Performance artist Dorothy Podber put a bullet through a stack of Andy Warhol paintings of Marilyn Monroe in 1964 but she definitely didn't destroy their value: Christie's says it expects one of them, Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, to fetch $200 million at a May auction, which would make it the most expensive 20th-century painting ever sold at auction, the New York Times reports. Alex Rotter, the auction house's chairman of 20th and 21st-century art, describes the silkscreen as "the most significant 20th century painting to come to auction in a generation."
"This painting symbolizes everything that’s relevant to us about the 20th century—you can see all its beauty and tragedy in her face," Rotter said at a press conference about the upcoming auction, per the Wall Street Journal. Proceeds from the sale will go to the Thomas and Doris Ammann Foundation Zurich, which supports causes helping children. The previous record for a Warhol work at auction was set with the sale of Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) for $104.5 million in 2013.
The "Shot" part of Shot Sage Blue Marilyn famously happened when Podber, a friend of photographer Billy Name, visited Warhol's studio in 1964, saw a stack of five Marilyn Monroe paintings against a wall, and asked if she could shoot them. Warhol, thinking she was talking about taking photos, agreed. According to the Times' 2008 obituary of Podber, Name told writer Joy Bergmann that after Podber left, "Andy came over to me and said: ‘Please make sure Dorothy doesn’t come over here anymore. She’s too scary.’" Warhol repaired the damaged paintings. Another one of them, Shot Red Marilyn, fetched a then-record $4 million at an auction in 1989. (More Andy Warhol stories.)
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