Warhol Double Elvis Nets $37M at Auction

I

t's not surprising that a Warhol original would fetch a pretty penny at an auction. So when his work Double Elvis sold for $37,042,500, few eyes batted. Sotheby's contemporary art sale is a thing to behold, and this year's auction was no exception, with offerings from Lichtenstein to Weiwei and plenty more.

Double Elvis was created in 1963 and was exhibited at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles at the time.

Roy Lichtenstein's Sleeping Girl, which depicts a woman with closed eyes and flowing blonde hair, sold for $44.9 million, and Ai Weiwei's Sunflower Seeds caught $782,500.

But it's Warhol's piece that really got everyone's attention. It's a silver silkscreen image of Elvis Presley as a cowboy, shooting a gun from the hip, with a shadow visible. It's the first Double Elvis to appear on the market since 1995—this one wa offered for sale by a private American collector, who acquired the work in 1977.

Double Elvis was created in 1963 and was exhibited at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles at the time. The series contained 22 images of Elvis, nine of which are currently in museum collections.

If nothing else, this kind of makes us want to dabble in art collecting (and by that, we mean art selling).