The late Andy Warhol‘s digital portrait of Blondie’s Debbie Harry is about to go up for sale, the New York Post reports.
Warhol created the portrait in 1985 as part of his gig as brand ambassador for the Commodore tech company. During a promotion at Lincoln Center in New York, he created several digital portraits using an Amiga 1000 home computer, which the Warhol museum says he had originally planned to distribute but never did.
Harry revealed in her 2019 memoir that two of her portraits were printed out, one of which she owns. The other, according to the Post, was gifted to Commodore digital technician Jeff Bruette, who taught Warhol how to use the computer.
Bruette, who has had the portrait in his Delaware home for the past 40 years, is now planning a private sale of the artwork, along with a Warhol autographed Amiga disc that includes 10 digital files, and it is expected to go for millions.
“From rural Delaware, where I live, to Hollywood … Even people who knew Andy made the portrait have only ever seen a photograph of it in a magazine or online,” he says. “I thought it was time the world got to interact with this extraordinary artwork the way it was meant to be experienced.”
As for why he’s selling, he shares, “Parting with this collection now gives me the chance to help find it the right home. And, to be honest, could make retirement just a little bit more comfortable.”
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