The master of pop art, Andy Warhol, has had one of his works sell at Sotheby’s for £4.3 million. The artwork, named Skulls, is made up of different 10 different canvas prints of the skull. It sold for £4,353,250.

The painting was created by Warhol in 1976 and features 10 canvases that created using the artist’s famed silkscreen process. Each one is hand signed by Warhol.

Cheyenne Westphal is the chairman of contemporary art at Sotheby’s. He says that the sale of Warhol’s Skulls is the most expensive art to ever sell in October at the auction house:

While our total fell short of its low estimate, the sale was assembled in a very different economic environment from that which prevailed.

It is important to keep perspective - this market has witnessed rapid growth.

What we have seen… is that buyers are continuing to respond to unprecedented saleroom opportunities and works of high quality, fresh to the market and properly estimated continue to perform well.

Andy Warhol would have been eighty years old this Wednesday, had he not tragically died some years after a crazed fan shot him. Even years after death, and years after his studio known as the ‘Factory’, Andy Warhol is still trend setting in his beloved New York.

As well changing the face of Art with his Pop Art that has inspired a host of imitators, a spate of canvas prints, he’s worked his magic on the fashion world.

Stylists in New York and L.A. are taking their lead from the Pop Art master’s ‘Factory Girl’ Edie Sedgwick.

Beth Charleston is a fashion historian at the New School of Design; Parsons.

The pop-art look is about the contrast between black and white - both in clothing and hair and makeup.

The two most obvious [of Warhol's factory girls], Edie Sedgwick and Nico, played up the contrast between black and white with bleach-blond hair and heavy black eye makeup.

Big earrings, and a chunky shoe like a thick wedge or a Mary Jane with a bit of a heel.

So if you thought Andy Warhol had only touched the art world you’d be wrong, his influence stretches far beyond just the realms of fashion.

The Faurschou gallery in Beijing is playing host to a set of Andy Warhol pop art works entitled ‘Athletes’ this summer to coincide with the Olympic games, held in the same city. The work is a series of silkscreen and acrylic paintings depicting ten of the best known and most iconic sportsmen and women of the twentieth century.

The series consists of portraits of such epic sportsmen as Muhammad Ali and American Footballer turned actor, turned celebrity trialist, O.J. Simpson. The paintings, valued at $28 million for the set, were commissioned by Richard Weisman, whose uncle was the founder of the Californian Museum, Norton Simon.

The paintings were offered for sale last year for $28 million to a private collector, Martin Summers, but the paintings were not sold.

The show, at the Faurschou gallery, consists of several Warhol works rather than just the Athletes series, including his portrait of Michael Jackson. Warhol’s painting ‘Green Car Crash’ sold last year for more than $71 million, and is believed to have gone to a Chinese collector, though no China based art collectors have publically stated an interest in Warhol.

Jennifer Vorbach has helped to organise the Warhol show in China:

We know there are Warhol collectors in mainland China.

Also the availability of the Athletes series for sale is unknown, but it could be up for sale at the right price:

If the right opportunity comes along, we will put any interested parties in touch with Richard Weisman.

This Friday five paintings from the famed Pop Art masters Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein were stolen from their home, in a Swedish museum. The paintings were in the Aaberg Museum, located in Baalsta just outside of Stockholm. Around 2 a.m. Swedish time the works were stolen from the museum, which comprised of three Roy Lichtenstein paintings and two Andy Warhols.

Carina Aaberg, the chief executive of the Aaberg Museum, stated:

Police have been seeking witnesses in the neighbourhood, she said. The stolen pieces have a value of $503,000 US.

This is extremely sad.

They have stolen some of our most prized possessions — some very valuable artworks — and they knew exactly what they were after.

As stolen artwork of this nature is impossible to sell on publicly, it’s likely that the works will be sold to private collectors who are well aware of the fact that they are stolen. This means it’s unlikely the paintings will ever resurface.

The Photographic Portrait Prize is a photography competition that has been running for fifteen years now and attracts some of the best talent from around the world when it comes to photography.

This year the competition has led to 7,000 photos being entered, with just sixty works making the shortlist for the final exhibition, which is being held at the Lowry in Manchester. The show has already been seen at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

The exhibition consists of a mix of family photos and photojournalism, covering famous faces from the world of sport, movies and music. The stars on show in the photography exhibition include Amy Winehouse, Alex Higgins and actor Sir Ian McKellen.

The winner of the show however was a photo by Jonathan Torgovnikm where he pictured Joseline Ingabire and her Daughter Leah Batamuliza. The photo shows the harrowing image of a mother and daughter from Rwanda. Her husband was murdered by the militia and she was repeatedly raped by them while she was pregnant with his daughter.

The artist says about the picture:

When you look at this portrait, the first thing that strikes you is how beautiful they are.

You can see this photo, and the rest of the finalists at the Lowry now, until 21st September. Admission is free.

The art world has long been the subject for thieves and robbers due to the extremely high levels of profit on offer for selling stolen artwork. There is also a certain romance to stealing art that gives the thieves notoriety if they are successful, or even if they aren’t and are caught.

The robbery of artwork also lends itself to a painting’s back-story, becoming part of the legend, and every famous painting as a rich history behind it. It’s no wonder then that many thieves are drawn the world of art, and Bernard Jean Ternus is one such man.

Bernard Jean Ternus is currently in court pleading guilty to attempting to sell four works of art that were stolen from a museum in France last year. The paintings were stolen in a brazen act of robbery from armed thieves.

The paintings were being touted by Bernard Jean Ternus for a staggering $4.7 million, but sadly for Bernard Jean Ternus he was trying to sell them to FBI agents and French police.

Patricia Seitz, the District Judge asked Ternus why he was pleading guilty, Ternus responded:

Because I am guilty.

The four paintings had been stolen from the Musee des Beaux-Arts, in Nice, in 2007. One of the paintings was a Monet, the ‘Cliffs Near Dieppe’.

In the art world, being able to determine the fakes from the genuine works is of course of paramount importance. After all, an original Andy Warhol could be worth Millions of pounds, whereas a fake would be worthless. It’s not something you want to make a mistake with.

It appears however, that someone may have done just that. A painting presumed to be an original Warhol, entitled ‘315 Johns’, which was authenticated by the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board and then sold to an un-named buyer may not be a Warhol at all.

The painting is of the artist John Chamberlain, and was sold by him the year 2000 for more than $3 million. Now, some eight years later, one of Warhol’s former assistants claims that he in fact painted the work, not Andy Warhol himself.

Warhol’s former assistant, Gerard Malanga, is currently in court in Brooklyn, claiming that Chamberlain shouldn’t have sold the work because it was not his to sell, and that it’s not a Warhol original. Furthermore, Malanga disputes that Warhol didn’t even know the work existed!

Malanga claims he painted the work with two of his friends, a year after he left Warhol’s tutorship as homage to the great Pop Art master. Malanga claims that Chamberlain bragged to him about how much he’d sold the work for when he met him:

You know that painting you made of me? I sold it for $5 million.

The trial continues with Chamberlain denying any knowledge of the work being fake, and insists that Warhol personally gave him the painting as part of an art swap between the two.

James Bond may favour a vodka martini, but Martini & Rossi are having to resurrect some old averts from the fifties and sixties to revive interest in their product. The original adverts were from iconic Pop Art luminary, Andy Warhol, and originally ran from 1956 to 1963.

The new campaign entitled “Warhol’s take on taste” and will run later on this month in US based lifestyle magazines.

The idea of the adverts is to revive interest in the Vermouth based beverage, Martini, which was very popular in the 1960’s. The ad campaign consists of four separate Andy Warhol prints.

Next month, on August 6 (which would have marked Andy Warhol’s 80th birthday) Martini and Rossi are holding a special, invitation only, party at the Warhol Factory.

Michael Hermann of the Warhol Foundation said about the deal:

Martini & Rossi was ahead of the curve when they identified Warhol’s talents in 1956 and they are once again ahead of the curve with this campaign that redefines vermouth and the art of the aperitif.

The portrait of the eighties’ golden couple of John McEnroe and actress Tatum O’Neal, which was painted by Pop-Art master Andy Warhol, is to be auctioned by Sotheby’s auction house.

On Tuesday July 1st the painting, which carries an estimate of between £250,000 and £300,000 is going under the hammer, with all proceeds set to go to the philanthropic organisation Habitat for Humanity.

The painting is one of Warhol’s finest works and represents his era of painting larger than life iconic celebrities during their prime, such as his works of Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe. Both McEnroe and O’Neal were at the top of their game at the time of the painting. John McEnroe was a world number one, and a Wimbledon and US Open tennis champion. Tatum O’Neal was a successful Hollywood actress who had won an Oscar at aged ten.

McEnroe even commented about the experience of being immortalised in one of Andy Warhol’s paintings, in his autobiography:

Was I overly impressed? A bit star struck? Maybe. Maybe Tatum was too. It’s a funny thing when two well-known people meet: There’s an immediate magnetism, because you seem to have so many things in common – not the least of which is that you both instantly feel liberated from what the rest of the world usually demands.

If you don’t have over a quarter of a million pounds to spare for this painting, you could have your own photos on canvas in the same pop-art style.

Further proof that collecting art was something for the super rich only happened yesterday when the latest work from French artist Monet sold at auction for a staggering £40.9 million.
His work, ‘Le Bassin Aux Nympheas’ fetched almost double what it had been estimated at, which would have made a new record even had it sold for the estimated £24 million. Instead the piece went for £40.9 million, smashing the previous record which was also held by Monet. His 1873 work, ‘Le Pont du chemin de fer a Argenteuil’ sold for £20.9 million in May.
‘Le Bassin Aux Nympheas’ was purchased by a mystery buyer. It was painted in 1919 in Giverny and has only ever made one public appearance.
Even though someone may have paid such a huge sum of money for the painting, you can still have artwork on your wall for much less. You don’t need to visit an art auction and purchase the next Monet masterpiece; instead you could turn your own photographs into works of art by having them printed on canvas.