With a career spanning over 50 years, one would almost expect Alice Cooper to forget a few things that he’s done in his career, but forgetting that he owned a $10 million Andy Warhol painting probably tops the list for the ageing shock-rocker.
As The Times reports, Alice Cooper, whose real name is Vincent Furnier, discovered he was the owner of an Andy Warhol silkscreen, which had been left in a storage locker along with numerous props and artifacts from his old shows.
The artwork, which could be worth more than $10 million, is called ‘Little Electric Chair’, and is part of Warhol’s ‘Death And Disaster’ series, which focuses on increasingly morbid subject matters. Take a peek at the artwork below.
Shep Gordon, Cooper’s manager and producer, is to thank for the discovery. Following a casual conversation with a collector about Warhol’s work, Gordon had the idea that Cooper might have one in his collection somewhere.
Richard Polsky, who examined the silkscreen, said that Cooper had kept it rolled up in a tube for the last 30 years. Polsky believes the artwork to be genuine, considering the artwork’s backstory. During the’70s, Cooper had begun using an electric chair as a prop, and his girlfriend, Cindy Lang, purchased the artwork for $2,500.
“I’m 100%,” Polsky said. “It looks right, and the story just makes too much sense. It’s hard to appreciate how little Warhol’s art was worth at the time. Twenty-five hundred was the going rate at the time. Why would Andy give him a fake?” At the present time, Cooper is said to be wanting to keep the artwork rather than sell it.
The question does remain though; how does someone forget they own a piece of art from one of the world’s most enigmatic artists? “In 1972 he did two albums and about 100 tour dates,” Shep Gordon said. In addition to that, “he was a very devoted drunk”. Mystery solved, we reckon.
