STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
And today's last word in business is portraits of the artist.
Andy Warhol was the star at several art auctions this week in New York. Dozens of his works went on the block and fetched, as always, eye-popping prices. A portrait of the late actress Liz Taylor went for $27 million. A self-portrait of Andy Warhol went for 27.5 million. And yet another Warhol self-portrait, a series of blue silkscreen panels, sold for more than $38 million. I've seen one of these self-portraits. It shows Andy Warhol in several different poses. He's wearing sunglasses. His tie is loosened. He looks like Uncle Duke from "Doonesbury."
Thirty-eight million dollars may sound like a big sum, but it's not a bad investment when you think of how the work has appreciated over time.
According to Forbes, the work was originally commissioned in 1963 by a Detroit art collector, who bought it for 1,600 bucks. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
