Warhol said "Art is what you can get away with," and the late, great artist's paintings are still getting away with a fortune. Among the most recent works auctioned by Christie's is his painting Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I), from Warhol's Death and Disaster series, which went for $71.7 million dollars on Wednesday, May 16. The painting is based on a photograph that appeared in Newsweek magazine from June 3rd, 1963. The photograph depicted the end of a car chase, when a 24-year-old commercial fisherman in Seattle flipped his car, hit a telephone pole, and was ejected from the car forcefully enough to be impaled on, but not immediately killed by, a climbing spike. The mangled car burns in an otherwise mundane residential setting -- there's even a guy crossing the street like it's nothing special. Seventy-one million for a green-tinted painting of a random photograph, however... that doesn't happen every day.
Thanks to Stuntman Mike!
[Source: BBC]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
FLR @ May 18th 2007 12:05PM
Yikes, check out the dude hanging midway up the pole on the left. He fought the law and the....law won!
Greg @ May 18th 2007 12:15PM
Overpriced....
I wouldn't have paid a penny more than 60 million !
LOL
Greg @ May 18th 2007 12:15PM
Overpriced....
I wouldn't have paid a penny more than 60 million !
LOL
worthless whoreall @ May 18th 2007 12:17PM
just goes to show you that the art crowd loves to waste their money on crappy artwork.
mustangcharlie @ May 18th 2007 1:48PM
Anybody got a link to a high res copy of the original newspaper photo?
JC3 @ May 18th 2007 5:10PM
Gives one an insight to the emotional turmoil and alienation inside Wharhol as He contrasts the crash to what seems like ordinary life in the background.Too bad he was too personally invested in his artistic success and His own life an artistic expression to seek therapy.
Don @ May 18th 2007 5:59PM
Warhol is SO overrated.