Andy Warhol’s painting Silver Car Crash sells for record $105 million at Sotheby’s

Andy Warhol’s painting Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) has sold for $105 million at Sotheby’s, breaking the artist’s record by more than $30 million.

Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) depicts the aftermath of an accident, with a twisted body sprawled across the mangled interior of a vehicle.

It is one of four double-panel car crash paintings that Andy Warhol created in 1963. The others are all in museums.

Andy Warhol’s previous auction record was set in 2007, when $71.7 million was paid for Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I).

Andy Warhol’s painting Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) has sold for $105 million at Sotheby’s

Silver Car Crash has previously been owned by collectors such as Charles Saatchi, Thomas Ammann, as well as German multi-millionaire playboy Gunter Sachs.

Five bidders went as high as $80 million, said auctioneer Tobias Meyer. Sotheby’s did not identify the winner, who placed their bid by telephone.

“It’s a great price – and completely worth it,” said Tobias Meyer.

“It’s the best painting I’ve ever sold in my whole career.”

The price was the second-highest in history for a contemporary work of art – the highest being the $142.4 million fetched by Francis Bacon’s Three Studies of Lucian Freud earlier this week at Christie’s.

Andy Warhol’s record-breaking work used images appropriated from newspapers, which he then silk-screened onto canvas, using reflective silver paint, repeating the scene many times over. The second panel in the 8-by-13 foot work is a blank canvas of silver.

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