Photo: © 2014 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visuals Arts, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Courtesy of the artist and Skarstedt.
New York and London gallery Skarstedt is off to a roaring start at Frieze Masters 2014, counting among its early sales Andy Warhol’s 1984 remix of Edvard Munch’s The Scream, which sold to a private collector for about $5.5 million.
That sum pales in comparison to the $119.9 million Leon Black paid for Munch’s own version of The Scream at Sotheby’s back in 2012, which set the record at the time for the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction.
Warhol’s take on The Scream was featured, alongside the Pop artist’s other versions of works by Munch including Madonna and a self-portrait, in an exhibition at New York’s Scandinavia House last year titled “MUNCH | WARHOL and the Multiple Image.”
Our own Benjamin Genocchio uncannily predicted that Warhol’s version of The Scream would fly off Skarstedt’s booth wall, writing: “Warhol was such a genius, he knew even then the iconic power of Munch’s masterpiece was transcendental. This work holds the wall, the booth, the entire show, and it’s probably among the smartest and best buys at the entire fair.”
Frieze Masters continues through October 19.