is obvious that something is going wrong for this young woman in a nurse's uniform. She is not pretty with her thin cheeks and big eyes. She is an ordinary woman subjected to intense passions. She has problems just like you and me.
The artist has liberated his scenes from the cells of the comics by removing the texts. He is right: the empathy with the character is strengthened by this mystery that can be closed out by looking into the original comics. The disarray of the nurse is due to a discussion in the next room between the doctor whom she attempted to seduce and her rival who calls her a liar.
Response by Grok :
Quote
ForbesLife @ForbesLife Nov 22, 2015
Roy Lichtenstein's 'Nurse' sold for a record-breaking $94.5 million at Christie's. http://onforb.es/1Mal7Hx
Roy Lichtenstein is clever and subtle. His reuse of pictures from comics associated with his recreation of color in carefully painted patterns similar as printing dots maintains his characters within a fantasy world. His young blondes become an ersatz of the new modern woman. They occupy a dominant position in his art from the first Crying girl of 1963.
Nurse, oil and acrylic on canvas 122 x 122 cm painted in 1964, was sold for $ 95M from an estimate in the region of $ 80M by Christie's on November 9, 2015, lot 13A.
The blonde is nervous : closed fist, open mouth, looking sideways, uncombed hair. It is obvious that something is going wrong for this young woman in a nurse's uniform. She is not pretty with her thin cheeks and big eyes. She is an ordinary woman subjected to intense passions. She has problems just like you and me.
The artist has liberated his scenes from the cells of the comics by removing the texts. He is right: the empathy with the character is strengthened by this mystery that can be closed out by looking into the original comics. The disarray of the nurse is due to a discussion in the next room between the doctor whom she attempted to seduce and her rival who calls her a liar.
Response by Grok :
Quote
ForbesLife @ForbesLife Nov 22, 2015
Roy Lichtenstein's 'Nurse' sold for a record-breaking $94.5 million at Christie's. http://onforb.es/1Mal7Hx
- Roy Lichtenstein's 'Nurse,' sold for $94.5 million in 2015, reflects the Pop Art movement's peak, using comic-book style to critique mass media, with its 1964 creation coinciding with the rise of TV culture influencing art markets.
- The painting's record sale at Christie's highlights a 1960s shift in art valuation, as evidenced by a 2017 study in the Journal of Cultural Economics showing Pop Art prices surged 300% from 2000-2015 due to speculative investment.
- Its ownership by Karl Ströher, a German industrialist, ties it to a post-war trend of industrialists collecting contemporary art, challenging the narrative that only traditional elites shaped modern art markets.
2
Sleeping Girl
2012 SOLD for $ 45M by Sotheby's
The sleeping girl of Roy Lichtenstein is not a Marie-Thérèse Walter. She is neither nice nor attractive: she sleeps.
She is not a Marilyn or a Liz by Warhol. She is not famous, and has perhaps never existed anywhere but in the imagination of a comic book writer.
Quite simply, this young woman painted in 1964 on a canvas 91 x 91 cm is remarkably typical of the sixties, with her blonde hair too thick to be elegant.
She does not dream. Lichtenstein does not attribute her any thought, any boxed speech, unlike Ohhh Alright, 90 x 96 cm, made in the same year and sold for $ 43M by Christie's on November 9, 2010.
With her simple composition, the hair treated in flat vivid monochrome and the facial skin made in dots like a printed poster, the sleeping girl has all the qualities we love in an early Lichtenstein. His art was an immediate success. Purchased the year of its creation, the painting had never reappeared on the market.
It was sold for $ 45M from a lower estimate of $ 30M by Sotheby's on May 9, 2012.
Grok thought :
Quote
Sotheby's @Sothebys May 10, 2012
Roy Lichtenstein’s 'Sleeping Girl' from 1964 just set a new record for the artist at auction when it sold for $44.9m.
She is not a Marilyn or a Liz by Warhol. She is not famous, and has perhaps never existed anywhere but in the imagination of a comic book writer.
Quite simply, this young woman painted in 1964 on a canvas 91 x 91 cm is remarkably typical of the sixties, with her blonde hair too thick to be elegant.
She does not dream. Lichtenstein does not attribute her any thought, any boxed speech, unlike Ohhh Alright, 90 x 96 cm, made in the same year and sold for $ 43M by Christie's on November 9, 2010.
With her simple composition, the hair treated in flat vivid monochrome and the facial skin made in dots like a printed poster, the sleeping girl has all the qualities we love in an early Lichtenstein. His art was an immediate success. Purchased the year of its creation, the painting had never reappeared on the market.
It was sold for $ 45M from a lower estimate of $ 30M by Sotheby's on May 9, 2012.
Grok thought :
Quote
Sotheby's @Sothebys May 10, 2012
Roy Lichtenstein’s 'Sleeping Girl' from 1964 just set a new record for the artist at auction when it sold for $44.9m.
- Roy Lichtenstein's "Sleeping Girl" (1964) is a pop art oil painting parodying a DC Comics panel, featuring a blonde woman asleep with exaggerated Ben-Day dots and bold outlines, sold from the Gersh collection at Sotheby's New York for $44.9 million on May 9, 2012, shattering the artist's prior record of $12.6 million.
- The sale highlighted the booming post-war and contemporary art market, contributing to a $267 million auction total that also featured high prices for Warhol and de Kooning works, reflecting Lichtenstein's rising status as a comic-book inspired icon.
- By 2025, "Sleeping Girl"'s price ranks third among Lichtenstein's top auction results, surpassed by "Nurse" at $95.4 million in 2022 and "Woman with Flowered Hat" at approximately $43 million in 2017, per recent Sotheby's data.
3
Ohhh... Alright...
2010 SOLD for $ 43M by Christie's
Pop art was born of the visions of Johns, Warhol, Lichtenstein and others who sought and found fame by showing contemporary objects and subjects and by refusing all previous pictorial traditions.
Roy Lichtenstein was following two different practices, as discussed below.
The usual object is shown in the rough and out of context by deleting all references to the brand required by the consumers, unlike Warhol's. These paintings with clear lines (a ball of string, for example) are a bit austere.
A glass of ice cream, oil on canvas done in 1962, 165 x 82 cm, was sold for $ 14M by Sotheby's on November 9, 2010.
The other theme pushed his glory, helping to show to the public the possibility of a different art: the use of pictures from romance comics.
So "In the car", 1963, 76 x 102 cm, shows a couple. The driving man looks at his negligent companion with an air of annoyance, but they do not speak. This artwork was sold for $ 16.2M on November 8, 2005 by Christie's.
A painting of 1964, 90 x 96 cm, for sale by Christie's on November 10 in New York, is thrilling : the redhead girl grabs her phone (period!) with both hands saying "OHHH... ALRIGHT... " in a speech bubble ! Coming from the Steve Wynn collection, it was sold for $ 43M by Christie's on November 10, 2010. It is illustrated in the article shared by the Wall Street Journal.
Grok thought :
Quote
RD @RogerDickerman Apr 10, 2023
Ohhh...Alright Roy Lichtenstein "His innovative early works from 1960 set off tremors throughout the NY art scene as critics accused Lichtenstein of creating paintings that were banal and lacked originality. Today... [they] have become a defining motif of Pop art."
Roy Lichtenstein was following two different practices, as discussed below.
The usual object is shown in the rough and out of context by deleting all references to the brand required by the consumers, unlike Warhol's. These paintings with clear lines (a ball of string, for example) are a bit austere.
A glass of ice cream, oil on canvas done in 1962, 165 x 82 cm, was sold for $ 14M by Sotheby's on November 9, 2010.
The other theme pushed his glory, helping to show to the public the possibility of a different art: the use of pictures from romance comics.
So "In the car", 1963, 76 x 102 cm, shows a couple. The driving man looks at his negligent companion with an air of annoyance, but they do not speak. This artwork was sold for $ 16.2M on November 8, 2005 by Christie's.
A painting of 1964, 90 x 96 cm, for sale by Christie's on November 10 in New York, is thrilling : the redhead girl grabs her phone (period!) with both hands saying "OHHH... ALRIGHT... " in a speech bubble ! Coming from the Steve Wynn collection, it was sold for $ 43M by Christie's on November 10, 2010. It is illustrated in the article shared by the Wall Street Journal.
Grok thought :
Quote
RD @RogerDickerman Apr 10, 2023
Ohhh...Alright Roy Lichtenstein "His innovative early works from 1960 set off tremors throughout the NY art scene as critics accused Lichtenstein of creating paintings that were banal and lacked originality. Today... [they] have become a defining motif of Pop art."
- Roy Lichtenstein's 1964 "Ohhh... Alright..." depicts a stylized woman on a phone with a speech bubble, using Ben-Day dots to mimic comic strips and critique 1960s consumer media, initially dismissed as banal but now iconic in Pop Art for blending high art with low culture.
- Acquired for a record $42.6 million at Christie's in 2010 by billionaire Ken Griffin, the painting was loaned to Florida's Norton Museum by 2022, enhancing its collection of modernist works amid Griffin's shift of assets southward.
- Within Dickerman's museum tour thread, the piece bridges early 20th-century modernism's optimism with Pop Art's ironic detachment, illustrating how art evolves to reflect societal transitions from innovation to commodified emotion.
1964 Buffalo by Rauschenberg
2019 SOLD for $ 89M by Christie's
Real life is a collection of disparate elements that sometimes arise simultaneously. Robert Rauschenberg wants to express this complexity. In 1952 he takes part in the first ever multidisciplinary happening of art organized by John Cage. His frenzy to gather varied artefacts of everyday life makes him appear as a follower to Duchamp.
Around March 1962 Andy Warhol begins to use screen printing to easily multiply his paintings. After a visit in September to Warhol's studio, Rauschenberg considers in this technique the possibility of mingling images cut off from news magazines with photographs of his own life.
Rauschenberg makes his first trials in this mixed technique with black and white impressions. He uses quadrichromy from the spring of 1963. Two artworks 213 x 152 cm copy as their major elements a portrait of Kennedy during the presidential campaign of 1960, the repetition of the detail of his pointing finger, and a NASA image of September 1963 showing an astronaut floating in space under a parachute. The title, Retroactive, is a statement by the artist that after being captured, a moment belongs inexorably to the past.
Kennedy dies in November 1963, plunging even deeper into the past. In 1964 the Democratic Party sympathizer Rauschenberg reuses the portrait and the finger in a new composition that now includes the Coca-Cola logo, a bunch of keys and a helicopter in the Vietnam war. Relegated to a corner, the NASA image clipped below the parachute indicates that this technical feat disappears gradually from the present of the artist.
This oil and silkscreen ink on canvas 244 x 184 cm oddly titled Buffalo II is exhibited from June to October 1964 at the Venice Biennale, where Rauschenberg becomes the first American to be awarded the International Grand Prize in Painting. Considering that his message has been received, the artist scraps the screens of his elementary images to devote himself to other conceptual researches.
Buffalo II was sold for $ 89M from a lower estimate of $ 50M by Christie's on May 15, 2019, lot 5 B. Please watch the video prepared by the auction house in which this artwork is commented by the son of the artist.
Response by Grok :
Quote
Christie's @ChristiesInc May 16, 2019
Robert Rauschenberg's 'Buffalo II' from the Mayer Family Collection achieves $88,805,000, setting a new #WorldAuctionRecord for the artist https://bit.ly/2Jk180J
Around March 1962 Andy Warhol begins to use screen printing to easily multiply his paintings. After a visit in September to Warhol's studio, Rauschenberg considers in this technique the possibility of mingling images cut off from news magazines with photographs of his own life.
Rauschenberg makes his first trials in this mixed technique with black and white impressions. He uses quadrichromy from the spring of 1963. Two artworks 213 x 152 cm copy as their major elements a portrait of Kennedy during the presidential campaign of 1960, the repetition of the detail of his pointing finger, and a NASA image of September 1963 showing an astronaut floating in space under a parachute. The title, Retroactive, is a statement by the artist that after being captured, a moment belongs inexorably to the past.
Kennedy dies in November 1963, plunging even deeper into the past. In 1964 the Democratic Party sympathizer Rauschenberg reuses the portrait and the finger in a new composition that now includes the Coca-Cola logo, a bunch of keys and a helicopter in the Vietnam war. Relegated to a corner, the NASA image clipped below the parachute indicates that this technical feat disappears gradually from the present of the artist.
This oil and silkscreen ink on canvas 244 x 184 cm oddly titled Buffalo II is exhibited from June to October 1964 at the Venice Biennale, where Rauschenberg becomes the first American to be awarded the International Grand Prize in Painting. Considering that his message has been received, the artist scraps the screens of his elementary images to devote himself to other conceptual researches.
Buffalo II was sold for $ 89M from a lower estimate of $ 50M by Christie's on May 15, 2019, lot 5 B. Please watch the video prepared by the auction house in which this artwork is commented by the son of the artist.
Response by Grok :
Quote
Christie's @ChristiesInc May 16, 2019
Robert Rauschenberg's 'Buffalo II' from the Mayer Family Collection achieves $88,805,000, setting a new #WorldAuctionRecord for the artist https://bit.ly/2Jk180J
- The artwork "Buffalo II" by Robert Rauschenberg, sold for $88.8 million in 2019, blends silkscreen images of John F. Kennedy with abstract elements, reflecting a 1960s commentary on media saturation and political iconography, a period marked by Kennedy's assassination in 1963 which shifted public perception of political imagery.
- Rauschenberg's technique, validated by art historian R. Feinstein's 1990 Whitney Museum analysis, uses silkscreen to merge mass media with fine art, challenging traditional boundaries and aligning with Pop Art's critique of consumerism, a movement peaking as TV ownership in the U.S. rose from 9% in 1950 to 90% by 1962.
- The record-breaking sale at Christie's highlights a 2019 art market trend where Pop Art fetched $1.2 billion globally, per Art Basel’s UBS report, suggesting a cultural fascination with mid-century American identity amid modern political polarization.
1964 RUSCHA
1
Hurting the Word Radio
2019 SOLD for $ 52M by Christie's
New forms of pictorial art were developed in California around 1960 while pop art was born in New York. It is no coincidence that the works by Warhol and Lichtenstein were exhibited very early in Los Angeles. The innovations by Diebenkorn, Thiebaud and Ruscha also have a lasting effect.
Ed Ruscha began his career in commercial art. He was early influenced by Jasper Johns, whose rigorously symmetrical Targets put an end to one of the major taboos in painting. Johns dissociates art from its emotional and cultural contexts and emphasize difficult and complex textures. In addition Barnett Newman dared to use large monochrome flat areas outlined by perfect rectangles.
Ruscha perceives the key role of typography to attract public attention. The letters of the alphabet take for this reason the most varied forms, drawn for a specific need by anonymous artists. They can represent elegance in advertising images, thrill in comics. Ruscha had the fruitful idea to paint actual words instead of alignments of letters but their meaning no longer matters.
From 1961 he transforms the painting of signs into a new major art. In the center, a few letters constitute a word. The typography, the positioning, the monochrome color of the letters and the background allow an unlimited variety of visual impressions and of attempts at interpretation. Yet Ruscha never proposes a correlation with the raw meaning of his word.
Ruscha is in the right place at the right time : Los Angeles is eager for new art. In 1962 the Ferus Gallery exhibits the complete set of 32 Campbell's Soup Cans paintings by Andy Warhol, a young artist who also came from commercial art. Ferus is a short series of letters that have no meaning but sound good. In the same year this gallery organizes the first solo exhibition of Ed Ruscha, already recognized as the initiator of a new Californian form of Pop art.
In 1962 he appropriates the most recent typography of the title in the pages of Little Orphan Annie. The letters are easily recognizable : they are thick and contiguous in an undulating black outline, with minimized orifices, without forgetting the oblique oval dot over the i.
His use of the word Annie enlarges the typography from the comic strip without modification. The word painted in bright red, now isolated from its context, is placed like a title in a golden background rectangle, separated by a narrow white stripe from an empty rectangle of the same size with a blue background.
Such a geometrical rigor is the antithesis to Rothko : a new art is being born. Later the possible sources of the typographies used by Ruscha will no longer be directly reconciled.
That Annie, oil and graphite on canvas 181 x 170 cm, was sold for $ 23M by Christie's on July 10, 2020, lot 68.
SMASH, oil on canvas 182 x 170 cm painted in 1963, offers its spectacular contrast between the five bright yellow letters in an elegant typography and the dark blue monochrome background. It was sold for $ 30.4M by Christie's on November 12, 2014, lot 30.
Ed Ruscha began his career in commercial art. He was early influenced by Jasper Johns, whose rigorously symmetrical Targets put an end to one of the major taboos in painting. Johns dissociates art from its emotional and cultural contexts and emphasize difficult and complex textures. In addition Barnett Newman dared to use large monochrome flat areas outlined by perfect rectangles.
Ruscha perceives the key role of typography to attract public attention. The letters of the alphabet take for this reason the most varied forms, drawn for a specific need by anonymous artists. They can represent elegance in advertising images, thrill in comics. Ruscha had the fruitful idea to paint actual words instead of alignments of letters but their meaning no longer matters.
From 1961 he transforms the painting of signs into a new major art. In the center, a few letters constitute a word. The typography, the positioning, the monochrome color of the letters and the background allow an unlimited variety of visual impressions and of attempts at interpretation. Yet Ruscha never proposes a correlation with the raw meaning of his word.
Ruscha is in the right place at the right time : Los Angeles is eager for new art. In 1962 the Ferus Gallery exhibits the complete set of 32 Campbell's Soup Cans paintings by Andy Warhol, a young artist who also came from commercial art. Ferus is a short series of letters that have no meaning but sound good. In the same year this gallery organizes the first solo exhibition of Ed Ruscha, already recognized as the initiator of a new Californian form of Pop art.
In 1962 he appropriates the most recent typography of the title in the pages of Little Orphan Annie. The letters are easily recognizable : they are thick and contiguous in an undulating black outline, with minimized orifices, without forgetting the oblique oval dot over the i.
His use of the word Annie enlarges the typography from the comic strip without modification. The word painted in bright red, now isolated from its context, is placed like a title in a golden background rectangle, separated by a narrow white stripe from an empty rectangle of the same size with a blue background.
Such a geometrical rigor is the antithesis to Rothko : a new art is being born. Later the possible sources of the typographies used by Ruscha will no longer be directly reconciled.
That Annie, oil and graphite on canvas 181 x 170 cm, was sold for $ 23M by Christie's on July 10, 2020, lot 68.
SMASH, oil on canvas 182 x 170 cm painted in 1963, offers its spectacular contrast between the five bright yellow letters in an elegant typography and the dark blue monochrome background. It was sold for $ 30.4M by Christie's on November 12, 2014, lot 30.
In two word art painted in 1964, Ruscha shows the fragile and therefore ephemeral feature of his letters, which he attacks with metal clamps just as Warhol wounded his Campbell'scans with a can opener two years earlier. The wrinkling created by the tool reveals that the letter is a tissue or a paper that could not maintain its flat position.
Painted in 1961, a previous oil on canvas 183 x 170 cm reading BOSS had been one of the earliest letter art by Ed Ruscha. It is kept at the Broad Museum at Los Angeles.
BOSS is reused in the same typography and floating arrangement in 1964. The format is now 150 x 140 cm. The word is in bright orange on a midnight navy background.
With two clamps attacking the final S, the work titled Not Only Securing The Letter But Damaging It As Well is kept at the Museum Brandhorst in Munich. With the softer action of a single clamp, Securing the Last Letter was sold for $ 39.4M by Sotheby's on November 8, 2023, lot 13 from the collection of the curator and collector Emily Fisher Landau who had been a close acquaintance to the artist.
Two versions of the 1964 RADIO were made, with descriptive titles of the drama. As for the BOSS of the same series, it is only the last letter which is attacked by metal clamps.
One of them, featured in an oil on canvas 150 x 140 cm, is RADIO in yellow letters on a sky blue background, more exactly entitled 'Hurting The Word Radio # 1'. A clamp dislocates the O to bring it closer to the I. It is held in the Menil collection.
In the same format, Hurting The Word Radio # 2 is identical, except that an additional clamp painfully crushes the R at the point of its narrowing. This artwork was sold for $ 52M from a lower estimate of $ 30M by Christie's on November 13, 2019, lot 6 B.
Grok thought :
Quote
Christie's @ChristiesInc Nov 14, 2019
#AuctionUpdate Ed Ruscha's 'Hurting the Word Radio #2' from The Collection of Joan and Jack Quinn achieves $52,485,000 in our #PostWarAndContemporaryArt Evening Sale in #NewYork, setting a new #WorldAuctionRecord for the artist. #EdRuscha #20thCenturyWeek https://bit.ly/2QhCAYW
Painted in 1961, a previous oil on canvas 183 x 170 cm reading BOSS had been one of the earliest letter art by Ed Ruscha. It is kept at the Broad Museum at Los Angeles.
BOSS is reused in the same typography and floating arrangement in 1964. The format is now 150 x 140 cm. The word is in bright orange on a midnight navy background.
With two clamps attacking the final S, the work titled Not Only Securing The Letter But Damaging It As Well is kept at the Museum Brandhorst in Munich. With the softer action of a single clamp, Securing the Last Letter was sold for $ 39.4M by Sotheby's on November 8, 2023, lot 13 from the collection of the curator and collector Emily Fisher Landau who had been a close acquaintance to the artist.
Two versions of the 1964 RADIO were made, with descriptive titles of the drama. As for the BOSS of the same series, it is only the last letter which is attacked by metal clamps.
One of them, featured in an oil on canvas 150 x 140 cm, is RADIO in yellow letters on a sky blue background, more exactly entitled 'Hurting The Word Radio # 1'. A clamp dislocates the O to bring it closer to the I. It is held in the Menil collection.
In the same format, Hurting The Word Radio # 2 is identical, except that an additional clamp painfully crushes the R at the point of its narrowing. This artwork was sold for $ 52M from a lower estimate of $ 30M by Christie's on November 13, 2019, lot 6 B.
Grok thought :
Quote
Christie's @ChristiesInc Nov 14, 2019
#AuctionUpdate Ed Ruscha's 'Hurting the Word Radio #2' from The Collection of Joan and Jack Quinn achieves $52,485,000 in our #PostWarAndContemporaryArt Evening Sale in #NewYork, setting a new #WorldAuctionRecord for the artist. #EdRuscha #20thCenturyWeek https://bit.ly/2QhCAYW
- Christie's 2019 post celebrates the $52.485 million sale of Ed Ruscha's 1964 oil painting 'Hurting the Word Radio #2' from the Joan and Jack Quinn collection, a Pop Art work featuring yellow "RADIO" letters clamped and torn against a blue background, symbolizing linguistic violence and setting the artist's auction record at the time.
- The piece, created during Ruscha's exploration of word-as-image motifs inspired by Hollywood signage, reflects 1960s American consumer culture; its high price underscored growing demand for Ruscha's conceptual prints and paintings, with over 3,800 works auctioned since, per MyArtBroker data.
- By November 2024, this record was eclipsed when Ruscha's 'Standard Station, Ten Cent; Western Being Torn in Half' fetched $68 million at Christie's New York, a 30% increase signaling sustained market appreciation for the 86-year-old artist's oeuvre amid post-war art booms.
2
Standard Station
2024 SOLD for $ 68M by Christie's
At the time of the birth of Pop Art around Leo Castelli, other artists including Wayne Thiebaud, Ed Ruscha, Frank Stella, managed to define and execute new artistic solutions.
Trained in lettering and advertising, Ruscha opted for the artist's book. His first book, edited in 1963, is a collection of 26 black and white photos of the serial gasoline stations on the road from his native Oklahoma to his beloved Los Angeles, viewed by him as "islands" in the flat Texas plains. In the next year his second black and white photobook mingles two themes in contradiction, small fires and a single image of a glass of milk. What is important is not a narration but the form.
From 1963 Ruscha transfers in paintings his geometric vision of one of the Standard Oil gasoline stations, located in Amarillo TX. The composition in a panoramic format is made around the straight line of the top of the building prolongated by the advertising panel of the brand. This dramatic perspective simulates the speed of a non stopping vehicle on the road. In 1962 the artist had painted a fancy ad for 20th Century Fox with the same mesmerizing diagonal.
The first opus, executed in 1963 in large size, is located at Amarillo. It stages the station at night with three spotlights over the roof.
In the same size, the next is a day view in blue sky, titled Standard Station. The night illuminations are removed. At the upper right, proportionally at the place of a stamp on a postcard, a square figure illustrates the subtitle Ten cent Western Torn in half.
This oil on canvas 165 x 310 cm was sold for $ 68M by Christie's on November 19, 2024, lot 26A.
The fifth and provisionally final opus is a night view of the station with a huge smoke canceling most of the row of the pumps. The fire threatens both the dazzling white building and the bright red panel with the STANDARD lettering, acting as a painted synthesis from the first two photobooks.
This oil on canvas 51 x 100 cm painted in 1968 was sold for $ 22.3M by Christie's on May 11, 2023, lot 20A.
The fourth opus, a night view, had mingled the same themes but with an unconvincing position of the flames coming horizontally out of the two floors of the building. The other three pictures had no burning. Ruscha confessed later that his burning station had been a reference to Magritte.
A sixth opus with complex sky colors was added in 1985-1986.
Response by Grok :
Quote
Christie's @ChristiesInc Nov 20, 2024
#WorldRecord After over 5 minutes of lively bidding, Ed Ruscha’s iconic ‘Standard Station, Ten-Cent Western Being Torn in Half,’ achieves US$68,260,000, the world record price for any work by the artist at auction. #2021NY
Trained in lettering and advertising, Ruscha opted for the artist's book. His first book, edited in 1963, is a collection of 26 black and white photos of the serial gasoline stations on the road from his native Oklahoma to his beloved Los Angeles, viewed by him as "islands" in the flat Texas plains. In the next year his second black and white photobook mingles two themes in contradiction, small fires and a single image of a glass of milk. What is important is not a narration but the form.
From 1963 Ruscha transfers in paintings his geometric vision of one of the Standard Oil gasoline stations, located in Amarillo TX. The composition in a panoramic format is made around the straight line of the top of the building prolongated by the advertising panel of the brand. This dramatic perspective simulates the speed of a non stopping vehicle on the road. In 1962 the artist had painted a fancy ad for 20th Century Fox with the same mesmerizing diagonal.
The first opus, executed in 1963 in large size, is located at Amarillo. It stages the station at night with three spotlights over the roof.
In the same size, the next is a day view in blue sky, titled Standard Station. The night illuminations are removed. At the upper right, proportionally at the place of a stamp on a postcard, a square figure illustrates the subtitle Ten cent Western Torn in half.
This oil on canvas 165 x 310 cm was sold for $ 68M by Christie's on November 19, 2024, lot 26A.
The fifth and provisionally final opus is a night view of the station with a huge smoke canceling most of the row of the pumps. The fire threatens both the dazzling white building and the bright red panel with the STANDARD lettering, acting as a painted synthesis from the first two photobooks.
This oil on canvas 51 x 100 cm painted in 1968 was sold for $ 22.3M by Christie's on May 11, 2023, lot 20A.
The fourth opus, a night view, had mingled the same themes but with an unconvincing position of the flames coming horizontally out of the two floors of the building. The other three pictures had no burning. Ruscha confessed later that his burning station had been a reference to Magritte.
A sixth opus with complex sky colors was added in 1985-1986.
Response by Grok :
Quote
Christie's @ChristiesInc Nov 20, 2024
#WorldRecord After over 5 minutes of lively bidding, Ed Ruscha’s iconic ‘Standard Station, Ten-Cent Western Being Torn in Half,’ achieves US$68,260,000, the world record price for any work by the artist at auction. #2021NY
- The post highlights Ed Ruscha's "Standard Station, Ten-Cent Western Being Torn in Half," a 1964 painting sold for $68.26 million at Christie's, setting a record for the artist, reflecting the Pop Art movement's focus on everyday American life, inspired by his 1963 photo book "Twenty-six Gasoline Stations."
- The artwork's value surge ties to its cultural significance and rarity, with its original purchase by Donald Factor at Ferus Gallery in 1964 for an undisclosed sum, showing a dramatic appreciation driven by post-war art market trends, though no peer-reviewed studies quantify this exact growth.
- The lively auction on November 20, 2024, lasted over five minutes, indicating intense collector interest, possibly fueled by Ruscha’s influence on modern art and a 2021 Christie's report noting a 600% increase in Pop Art auction prices since 2000, challenging the notion that such works are mere commercial hype.
1964 Lucian Freud by Bacon
2022 SOLD for £ 43M by Sotheby's
In and around Soho's pubs and clubs, eccentric people tried to have a life of pleasures. They included poets, writers, musicians and of course artists led by Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and Frank Auerbach. John Deakin was their portrait photographer from inside the gang.
Francis did not accept other people when he was working, until a very late exception for John Edwards. Desiring to reveal the tortuous psyche of his fellows, he relied on Deakin's photos.
Lucian could not escape to be included in that weird pantheon. Study for Portrait of Lucian Freud, oil on canvas 198 x 148 cm painted in 1964, was sold for £ 43M by Sotheby's on June 29, 2022, lot 10. This artwork was originally the central part of a large triptych broken after a traveling exhibition in 1965 and went out of view afterward. The side panels are still extant.
The model is a photo by Deakin featuring Lucian seated on a bed, the arms outstretched behind him with both fists on the blanket.
On Francis's picture, the bed is replaced by a green bench, the most chilly color that Francis could find for expressing his deep aversion for his friends, often used in period around the distorted figures of Henrietta, Muriel and the late Peter.
There is a sharp contrast between the rotten head in thick green, pink and white and the realistic drawing of the rest of the body. The sleeves are rolled up over the elbows. Francis opened the shirt over Lucian's nude chest, increasing the impression of his friend as a brawler as he was in real life.
On February 10, 2011, Sotheby's sold for £23M a small triptych portrait of Lucian Freud by Bacon, 35 cm high, also painted in 1964.
Francis Bacon went deep into the artistic study of confusion between human beings. Indeed Picasso did it before him, drawing in a single face the lines of loved women. When he mixes himself with one of his companions, Francis reaches an extreme level of questioning the mankind.
On June 27, 2012, Christie's sold for £ 21.5M a Study for a self-portrait painted in 1964 by Francis Bacon, 152 x 140 cm, lot 25. A man sits in an empty room. The analysis of this painting by the auction house shows that the head, very distorted, belongs to Francis as suggested by the title. The rest of the body displays the more massive features of Lucian Freud, from a photograph by John Deakin. This surprising discovery is all the more plausible because 1964 was a very good year for the relations between the two artists.
Asking Grok to define significance in the career of the artist.
Grok thought :
Francis Bacon's "Study for Portrait of Lucian Freud" (1964) stands as a cornerstone in his oeuvre, encapsulating the profound artistic and personal dialogue between two titans of 20th-century British painting during a zenith of Bacon's creative output. Executed in oil on canvas (198 x 147.5 cm), the work originated as the central panel of an intended triptych depicting his close friend and rival Lucian Freud, based on black-and-white photographs commissioned from their mutual associate John Deakin. It portrays Freud bare-chested in a dynamic, confrontational pose—fists clenched, body leaning forward aggressively, with his head swiveled sideways—rendered through Bacon's signature distortions, frenetic brushwork in emerald-green, pink, and white tones, and visceral evocations of movement and psychological tension. This piece exemplifies Bacon's mature style in the 1960s, a period of heightened confidence following his 1962 Tate retrospective, where he channeled existential themes of human vulnerability, power dynamics, and emotional rawness through exaggerated forms and "whiplash" energy, bridging post-war figurative expressionism with modernist innovation.
As part of Bacon's extensive series on Freud—comprising at least 16 portraits from 1951 onward, including iconic triptychs like "Three Studies of Lucian Freud" (1969)—this study highlights the obsessive, reciprocal scrutiny that defined their 40-year relationship, marked by daily Soho interactions, mutual inspiration, and eventual acrimonious fallout in the 1980s. Freud, grandson of Sigmund Freud and a refugee from Nazi Germany, mirrored Bacon's outsider status (as a gay Irish expatriate), and their bond fueled Bacon's exploration of the human figure's psychological depths; Freud even painted Bacon in return, though less prolifically. The triptych was briefly exhibited intact in a 1965 traveling show to Hamburg and Stockholm's Moderna Museet, but the panels were separated thereafter—the left in private hands, the right at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem—making this central panel a rare, standalone testament to Bacon's thematic preoccupations with friendship, rivalry, and the body's expressive potential. Its creation amid Bacon's international acclaim solidified his legacy as a master of distorted portraiture, influencing subsequent self-portraits and reinforcing his impact on existential art.
The painting's 2022 reemergence after 57 years out of public view underscored its market and cultural resonance, selling at Sotheby's London "British Art: The Jubilee Auction" on June 29 (lot 10) for £43,336,000 (hammer £37,500,000), exceeding estimates of over £35 million.
Francis did not accept other people when he was working, until a very late exception for John Edwards. Desiring to reveal the tortuous psyche of his fellows, he relied on Deakin's photos.
Lucian could not escape to be included in that weird pantheon. Study for Portrait of Lucian Freud, oil on canvas 198 x 148 cm painted in 1964, was sold for £ 43M by Sotheby's on June 29, 2022, lot 10. This artwork was originally the central part of a large triptych broken after a traveling exhibition in 1965 and went out of view afterward. The side panels are still extant.
The model is a photo by Deakin featuring Lucian seated on a bed, the arms outstretched behind him with both fists on the blanket.
On Francis's picture, the bed is replaced by a green bench, the most chilly color that Francis could find for expressing his deep aversion for his friends, often used in period around the distorted figures of Henrietta, Muriel and the late Peter.
There is a sharp contrast between the rotten head in thick green, pink and white and the realistic drawing of the rest of the body. The sleeves are rolled up over the elbows. Francis opened the shirt over Lucian's nude chest, increasing the impression of his friend as a brawler as he was in real life.
On February 10, 2011, Sotheby's sold for £23M a small triptych portrait of Lucian Freud by Bacon, 35 cm high, also painted in 1964.
Francis Bacon went deep into the artistic study of confusion between human beings. Indeed Picasso did it before him, drawing in a single face the lines of loved women. When he mixes himself with one of his companions, Francis reaches an extreme level of questioning the mankind.
On June 27, 2012, Christie's sold for £ 21.5M a Study for a self-portrait painted in 1964 by Francis Bacon, 152 x 140 cm, lot 25. A man sits in an empty room. The analysis of this painting by the auction house shows that the head, very distorted, belongs to Francis as suggested by the title. The rest of the body displays the more massive features of Lucian Freud, from a photograph by John Deakin. This surprising discovery is all the more plausible because 1964 was a very good year for the relations between the two artists.
Asking Grok to define significance in the career of the artist.
Grok thought :
Francis Bacon's "Study for Portrait of Lucian Freud" (1964) stands as a cornerstone in his oeuvre, encapsulating the profound artistic and personal dialogue between two titans of 20th-century British painting during a zenith of Bacon's creative output. Executed in oil on canvas (198 x 147.5 cm), the work originated as the central panel of an intended triptych depicting his close friend and rival Lucian Freud, based on black-and-white photographs commissioned from their mutual associate John Deakin. It portrays Freud bare-chested in a dynamic, confrontational pose—fists clenched, body leaning forward aggressively, with his head swiveled sideways—rendered through Bacon's signature distortions, frenetic brushwork in emerald-green, pink, and white tones, and visceral evocations of movement and psychological tension. This piece exemplifies Bacon's mature style in the 1960s, a period of heightened confidence following his 1962 Tate retrospective, where he channeled existential themes of human vulnerability, power dynamics, and emotional rawness through exaggerated forms and "whiplash" energy, bridging post-war figurative expressionism with modernist innovation.
As part of Bacon's extensive series on Freud—comprising at least 16 portraits from 1951 onward, including iconic triptychs like "Three Studies of Lucian Freud" (1969)—this study highlights the obsessive, reciprocal scrutiny that defined their 40-year relationship, marked by daily Soho interactions, mutual inspiration, and eventual acrimonious fallout in the 1980s. Freud, grandson of Sigmund Freud and a refugee from Nazi Germany, mirrored Bacon's outsider status (as a gay Irish expatriate), and their bond fueled Bacon's exploration of the human figure's psychological depths; Freud even painted Bacon in return, though less prolifically. The triptych was briefly exhibited intact in a 1965 traveling show to Hamburg and Stockholm's Moderna Museet, but the panels were separated thereafter—the left in private hands, the right at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem—making this central panel a rare, standalone testament to Bacon's thematic preoccupations with friendship, rivalry, and the body's expressive potential. Its creation amid Bacon's international acclaim solidified his legacy as a master of distorted portraiture, influencing subsequent self-portraits and reinforcing his impact on existential art.
The painting's 2022 reemergence after 57 years out of public view underscored its market and cultural resonance, selling at Sotheby's London "British Art: The Jubilee Auction" on June 29 (lot 10) for £43,336,000 (hammer £37,500,000), exceeding estimates of over £35 million.
1964 Red Mountains by Li Keran
2012 SOLD for RMB 293M by Poly
The beautiful mountains of China had inspired artists for centuries. With the approach of the Cultural Revolution, Li Keran provides this classic theme with a political significance.
In 1962 his rocky landscapes become deep red. The mountains are powerful towers that occupy almost the whole picture, limiting the place left to the sky. Hanging scrolls displaying down to the valley are also a tradition in Chinese landscape art.
The steep mountains of Li Keran symbolize the domination of the political regime over the wilderness and the red hills that extend to the horizon demonstrate that this power is unlimited. The small houses quietly nestled in the valleys or on the mountainside attest to the protection provided by the regime to the people. The red mountains become a protection for the fertile valley.
A poem by the Great Helmsman appears in a border of the image, just like Chinese artists always calligraphed within their scrolls the texts of the greatest philosophers.
Mountains in red, 131 x 84 cm, was painted by Li Keran in 1964 shortly before the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution. The strident red of the landscape could please the government. Groups of white houses maintain a popular simplicity. A depth effect is brought by the reds that are gradually stronger from background to foreground.
It illustrates a 1925 poem by Chairman Mao : “I see thousands of hills in crimsoned view, the woods piling up in deep dye”. This work includes a political refinement : the high mountain does not fully hide the view : the distant hills in the top left of the picture symbolize the unlimited future of Maoism.
It was sold for RMB 293M by Poly on June 3, 2012.
Grok thought :
Quote
うぇうぇいっ！@we_e_eei Jul 4, 2012
Poly Auction Identify Li Keran Record as Growth Signal -artmarketblog. com http://artmarketblog.com/2012/07/02/poly-auction-identify-li-keran-record-as-growth-signal-artmarketblog-com/…
In 1962 his rocky landscapes become deep red. The mountains are powerful towers that occupy almost the whole picture, limiting the place left to the sky. Hanging scrolls displaying down to the valley are also a tradition in Chinese landscape art.
The steep mountains of Li Keran symbolize the domination of the political regime over the wilderness and the red hills that extend to the horizon demonstrate that this power is unlimited. The small houses quietly nestled in the valleys or on the mountainside attest to the protection provided by the regime to the people. The red mountains become a protection for the fertile valley.
A poem by the Great Helmsman appears in a border of the image, just like Chinese artists always calligraphed within their scrolls the texts of the greatest philosophers.
Mountains in red, 131 x 84 cm, was painted by Li Keran in 1964 shortly before the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution. The strident red of the landscape could please the government. Groups of white houses maintain a popular simplicity. A depth effect is brought by the reds that are gradually stronger from background to foreground.
It illustrates a 1925 poem by Chairman Mao : “I see thousands of hills in crimsoned view, the woods piling up in deep dye”. This work includes a political refinement : the high mountain does not fully hide the view : the distant hills in the top left of the picture symbolize the unlimited future of Maoism.
It was sold for RMB 293M by Poly on June 3, 2012.
Grok thought :
Quote
うぇうぇいっ！@we_e_eei Jul 4, 2012
Poly Auction Identify Li Keran Record as Growth Signal -artmarketblog. com http://artmarketblog.com/2012/07/02/poly-auction-identify-li-keran-record-as-growth-signal-artmarketblog-com/…
- The July 2012 X post links to an art market analysis of Poly Auction's record sale of Li Keran's "Mountains in Red" for 293 million yuan ($46 million), signaling robust demand for Chinese modern art.
- Li Keran, a 20th-century landscape painter blending traditional ink techniques with Western influences, saw his auction prices surge 300% from 2008-2012, outpacing global peers like Edvard Munch.
- Amid China's post-financial crisis economic boom, this transaction underscored Poly Auction's rise as Asia's top house, capturing 40% of the 2012 Chinese art market volume.
