Warhol `Car Crash' Sells for Record $71.7 Million at Christie's By Lindsay Pollock and Philip Boroff May 16 (Bloomberg) -- An acid-green Andy Warhol painting of a gruesome car crash set an auction record for the Pop Art star, selling for $71.7 million tonight at Christie's International in New York. ``Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I)'' of 1963 was estimated to sell for $25 million to $35 million. The artist's previous record, $17.4 million, was set by a 1972 portrait of Chairman Mao Zedong.
Damn, so close to the record (for contemporary art at auction), but no cigar. The day before, for a tad more, $72.8 million, you coulda had "White Center", Rothko's 1950 magnum opus. If that's not depressing enough, consider this: "Seasoned auctiongoers noticed that last night rubles appeared for the first time on the salesroomâs currency board, along with dollars, euros, pounds and Swiss francs â an indication of the strong presence of big-spending Russians in the art market." No wonder the dollar is depressed.