Andy Warhol’s haunting Big Electric Chair (1967–68) is set to headline Christie’s 20th Century Evening Sale in New York on 12 May 2025. The painting, a stark meditation on mortality and state-sanctioned violence, carries a low estimate of $30 million and will be offered at auction for the first time.

Executed in acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas, the work measures 54 by 74 inches (137.2 x 188 cm). It is one of 14 paintings Warhol created in this series, but uniquely, it is the only version where the electric chair is screened in black against a single-color ground, devoid of contextual elements like doors or signage. This minimalist approach amplifies the chair’s symbolic weight, transforming it into a modern memento mori. ​

Big Electric Chair was first exhibited in Warhol’s 1968 European retrospective at Stockholm’s Moderna Museet. The following year, it was acquired by Belgian collectors Roger Matthys and Hilda Colle, whose collection has been instrumental in shaping Belgium’s contemporary art scene. The painting has remained in their collection for over five decades and was on long-term loan to the S.M.A.K. museum in Ghent. ​

Alex Rotter, Christie’s Chairman of 20th and 21st Century Art, described the piece as “the ultimate still life,” noting its singularity within Warhol’s oeuvre. “It reflects the fragility of the human condition,” Rotter said, likening it to traditional vanitas paintings.

If the painting achieves its estimate, it could set a new auction record for Warhol’s Electric Chair series, surpassing the $20.4 million achieved by a similar work in 2014.