One of the most expensive works at Art Basel Miami Beach this year has found a new owner. Andy Warhol’s Muhammad Ali (1977), on Lévy Gorvy Dayan’s stand and priced at $18m, sold to a private collector. The painting previously sold for the same price at Christie’s in 2021.
Fittingly, it was at the Miami Beach Convention Center that Ali won his first heavyweight championship in 1964 at the age of 22. Warhol’s 40in-by-40in acrylic and silkscreen on canvas has Ali’s autograph on the back.
The work was once owned by the artist’s friend Richard L. Weisman, who had encouraged Warhol to create his Athletes series.
“With the 1977 painting in our booth, you have the best of Warhol,” the gallerist Brett Gorvy said in a statement, “and an image that captures the spirit of the moment.”