27 outubro 2003

CULTURAS IN VITRO

One in six 'original' Warhols is a copy: Furious collectors stand to lose millions after the artist's estate reclassifies thousands of prints ascribed to him
If you've just paid £5m for one of Andy Warhol's iconic Marilyn Monroe prints you'd better start searching for the great man's fingermarks. In a move that is alarming pop art collectors around the globe, the Warhol estate has re-classified as many as one in six of the pictures previously attributed to him as copies.
The sweeping reappraisal of one of the 20th century's most prolific artists is based on a strict new definition of what constitutes an original Warhol. The Andy Warhol Authentication Board, set up by his estate in 1995 to vet the thousands of prints ascribed to him, says that only the images he was directly involved in producing merit being described as his own work.