Prints from one of the world’s largest collections of Andy Warhol works will be sold for charity at Heritage Auctions this week.
The company’s Modern & Contemporary Art Signature Auction in New York will feature six prints from the private collection of Ron Rivlin, owner of Revolver Gallery in Beverly Hills, California.
All proceeds from the sales will benefit Rivlin’s new charity ArtCause, which seeks to bring arts education to children in underfunded public school districts in Los Angeles, helping them create their own masterpieces.
The most valuable print on offer is also perhaps the most personal to Warhol’s life. ‘Gun’, executed in 1981-82, is an image of the very gun with which Warhol was shot by actressValerie Solanas in 1968. He survived the attack, after five-and-a-half hours of surgery, but the near-death experience had a profound effect on him.
"When you hurt another person, you never know how much it pains," Warhol later said. "Since I was shot, everything is such a dream to me. I don’t know what anything is about. Like, I don’t know whether I’m alive or whether I died. I wasn’t afraid before … and having been dead once, I shouldn’t feel fear. But I am afraid. I don’t understand why."
Also estimated at $300,000-$500,000 is ‘FIPS Mouse (Wüstenspringmaus)’, a 1983 print created by Warhol as part of his Toy Paintings series, based on treasured toys from his own childhood.
The works were originally created for an exhibition entitled Paintings for Children, which took place at the Zurich gallery owned by Warhol’s friend Bruno Bischofberger. They were originally displayed at the eye-level of a three to five-year-old child, and any adults attending the show without a child under six was charged a fee, which was donated to a children’s charity.
The sale also includes a later print from Warhol’s iconic Campbell’s Soup series, Campbell’s Soup Box (Onion Mushroom), executed circa 1986 and estimated at $100,000-$150,000; and the 1984 print Candy Box (True Love), valued at $120,000-$180,000.
The collection is rounded off by two portraits: one of art dealer Jules Brassner, circa 1978, estimated at $100,000-$150,000, and another of film director Vincente Minnelli, estimated at $80,000-$120,000.
The Heritage Auctions Modern & Contemporary Art Signature Auction takes place on Saturday November 11.
