Making its auction debut at the Sotheby's New York Evening Auction of Contemporary Art auction last night, Jeff Koon's Popeye sculpture sold for an impressive $28,165,000. Sotheby's reports that the seven-foot-tall "monumental sculpture conjuring the spirit of Warhol’s Pop art masterworks" was purchased by hotelier Steve Wynn and will be displayed in one of his hotels in Las Vegas.
Leading up to the sale, Sotheby's produced the video above that features Contemporary Art Worldwide's co-head Alexander Rotter giving a brief history on the cultural importance of the Popeye character and his appearance in works by Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol from the early days of Pop Art. He also speaks talks about the importance of Popeye to Koons as "the first pure American hero."
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[via Hypebeast]
