Picture this: Warhol car crash painting brings $71 million

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]