Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) Auction History

Andy Warhol’s Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) sold for $105,445,000 at Sotheby’s New York on November 13, 2013, setting a then auction record for the artist. The work previously passed through Bischofberger, Sperone, Reineri, the Saatchi Collection, Gagosian, and Thomas Ammann Fine Art before a 1989 private acquisition; the 2013 buyer is undisclosed and the painting remains in a private collection.

Artwork

Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster)

Artist

Andy Warhol

Best-known sale or transfer

Sold for $105,445,000 at Sotheby’s New York (2013)

Sale type

Public auction

Current location / owner

Private collection

Auction and Ownership Timeline

1963

Executed and signed

Monumental diptych in silkscreen ink and silver spray paint on canvas, executed summer 1963; each panel signed and dated on the overlap [1].

1972

Exhibited: Galerie Gunter Sachs, Hamburg

Galerie Gunter Sachs, Hamburg

Shown in the exhibition Andy Warhol, Oct–Nov 1972 [1].

1985

Exhibited: Saatchi Gallery, London

Saatchi Gallery, London

Included in Judd, Warhol, Twombly, Marden, Mar–Nov 1985 [1].

1989

Acquired by the 2013 consignor

Thomas Ammann Fine Art AG, Zurich

Purchased from Thomas Ammann Fine Art AG, Zurich; price not disclosed [1].

2000

Exhibited: Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel

Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel

Included in Andy Warhol: Series and Singles, Sept–Dec 2000 [1].

2013-11-13

Sotheby’s New York: sold for $105,445,000 (with premium)

$105,445,000 · Sotheby’s, New York

Contemporary Art Evening Sale, Lot 16; won by a phone bidder represented by Sotheby’s Charles Moffett; the price set a then Warhol auction record and contributed to a $380.6m evening-sale total record at Sotheby’s [1][2][4].

Provenance and Ownership

Provenance (published chain): Bruno Bischofberger, Zurich; Gian Enzo Sperone; Beatrice Reineri, Turin; Saatchi Collection, London; Gagosian Gallery; Thomas Ammann Fine Art AG, Zurich; acquired by a private collector in 1989; consigned by that owner to Sotheby’s, where it sold on 13 November 2013 to an anonymous telephone bidder; current location: private collection [1][2].

Why This Sale Matters

The 2013 sale of Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) for $105,445,000 at Sotheby’s New York established a new auction benchmark for Andy Warhol at the time, exceeding widespread guidance around $60–80 million and underscoring demand for the artist’s most consequential series [1][3]. The winning bid came via a telephone client represented by Sotheby’s executive Charles Moffett, and the result helped drive the evening’s total to a then house record of $380.6 million [2][4]. As a monumental diptych from Warhol’s “Death and Disaster” corpus—one of only seven double‑canvas examples in the series—its scale, rarity, and subject were central to the price achieved [1].

This work also sits at the apex of the artist’s market segment focused on catastrophe imagery. Earlier, Warhol’s Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I) reached $71.7 million in 2007, setting a record at the time for the artist and signaling sustained appetite for the “Disaster” theme among top collectors [6]. In the years following the 2013 result, strong comparables confirmed depth at the high end: White Disaster (White Car Crash 19 Times) realized $85,350,500 at Sotheby’s in 2022 [7]. At the same time, Warhol’s overall auction record moved higher with Shot Sage Blue Marilyn selling for $195,040,000 in 2022, reframing the top of the artist’s market but leaving Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) among his most valuable works [5].

Rarity further amplifies its significance. Sotheby’s notes that only three other car‑crash paintings of remotely comparable scale are held in museums—MoMA’s Orange Car Crash Fourteen Times, Kunstmuseum Basel’s Black and White Disaster #4, and mumok’s Orange Car Crash—which concentrates private‑market demand on a tiny number of large‑format examples [1][8][9][10]. Taken together, the 2013 price, the work’s exceptional format, and the scarcity of comparable museum‑scale car‑crash paintings explain why this diptych remains a bellwether for the “Death and Disaster” series and a touchstone for top‑tier Warhol valuations [1][2][7].