It’s no secret that time can easily play tricks on the feeble human mind. This is especially true if this particular human mind happened to be a world famous rockstar in the 60s and 70s, taking copious amounts of stimulants and mind-altering substances. It might therefore be somewhat understandable that someone like Alice Cooper could forget about a priceless piece of artwork for four decades.
The piece, a silkscreen in red of Andy Warhol‘s ‘Little Electric Chair‘ from the Death and Disaster series, was recently found “rolled up in a tube” in a storage facility owned by Cooper. The artwork was believed to have been bought from the artist by Cooper in 1972, after they had become friends. At the encouragement of his girlfriend, Cindy Lang, Cooper bought the print from Warhol for $2,500. However, Cooper didn’t like the idea of having something so expensive hanging in his house, and it somehow found its way into a tube among his touring equipment, then forgotten about.
In an attempt to explain the oversight, Cooper’s manager Shep Gordon told The Guardian, “Truthfully, at the time no one thought it had any real value… Andy Warhol was not ‘Andy Warhol’ back then. And it was all a swirl of drugs and drinking.”
It was only when a similar print of Warhol’s ‘Little Electric Chair‘ sold for millions at auction in 2013 that the memory of the artwork occurred to Gordon. He mentioned it to Cooper, and it was actually Alice’s mother who suggested that it might be in storage, where it was eventually found.
The highest any print of ‘Little Electric Chair‘ has sold for was $11.6million at Christie’s in 2015. Alice Cooper’s version would not quite reach this same price as, unfortunately, is not signed by Andy Warhol so cannot be 100% verified – although art experts are extremely sure it is genuine. Nevertheless, Cooper’s tastes have changed in the intervening years, and he is now considering having it mounted and hung in his home.
