Andy Warhol’s portrait of Blondie star Debbie Harry goes under the hammer at Sotheby’s and is expected to fetch up to $8.8 million (£5.5 million) when auctioned on 11 June. The star a close friend and muse of the artist ,who had her biggest hit, Heart of Glass in 1980 was immortalized by Warhol in his New York studio, The Factory. One of the colourful silkscreen will now be sold as part of its two-day sale of contemporary art.
The same sale will also see important works from the collection of Former Eurythmics guitarist, Dave Stewart selling important works from his personal art collection. The sale will include a spot painting by Damien Hirst, entitled Dantrolene (Being God for Dave), which the renowned artist dedicated to the musician early on in his career. Hirst met Stewart in the early 1990s at the opening of a group exhibition in London’s Docklands. where Hirst and Angus Fairhurst staged Freeze in 1988. Dave recalls, “They were giving away Beck’s beer, and so we both got really drunk. He was incredibly confrontational. Funny. Exciting. By the end we were under the table – had about 12 bottles each.” (Richard Rosenfeld, ‘How we met: Dave Stewart and Damien Hirst’ in The Independent, 9th October 1994). Dave says of Damien: “He reminds me of the Joker in Batman. Electric, turned on, alive. He’ll talk for hours. Really get you buzzing. Says that you’ve got to cope with death before you can handle life.” Damien says of Dave: “Dave is wacky and wonderful. All over the place. Got all these things on the go – like one plus one equals five. A nutter. Mad ideas – like Warhol. But completely in control”
n an interview with Sotheby’s Director and Contemporary Art Specialist, Alex Branczik, Dave Stewart commented on how he met Damien Hirst in the early nineties and the spot painting the artist gifted to Stewart, he continued: “It was at the 1992 exhibition that Damien put on where he invited Angus Fairhurst, Sarah Lucas, Tracey Emin and some other artists and was held down by the river in a warehouse. It was after this exhibition that we became friends. We were now really good friends. Around then I met Gilbert and George. Damien, Gilbert & George and I actually went on this really crazy trip on my houseboat together down the canals and of course none of us could steer very well, it ended in disaster.”A slightly larger example of Hirst’s spot genre painting dating from 1992, reached 825,250 pounds at Phillips de Pury & Co. in London in June 2008. Other works from ‘ collection include Works by Gilbert & George, Cindy Sherman and Angus Fairhurst. With estimates ranging from £12k – £1.2m Sale Sotheby’s London 11 June 2011