Monroe pop art, just $200 million a pop

Some like it hot… and expensive.

Warhol, what the hell?

Can you put a price on the priceless? Apparently so. Andy Warhol’s devastatingly famous portrait of Marylin Monroe is heading off to auction. Best guesses predict that the portrait will be raking in one lucky seller some $200 million, so now is maybe a good time to see if those bills really did fall down the back of the sofa.

The New York art elite are rubbing their hands together. If the rumored bids are accurate, it could be one of the biggest art auctions in history. Who knew a 40-inch silkscreen could be worth such a banker? While the eye-watering figures being thrown about are enough to make you wince, the collectors have been in this game long enough to play it like pros. Last year, Sotheby’s sold a batch of artwork from the Macklowe Collection for $600 million.

Can you beat the real thing?

But what about the upstart NFT generation? Does crypto have what it takes to displace the old masters from the art throne? Not just yet, it seems. The most expensive NFT sold for $91.8 million – a hell of a lot for something you can’t hang in the dining room.

But 90 million isn’t to be sniffed at. Along with the pink-skinned and yellow-haired Marylin, Christie’s is offering a number of Monet pieces for $30 million each – just about the cost of three top-notch NFTs. So while NFTs might not be for the art establishment just yet, they aren’t completely out of sight and out of mind for the forward-thinking connoisseurs.