Pop artist Andy Warhol loved Hollywood legends, and none more so than Marilyn Monroe. He immortalized the larger-than-life star in a series of diminutive works that portrayed the actress in vivid hues of orange, lemon and mint.
Now art collectors are having a Marilyn moment, too. 
Watch a Warhol sell for millions
When one of the works, a 20-by-16-inch synthetic polymer and silkscreen inks on canvas titled "Orange Marilyn," came up for auction in 2006, collectors pushed the price to $16.2 million -- at the time, the high end of the range for a Warhol. And even though the range was reset in 2007 -- by the sale of Warhol's "Green Car Crash" for $72 million -- the auction history of the 20-by-16-inch "Orange Marilyn" still provides valuable insight into the shifting dynamics of the booming art market. Photo: "Orange Marilyn"
Warhol's output -- which includes portraits of famous figures like Monroe, Chairman Mao and Elizabeth Taylor -- "is the gold standard of the market," says Amy Cappellazzo, international co-head of postwar and contemporary art at Christie's. "The power and exuberance of Warhol's career casts a long shadow over 20th-century art." Why Warhol?
The total dollar value of sales involving the works of Warhol surpassed the total global auction sales of Picasso in 2007. (Warhol died in 1987, Picasso in 1973). In 2007, the global auction sales volume for Warhol was over $496 million, according to Artnet, a Web site that tracks fine-art market data for collectors and investors. Slide show: The 10 most expensive Warhols
One reason is that Warhol is so accessible. After all, this was the artist who dared to elevate the subject matter of everyday life -- Campbell's soup cans, Brillo boxes, film stars and the electric chair -- to the level of art.
"His work isn't arcane, fussy, academic or hard to understand," Cappellazzo explains.
And for the art world's new trophy-hunting collectors, nothing pleases more than a Warhol on the wall -- especially a Marilyn.
"If you hang a Jackson Pollock, some of your more art-savvy friends might recognize who it is," says Tom Sokolowski, director of the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, referring to the abstract expressionist painter. "With Warhol, you don't have to explain anything."
Which brings us to our "Orange Marilyn." Warhol produced the Marilyn series in 1962, shortly after her death, basing the portrait on a publicity still from her 1953 film "Niagara." Monroe fascinated Warhol because she was "a glamour girl who was desired by
everyone and who herself was a creation of other people, like an artwork," Sokolowksi says.
With hindsight, the original value of "Orange Marilyn" seems dirt cheap: Famed gallerist Leo Castelli, the initial owner, probably paid around $250 for the work. (By way of comparison, a brand-new Corvette would have run you about $3,000 in 1962; that car might be worth about $50,000 now, in mint condition.) The Warhol piece was part of a series of 12 single Marilyn portraits, often referred to as the "flavored" or "tutti-frutti" Marilyns because of their vibrant colors.
By the time "Orange Marilyn" first appeared at auction in 1998, Warhol had died, and the portrait's worth was estimated at between $2.8 million and $3.5 million. At the time, the market was in the doldrums, crawling out of a crash. Still, the picture sold for $2.7 million to a private buyer. (A much larger version of "Orange Marilyn" was sold at auction for $17.3 million the same year.)
Just three years later, the owner of our "Orange Marilyn" wanted out. Auction house Christie's lowballed the work's value at $2 million to $3 million, but underestimated the reinvigorated market: The painting sold for $3.7 million, a $1 million premium over the previous auction price. The buyer, Cappellazzo recalls, was "someone who had made some money and was collecting."
Over the next few years, other newly rich collectors would be on the prowl for iconic Warhol works. The artist's global auction sales volume soared from $46 million in 2001 to $72 million in 2005, according to Artnet.
Meanwhile, the publication in 2002 of the first Warhol "Catalogue Raisonné," which provided exact details of the artist's prodigious output, helped whet collector appetites for pictures with special cachet.
With the art market in a buying frenzy in 2006, "Orange Marilyn" was ready for her close-up -- or, as Warhol would might have said, her 15 minutes of fame.
Sensing the mood, Christie's packed a November 2006 evening sale in New York with a total of eight Warhols, including a heavily promoted large portrait of Chairman Mao and "Sixteen Jackies," featuring Jackie Kennedy. The idea, Cappellazzo explains, was to create an atmosphere in which "something is considered great if it keeps good company."
Meanwhile, across town at Sotheby's, a Warhol self-portrait was on the block, in what the media described as "the dueling Warhols."
When the hammer came down at Christie's, the Warhol fever had proved infectious.
The Mao found a buyer at $17.4 million. Jackie sold for
$15.7 million. And the "Orange Marilyn," estimated at between $10 million and $15 million, went to an anonymous telephone bidder for $16.2 million -- a remarkable price for such a small work. "It was a moment when Andy shined," Cappellazzo says.
But records don't last long with a hot artist like Warhol. In addition to the $72 million "Green Car Crash," another work from the Marilyn series -- a vivid fuchsia, two-tone blue and bright yellow "Lemon Marilyn" -- sold last year for $28 million.
And in November 2007, Christie's made another bet on multiple Warhols, putting 10 on the block in New York in a single sale.
While bidding wasn't frenzied for most of the pieces, an Elizabeth Taylor portrait sold for $23.6 million; the combined total for all the Warhols that night was $70.4 million.
Will Warhol's best pieces command top dollar in the future? Even if there were a global economic catastrophe that pulled down the art market, Cappellazzo believes Warhol would be the first artist to rebound. "His work trades like currency," she says.
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Published March 6, 2008
Produced by Elizabeth Daza/Graphics by Joe Farro
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