Lost Warhol self-portrait sells for £10m

The 6ft-square piece of work, with the artist’s face in half-shadow, was part of a hugely important series of works dating back to 1967 when he became renown internationally. It sold at auction at Christie’s in London for £10.8m, just days after going on show for the first time. The portrait, in red and white, […]

The 6ft-square piece of work, with the artist’s face in half-shadow, was part of a hugely important series of works dating back to 1967 when he became renown internationally.

It sold at auction at Christie’s in London for £10.8m, just days after going on show for the first time.

The portrait, in red and white, was from a series of 11 highly regarded works, eight of which featured in a landmark retrospective at New York’s MOMA two years after his death in 1989.

Others are held by the Tate collection, Munich and San Francisco.

The picture – which had a pre-sale estimate of £5million – was bought by an anonymous bidder.

It has been in a private collection since 1974 and was only recently rediscovered.

Francis Outred, head of post-war and contemporary art at Christie’s Europe, said: “It has been an incredibly exciting journey to work with a previously unknown work by Andy Warhol, particularly one with such historic importance.”

The source image of Warhol with his hand to his mouth was first used in smaller life-sized works in 1966.