A vibrantly painted Andy Warhol portrait of a young, bearded O.J. Simpson staring blankly forward, long before his murder trial eclipsed his athletic achievements, is set to go to auction in New York next month.
The 40 inch-by-40 inch silkscreen ink artwork, coated with acrylic paint and signed by Warhol and Simpson, is part of the enigmatic artist’s so-called Athlete Series, a commissioned set of more than 200 portraits he made in 1977, a decade before his death.
Weilding a Polaroid, Warhol photographed Simpson at a Buffalo motel on Oct. 19, 1977, when the football star was 30 years old and playing for the Buffalo Bills. Warhol took 46 pictures of Simpson, and used them to produce 11 portraits, according to the Phillips auction house.
“To my eye, this is the best O.J. painting of that series because of the crispness of the screen and that glorious bright color — a beautiful deep, rich blue and orange,” said Robert Manley, deputy chairman at Phillips.
The portrait, previously housed at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, will be on public display from May 6 until May 16 at Phillips’ gallery at 432 Park Ave. in Midtown Manhattan, according to the London-based auction house.
The work is set to land on the auction block on May 16. Phillips estimated its value is between $300,000 and $500,000.
Artwork by Warhol, a prolific avant-garde artist who dominated the American Pop Art sphere in the 20th century, is particularly hot at the moment, perhaps in part due to a revival of interest in his challenging and mysterious personal life.
On Broadway this winter, a play called “The Collaboration” explored Warhol’s close relationship with Jean-Michel Basquiat, another influential New York painter. And last year, a Netflix docuseries exploring Warhol’s life, “The Andy Warhol Diaries,” captivated the art world.
“He’s like the patron saint of artists,” said Richard Polsky, a Warhol expert who runs an art authentication service, adding that Warhol’s appeal has grown steadily since he died of a heart attack in 1987.
Polsky said the controversial content of the Simpson portrait makes it less valuable than others in the Athlete Series. The most valuable pieces in the series are portraits of Muhammad Ali, Polsky said.
“They’ll sell it — but it won’t have the competition that other works in the series would have,” Polsky said of the Simpson artwork.
The Heisman Trophy winner, who appears in a plaid button-down shirt in the 45-year-old portrait, was near the end of his standout football career when he met with Warhol in upstate New York.
Simpson moved on from the Bills after the 1977 season and retired two years later.
In the racially charged case that transfixed the nation and came to define Simpson’s post-football identity, he was accused of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman in Los Angeles in 1994.
In 1995, a criminal jury found Simpson not guilty. But 16 months later, a civil jury found him liable for the two deaths.
Simpson was later sentenced to nine years in prison in a Las Vegas gunpoint robbery case. He was released in 2017.
The catalog essay for Warhol’s portrait of Simpson drew a comparison between the artwork and Simpson’s mugshot after his ex-wife’s death.
“Unaware of his picture’s impact years later,” the essay said, “Warhol acknowledges and highlights the footballer’s budding celebrity, without realizing what his name would mean decades later.”