Andy Warhol’s Big Electric Chair will be getting auctioned at Christie’s in May, expecting to fetch $30 million.
Created in 1967-68, the artwork stands at six feet in height. It features an electric chair as its subject – the kind that was used in America at the time for convicts on death row. ‘Big Electric Chair’ comes from the collection of late collectors Roger Matthys and Hilda Colle. Both Matthys and Colle were major patrons of the contemporary art scene in Ghent, particularly as benefactors to the SMAK contemporary art museum. Speaking of the work, Alex Rotter (chairman of the 20th and 21st-century art at Christie’s) said: “[the painting is] one of the ultimate Warhols. […] It’s the prime example of an important series and a subject matter that he continued to return to over the course of time”.
The sale announcement comes at a time when the global art market is struggling in the blue-chip, luxury art segment. A 2025 report suggested that the global art market fetched $57.5 billion in 2024, thus shrinking by 12.2 percent compared to 2023. This decline was spearheaded by a sharp drop in the sales of luxury high art; revenues from artworks sold for $10 million or more dropped by 45 percent. However, Christie’s is perhaps anchoring their hopes on the bankability of Warhol, who is one of the most sought-after artists in the world.
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If it met its expectations, ‘Big Electric Chair’ would surpass the record set by a similar work sold for $20.4 million in 2014. However, it would still be far away from the most expensive Andy Warhol work ever sold – “The Shot Blue Marilyn”, which fetched a staggering $195.2 million at Christie’s in 2022.
