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
Special Report
Influence of JFK Assassination on Pop Art
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, profoundly impacted Pop Art, serving as a catalyst that deepened the movement’s engagement with media spectacle, celebrity, tragedy, and American identity. Pop artists, who already drew from mass media and consumerism, responded to the event’s intense television and press coverage by incorporating JFK imagery, transforming personal and national grief into iconic works that blurred news, art, and myth.
Key Artists and Responses
Key Artists and Responses
- Andy Warhol: The assassination aligned perfectly with Warhol’s fascination with death, celebrity, and repetition. His Jackie series (1964) features repeated images of Jacqueline Kennedy in mourning (veiled, before/after the event), often in grids and monochromatic tones. These works explore media programming of emotion—“What bothered me was the way the television and radio were programming everybody to feel so sad.” Warhol’s Flash—November 22, 1963 (1968) portfolio compiles teletype reports and images of the event, turning raw news into art. The Kennedys epitomized the American Dream’s glamour and fragility.
- Robert Rauschenberg: Already using silkscreens, Rauschenberg incorporated JFK images into works like Buffalo II (1964), Retroactive I (1964), and others. He had ordered the JFK screen pre-assassination for a planned homage; the death turned it into a memorial. These paintings layer Kennedy with eagles, helicopters, Coca-Cola, astronauts, and urban scenes—capturing 1960s optimism colliding with violence. Rauschenberg saw Kennedy as restoring presidential idealism.
- Other Pop Figures: Roy Lichtenstein and others engaged less directly, but the event reinforced Pop’s broader interest in current events and media. The assassination amplified themes of commodified tragedy (similar to Marilyn Monroe’s death) across the movement.
- Media and Repetition: The nonstop TV coverage exemplified the media saturation Pop Art critiqued and celebrated. Artists used silkscreen and repetition to mimic (and question) how images circulate and lose/aquire meaning.
- Death and Disaster: The event fed Warhol’s Death and Disaster series, highlighting celebrity vulnerability and public mourning as spectacle.
- American Identity: JFK symbolized youthful vigor, Camelot, and the New Frontier. His death marked the end of innocence for many, mirrored in Pop Art’s shift toward darker undertones beneath bright surfaces.
- Timing and Momentum: Pop Art was rising in 1962–1964 (Warhol’s Campbell’s Soups, Rauschenberg’s silkscreens). The assassination provided raw, universal subject matter that propelled the movement into cultural prominence, especially at the 1964 Venice Biennale (where Rauschenberg won the Grand Prize).
Andy Warhol’s Jackie series (1964) is a landmark body of work in his Death and Disaster series, created in direct response to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Warhol produced multiple variations using silkscreen on canvas, focusing on Jacqueline Kennedy (Jackie) as the enduring public face of national grief. The series explores celebrity, media spectacle, mourning, and the repetition of images in modern culture.
Overview of the Series
Warhol sourced images primarily from press photographs of Jackie—before the assassination (smiling, glamorous) and after (veiled, in mourning at the funeral). He silkscreened them onto canvas, often repeating the same image in grids or varying color palettes (black-and-white, blue, magenta, etc.). Key characteristics:
Focus on Sixteen Jackies (1964)
This monumental work consists of 16 joined canvases (each 20 x 16 in., overall approx. 80 x 64 in.), forming a 4x4 grid. It is executed in silkscreen ink on linen and signed on the overlap.
Key Features:
Key Auction History for Sixteen Jackies Versions
Warhol produced dozens of Jackie works in varied formats (singles, diptychs, larger grids, color variations). Here are standout examples and records:
Warhol’s Jackie works remain among the most emotionally resonant in Pop Art—elegantly processing collective trauma through mechanical repetition while humanizing a global icon of grief. The series continues to perform well at auction, reflecting its historical and artistic importance.
Overview of the Series
Warhol sourced images primarily from press photographs of Jackie—before the assassination (smiling, glamorous) and after (veiled, in mourning at the funeral). He silkscreened them onto canvas, often repeating the same image in grids or varying color palettes (black-and-white, blue, magenta, etc.). Key characteristics:
- Repetition and Seriality — Echoes mechanical reproduction (newsprint, TV), desensitizing or intensifying emotion through duplication.
- Emotional Distance — Warhol’s deadpan style processes tragedy as media event rather than raw sentiment.
- Technical Approach — Silkscreen allowed precise, repeatable transfers with variations in inking, cropping, and color. Some works incorporate hand-painting or solvent effects.
Focus on Sixteen Jackies (1964)
This monumental work consists of 16 joined canvases (each 20 x 16 in., overall approx. 80 x 64 in.), forming a 4x4 grid. It is executed in silkscreen ink on linen and signed on the overlap.
Key Features:
- Unified Image Repetition — All 16 panels repeat the same veiled mourning portrait of Jackie (from Henri Dauman’s 1963 funeral photograph). This creates a powerful, hypnotic rhythm—her face fills the field like a Byzantine icon or film still.
- Monochromatic Palette — Primarily black-and-white (or dark tones), evoking newspaper photography and emphasizing solemnity. The uniformity heightens the sense of collective shock and endless replay.
- Scale and Impact — The grid format monumentalizes private grief into public monument. It captures both individual sorrow and national mourning, with subtle variations in silkscreen registration adding texture and “imperfection.”
- Emotional Core — Unlike more colorful Jackie works, this version feels stark and contemplative. It distills the media’s fixation on Jackie as “America’s widow” into a singular, repetitive elegy.
Key Auction History for Sixteen Jackies Versions
- 2011 (Sotheby’s): A Sixteen Jackies (1964) sold for $20.24 million (including premium). This was a strong result at the time and helped solidify the series’ blue-chip status.
- 2023 (Christie’s, 20th Century Evening Sale): The monochromatic, same-image 4x4 grid version (the one with the single veiled mourning portrait repeated across all panels) sold for $25.94 million on November 9, 2023, lot 31B and for $ 16.2M by Phillips on May 19, 2026, lot 15. This is the standout example often highlighted for its stark, newspaper-like solemnity.
- These results show strong demand for grid-format Jackies, especially those with direct ties to mourning imagery.
Warhol produced dozens of Jackie works in varied formats (singles, diptychs, larger grids, color variations). Here are standout examples and records:
- Single or Small Multi-Panel Works:
- Various Jackie portraits (1964) have sold in the $1M–$5M+ range. For example, a single veiled Jackie or colored variant can fetch $2M–$4M depending on condition and provenance.
- A 1964 Jackie (synthetic polymer and silkscreen) sold for $673,100 at a 2025 sale (estimate $600k–800k).
- Larger or Distinct Compositions:
- Multi-image works (e.g., combining smiling and mourning Jackies) often command higher prices due to narrative complexity.
- Top series results frequently exceed $10M for prime examples, contributing to Warhol’s overall market strength (e.g., his Marilyn and Death and Disaster pieces routinely set records).
Warhol’s Jackie works remain among the most emotionally resonant in Pop Art—elegantly processing collective trauma through mechanical repetition while humanizing a global icon of grief. The series continues to perform well at auction, reflecting its historical and artistic importance.
1964 WARHOL
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.
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
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.
Anxious Girl
2026 SOLD for $ 46M by Christie's
Anxious Girl, Magna and graphite on canvas 91 x 66 cm painted in 1964 by Roy Lichtenstein, was sold for $ 46M against a lower estimate of $ 40M by Christie's on May 18, 2026, lot 24A. The video is shared by the auction house.
Both "Anxious Girl" (1964, 36 x 26 in.) and "Nurse" (1964, 48 x 48 in.) are iconic Roy Lichtenstein paintings from his peak Pop Art period, created in the same year and drawn from romance comic book imagery. They exemplify his signature style: bold Ben-Day dots (hand-painted, not printed), thick black outlines, flat primary colors, and cropped, emotionally charged female figures.
Similarities
Both "Anxious Girl" (1964, 36 x 26 in.) and "Nurse" (1964, 48 x 48 in.) are iconic Roy Lichtenstein paintings from his peak Pop Art period, created in the same year and drawn from romance comic book imagery. They exemplify his signature style: bold Ben-Day dots (hand-painted, not printed), thick black outlines, flat primary colors, and cropped, emotionally charged female figures.
Similarities
- Year and Style: Both date to 1964, Lichtenstein's breakthrough era when he refined his comic-inspired technique. They use Magna (and oil/graphite for Nurse), hand-applied Ben-Day dots for shading/skin, and focus on dramatic female close-ups that distill emotion through minimal lines, color, and form.
- Themes: They explore 1960s femininity, romance, anxiety, and melodrama via appropriated comic sources. The women are stylized blondes with blue eyes, red lips, and expressive faces conveying inner turmoil—archetypes of vulnerability mixed with allure (often with a femme fatale edge).
- Art Historical Importance: These belong to Lichtenstein's rare "Girl" series (only about 10 tightly cropped solo female portraits from 1963–1965). They elevate mass-media tropes into high art, commenting on reproduction, gender roles, and visual communication. Both have strong provenance (e.g., Leo Castelli Gallery) and museum-level exhibition histories.
- Technique: Precise, labor-intensive hand-stenciled dots and bold outlines create a mechanical yet painterly effect, flattening the image while heightening drama.
- Scale and Format:
- Anxious Girl is smaller and more intimate (36 x 26 in., vertical portrait orientation). This creates a focused, personal intensity, like peering into a private emotional moment.
- Nurse is monumental and square (48 x 48 in.), filling the canvas edge-to-edge for greater presence and impact—more commanding and "iconic" in a gallery setting.
- Subject and Expression:
- Anxious Girl shows a young woman with furrowed brow, questioning/anxious gaze, and blonde curls (from a DC Comics Girls' Romances cover, Too Much to Ask!, where she's torn between suitors). The anxiety is psychological and relational—subtle emotional distress in a romantic context.
- Nurse depicts a uniformed nurse (starched hat, striped dress) with hand raised nervously to her face, piercing eyes, and a mix of professional poise and latent sexuality/dramatic foreboding. Originally titled something like Frightenedness, it blends caregiving archetype with melodrama and fantasy.
- Composition and Impact:
- Anxious Girl is tightly cropped with distilled cues (lines, color, form) for deep human emotion in a compact frame—more jewel-like and introspective.
- Nurse dominates the picture plane with richer Ben-Day fields, uniform details, and broader narrative power, making it feel more theatrical and subversive (challenging feminine stereotypes).
- Market and Provenance:
- Nurse (from important collections like Kraushar and Ströher) sold for a record ~$95 million at Christie's in 2015 and remains the artist's auction high. It has extensive exhibition history (e.g., Guggenheim retrospectives).
- Anxious Girl (from Horace and Holly Solomon collection, unseen publicly for 30+ years) is estimated at $40–60 million for Christie's May 2026 sale. Its rarity (one of few "Girl" paintings) makes it highly coveted, though smaller scale may temper the price relative to Nurse.
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.
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.
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.
- 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.
Robert Rauschenberg’s silkscreen paintings (primarily 1962–1964) represent a major technical and conceptual evolution in his practice, following the Combines and enabling a new way to incorporate mass media imagery into large-scale works. He adopted the technique after visiting Andy Warhol’s studio in 1962, where he saw its potential for reproduction and scale. Rauschenberg produced around 50–80 works in this series before dramatically ending it.
Technique and Process
Innovation and Significance
Technique and Process
- Photographic Silkscreens: Rauschenberg sent selected photographs (his own, found images from newspapers, magazines, and media) to a commercial shop (Aetna Silk Screen Products in New York). They created reusable silk screens (stencils on fine mesh) in various sizes. He could repeat, overlap, enlarge, crop, or alter the same image across multiple works.
- Application: He printed the photographic images onto canvas using oil-based inks. He then added gestural brushwork, drips, splatters, and sometimes collage elements or solvent transfers for texture and variation. Early works were mostly black-and-white; by 1963, he shifted to vibrant color palettes.
- Layering and Composition: Multiple screens allowed complex, non-hierarchical juxtapositions—images float, overlap, and interact chaotically, creating visual “noise” akin to television or urban life. Paint application added expressive, painterly energy.
Innovation and Significance
- Bridging Media: Silkscreens democratized imagery from mass culture (photos of athletes, space exploration, JFK, urban scenes, animals, art historical references). They blurred photography, printmaking, and painting—extending the Combines’ hybridity into flatter, more reproducible formats.
- Thematic Richness: Works capture the 1960s zeitgeist: technology, politics (e.g., Kennedy assassination), consumerism, and American identity. Examples include Buffalo II (1964, with JFK, space imagery), Estate (1963), Skyway (1964), Retroactive I (1964), and Scanning (1963).
- Legacy: The series solidified Rauschenberg’s role in Pop Art (alongside Warhol) while retaining personal, expressive qualities. It influenced later artists working with appropriation, media, and photo-based painting. After winning the Venice Biennale Golden Lion in 1964, Rauschenberg destroyed many remaining screens to avoid repetition—a characteristically bold move. The technique also fed into his later printmaking and collaborative projects.
Robert Rauschenberg’s Buffalo II (1964) is one of the most ambitious and iconic works from his silkscreen paintings series (1962–1964). It is an oil and silkscreen ink on canvas measuring approximately 8 x 6 feet (large-scale for the period). The painting sold for a record $88.8 million at Christie’s in 2019.
Imagery and Composition
Buffalo II features a dense, layered collage of silkscreened photographic images drawn from mass media, combined with expressive gestural painting. Key elements include:
Technique
Rauschenberg used commercial silkscreens for repeatable, scalable photographic transfers—innovative after seeing Warhol’s work. He layered multiple screens, then added oil paint for texture and unity. This hybrid method allowed fluid integration of found imagery with painterly gesture, distinguishing his approach from Warhol’s more mechanical detachment. The result is dynamic and immersive: the canvas feels like a flickering TV screen or bustling cityscape.
Meaning and Context
Unveiled at the 1964 Venice Biennale (where Rauschenberg became the first American to win the Grand Prize for Painting), Buffalo II helped cement his international reputation. It exemplifies his silkscreen innovation: repeatable yet unique, media-driven yet handmade. The painting’s 2019 sale underscored its market and historical stature as a defining work of postwar American art.
Buffalo II remains a powerful time capsule—chaotic, vibrant, and elegiac—embodying Rauschenberg’s genius for turning the flood of modern imagery into profound visual poetry. It continues to resonate as a metaphor for cultural memory and the relentless pace of contemporary life.
Imagery and Composition
Buffalo II features a dense, layered collage of silkscreened photographic images drawn from mass media, combined with expressive gestural painting. Key elements include:
- Dominant JFK Portrait — A large image of John F. Kennedy (then-Senator or President) occupies a central position. Rauschenberg ordered the screen before the November 1963 assassination; the work, completed afterward, gains poignant resonance as a memorial to lost optimism.
- American Icons and Consumer Culture — Coca-Cola logo (symbol of consumerism), a Bald Eagle (patriotism/national emblem), an army helicopter, an astronaut (space race/technology), urban landscapes, keys, and other everyday or symbolic objects.
- Juxtapositions — Images overlap, repeat, and collide chaotically: political figures next to commercial products, nature/technology, personal items amid public events. Rauschenberg’s hand-painted drips, strokes, and color fields (reds, blues, yellows) weave them together.
Technique
Rauschenberg used commercial silkscreens for repeatable, scalable photographic transfers—innovative after seeing Warhol’s work. He layered multiple screens, then added oil paint for texture and unity. This hybrid method allowed fluid integration of found imagery with painterly gesture, distinguishing his approach from Warhol’s more mechanical detachment. The result is dynamic and immersive: the canvas feels like a flickering TV screen or bustling cityscape.
Meaning and Context
- 1960s America: Created amid the Kennedy assassination, Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam escalation, and space race, Buffalo II captures the era’s optimism, violence, consumerism, and technological acceleration. It reflects media saturation—how images of power, tragedy, and everyday life flood public consciousness.
- Art Historical Bridge: It synthesizes Rauschenberg’s Combines (found objects/collage) with emerging Pop Art while retaining Abstract Expressionist energy. It critiques and celebrates American identity without overt narrative, inviting open-ended associations.
- Personal and Universal: Rauschenberg described wanting to “talk about the world in all its complexity.” The work embodies his democratic view of art: high and low, public and private, all equal on the surface. The post-assassination JFK image adds layers of mourning and lost potential.
Unveiled at the 1964 Venice Biennale (where Rauschenberg became the first American to win the Grand Prize for Painting), Buffalo II helped cement his international reputation. It exemplifies his silkscreen innovation: repeatable yet unique, media-driven yet handmade. The painting’s 2019 sale underscored its market and historical stature as a defining work of postwar American art.
Buffalo II remains a powerful time capsule—chaotic, vibrant, and elegiac—embodying Rauschenberg’s genius for turning the flood of modern imagery into profound visual poetry. It continues to resonate as a metaphor for cultural memory and the relentless pace of contemporary life.
1964 RUSCHA
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.
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.
