Alice Cooper is set to sell off his prized Andy Warhol art piece at the 2021 Fall Larsen Art Auction. The Little Electric Chair acrylic and silkscreen on canvas piece from Warhol’s Death and Disaster series is valued between $2.5 – $4.5 million (£1.8 – £3.2 million), and could become the highest selling painting in the state of Arizona.
Alice rediscovered the piece in the garage of his Scottsdale, Arizona compound, revealing he had “completely forgotten” he owned it.
Cooper and Warhol became unlikely pals in New York City in the 1970s.
“One day a few years ago, I was talking to Dennis Hopper who said he was selling a couple of his Warhols,” the rock star shared. “I said, ‘Wait a minute, I think I have a Warhol somewhere.’ So I went digging around and found it and it was in perfect condition. I mean it was sort of in a time capsule, which I think Andy would have loved because he loved doing the time capsule as an art piece in and of itself.
“So, there it was, it had lived by itself for many years. We took it out and had it looked at with the intention of displaying it but then I just decided it was time to move on, time to release it to the world. I figured I’d had it for all this time and had almost forgotten about it – let’s let someone else really enjoy it.”
The piece will be sold at the Larsen Gallery Art Auction on 23 October.
A portion of the sale fee will benefit Cooper’s non-profit Solid Rock Foundation.