Andy Warhol's 'Big Electric Chair' to Hit Christie's Auction

Andy Warhol’s “Big Electric Chair” (1967-68) is set to headline Christie’s 20th Century Evening Sale during New York’s Marquee Week, with a pre-estimated cost of at least $30m USD, marking its first appearance at an auction.

The painting first appeared at the artist’s 1968 presentation at Stockholm’s Modern Museet, his first major retrospective outside of the U.S. Just one year later, it was acquired by Belgian collectors Roger Matthys and Hilda Colle, where it has remained for the last half-century.

“Big Electric Chair” depicts a tightly-cropped version of a 1953 press photograph taken in the execution chamber of the Sing Sing Correctional Facility in New York, an image that served as the basis of Warhol’s renowned Death and Disaster series. Unlike other works where doors, pipes and additional signage are in view, this painting in solely focuses on the electric chair, evoking the stark, memento mori-like binaries of life and death, as well as an increasing desensitization to violent images – a theme that threaded through the entire series.

“‘Big Electric Chair’ is the ultimate still life,” explained Christie’s Chairman of 20th and 21st Century Art, Alex Rotter, in a recent statement. “It is singular within Warhol’s oeuvre – a solitary object in a quiet moment, reflecting the fragility of the human condition.

Christie’s 20th Century Evening Sale will begin on May 12.