Popnography
For Sale: Bea Arthur Naked
Controversial John Currin portrait of the iconic actress up for auction
May 15 2013 8:20 AM EST
February 05 2015 9:27 PM EST
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In 1992 enfant terrible artist John Currin tied critics in knots with his first commerical gallery exhibit, which New Yorker critic Peter Schjeldahl wrote in 2003, were "acrid fantasy portraits of menopausal women"--what Currin described as images "between the object of desire and the object of loathing." It caused critics to be torn between Currin's technical talent and his bizarre subject matter. Well, what two decades can do to popular consciousness.
Bea (who passed away in 2009) is more valuable than ever. And we don't mean in Maude or Golden Girls re-runs. The Currin portrait is on the auction block at Christie's this Thursday and is expected to fetch between $1.8-$2 million. That's right. Those tits are hot!
See the full portrait in all its glory (NSFW, for some), below:
