Richard Weisman once observed that “Andy [Warhol] didn’t know the difference between a football and a golf ball.”  Hardly a sports buff myself, I surprisingly transform into an avid tennis fan each year during the U.S. Open.  Something about the volley rhythm is deeply soothing to me.  Well, tonight was the men’s final and I thought I’d honor the sport by posting Andy Warhol’s Chris Evert, which was stolen this week along with nine other Warhol silkscreens from Weisman’s Los Angeles home.  Art market experts, including A.A.C.-favorite Tobias Meyer, are “scratching their heads” because the resale of the pieces is virtually impossible due to the insular market for Warhol works.

You may remember my previous post questioning the ethics of selling a Warhol depicting Michael Jackson immediately following Jackson’s death.  Well, perhaps others felt queasy, too, because the auction might have been a big fat flop: Vered Gallery isn’t releasing the exact sale figure of the painting, saying it’s “over $1 million,” and it was sold to a speculator, not an art collector or institution.  Considering previous Warhol sales figures of $28 million and $71 million were slapped all over the Gallery’s website, a sale in the $1 to, say, $3 million dollar range is a bit embarrassing.  Could it be karma?

I get it: celebrity, rarity, marketing opportunity.  What I don’t get is why the East Hampton gallery auctioning off what is likely to be a $25 million+ piece of art (and is undoubtedly an American cultural treasure) has a website that looks cheaper than my free WordPress blog.

Here‘s the BBC coverage.  Happy weekend, people!

Thanks to Donn at The Art Law Blog for keeping me abreast of developments in Joe Simon-Whelan’s lawsuit against the Andy Warhol Foundation…I’d forgotten about this since the story broke last year!

A federal judge has issued an opinion that allows a significant portion of the lawsuit to move forward.  From The Art Newspaper:

The complaint alleges that the Warhol Foundation’s ongoing catalog raisonne project and Authentification Board have for two decades fraudulently rejected legitimate works to artificially limit supply and thereby increase the value of Warhol works held by the foundation.  These trade-restrictive activities violate the federal Sherman Anti-Trust Act and related New York State Donnelly Act.  Mr Simon-Whelan is seeking unspecified monetary damages, but his relentless multi-year campaign against the Foundation suggests that he wants a moral victory as well.

If Simon-Whelan’s claims end up being true, can you imagine the art market chaos for Warhols that would ensue?  If I were shopping for seven figure artwork (one day, fingers crossed), I would surely steer clear of the artist’s work until this case is decided. 

Pictured above is the gorgeous Lemon Marilyn from 1962 that sold at Christie’s in 2007.