NEW YORK — It was 1977, and Andy Warhol was at work on his “Athletes” collection, portraits of prime sports personalities who, he felt, had been gaining cultural prominence identical to “the movie stars of yesterday.” One of them was then the star working again of the Buffalo Bills: O.J. Simpson.
Simpson, then 30, confirmed up with out a soccer or a jersey, and Warhol needed to scramble to discover a ball. That Polaroid shoot led to 11 silkscreen portraits; one in every of them is now occurring public sale for the primary time.
Signed by each males, the portrait is billed by the public sale home as a piece that brings collectively two of probably the most recognizable names of the twentieth century and captures “a trajectory of celebrity and tragedy.”
“Warhol certainly could never have imagined how differently the image would come to be viewed, nor the controversy that still lingers around its subject today,” stated Robert Manley, co-head of twentieth century and up to date artwork on the Phillips public sale home, which is auctioning the work May 16.
It was nearly 20 years after Warhol’s photograph shoot, in 1995, that Simpson – who had retired from the NFL in 1979 and pursued an appearing profession – was acquitted of the double slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her good friend Ronald Goldman. He was later discovered accountable for the deaths by a California civil court docket jury that ordered him to pay $33.5 million to victims’ households.
In a separate case greater than a decade later, Simpson was convicted by a jury in Las Vegas for main 5 males, together with two with weapons, in a 2007 confrontation with two sports collectibles sellers in a cramped room at an off-strip Las Vegas on line casino lodge. Simpson served 9 years in a Nevada jail for armed theft. He was discharged from parole in December 2021.
Manley famous that 5 many years after Warhol made it, the portrait nonetheless evokes a powerful response.
“Those who view the image of Simpson staring directly down the camera are likely to recall the other notorious picture of the celebrity – his mugshot,” Manley stated. “Juxtaposing these two images, created at such different points in Simpson’s life, shows a fascinating trajectory of celebrity and tragedy.”
Commissioned as a part of the broader “Athletes” collection that included Muhammad Ali, soccer star Pelé, tennis star Chris Evert, golf’s Jack Nicklaus and determine skater Dorothy Hamill, amongst others, by Warhol good friend and collector Richard Weisman, this explicit portrait spent 19 years on the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, the place it was donated in 1992 and, in line with a spokesperson there, by no means displayed.
In 2011, it was deaccessioned – or completely faraway from the gathering – and bought to an nameless collector in a personal sale by way of Christie’s, with proceeds going to fund preservation of different gadgets within the corridor’s assortment, stated corridor spokesperson Rich Desrosiers. Phillips estimates the portrait will promote within the $300,000 to $500,000 vary. As with any of the athletes within the collection, Simpson wouldn’t have current rights to proceeds, the public sale home stated.
The highest worth achieved at public sale for one in every of Warhol’s Simpson portraits was $687,000, bought in 2019.
Warhol photographed Simpson in Buffalo on Oct. 19, 1977. According to the public sale catalog, a quote from Warhol’s diary that day reads, “He had a five-day beard and I thought the pictures would be awful.” Warhol died in 1987 at age 58.
The work will probably be on public show May 6-15 in New York earlier than being auctioned.
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