Brigitte Bardot Portrait Set For Auction

Andy Warhol‘s Brigitte Bardot Portrait Set For Auction and is expected to hammer for millions.

The painting belongs to Brigitte Bardot ex-husband, the photographer and playboy Gunter Sachs, and sold along with other art. Gunther Sachs (who committed suicide last spring) commissioned his friend Andy Warhol to make Brigitte Bardot‘s portrait, and later bought one the the Actor, Model and Pop artist’s last self-portraits, “Fright Wig”

Gunter Sachs first met Andy Warhol in St Tropez in the early 1960s. The two men became lifelong friends.Gunter Sachs presented Andy Warhol’s first large exhibition in Europe at his opened gallery in Hamburg. Not a single picture was sold on the opening evening so Gunter Sachs secretly purchased half of the works in the exhibition to save the embarrassment of admitting this to his friend Andy.
The silkscreen print was commissioned by Gunter Sachs in 1974** – five years after he divorced the French beauty Brigitte Bardot – and is expected to be the star lot in an upcoming auction of the German playboy’s paintings.However it is a Andy Warhol portrait that is expected to rake in the most money. According to art historians, it can be sold for four million pounds, equivalent to $6.4 million.

**Based on a 1959 photograph of Bardot taken by Richard Avedon, this work was commissioned by Gunter Sachs to hang as a “pendant” to his own portraits that he had commissioned in 1972. Created according to Gunter Sachs’ specifications in the same “oversized” 122 by 122cm. format, the full-lipped beauty of the screen-siren was transformed by Warhol into a timeless image of feminine beauty
Among which is an outstanding 48-inch Flowers painting –one of only six works that the artist produced in this format. The painting has remaining in the Sachs collection ever since it was purchased in 1979.

This acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas, which measures 121.9 by 121.9cm, was executed in 1964-65 and is estimated at £3-4 million.
Around 300 works will go to the auction ( also photos taken by Gunther Sachs himself and paintings by Roy Lichtenstein, Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte)

Experts predict the collection, which is being sold by Gunther Sachs’ widow Mirja Larsson, will pull in more than $32 million in total.
The Auction, to be held in Sotheby’s in London 2012.

“Spanning numerous collecting categories, from Surrealism and Nouveau Realism, to Pop Art, Art Deco, 20th Century design and Graffiti, this two day auction is set to be one of the most remarkable and diverse single-owner collections to ever appear at Sotheby’s. Highlights include masterpieces by Andy Warhol, Tom Wesselmann, Roy Lichtenstein, Arman and Yves Klein, as well as important pre and post-war furniture by Ruhlmann and Giacometti.