"One of the most recognizable faces in American culture returned to the site of his making on Wednesday, when Lévy Gorvy Dayan sold Andy Warhol's Muhammad Ali (1977) for $18 million during the VIP Preview of Art Basel Miami Beach. The painting-autographed on the reverse by Ali and once owned by Richard L. Weisman, who commissioned Warhol's "Athletes" series-hung only a few hundred feet from the place where Ali became Ali."
"Over sixty years ago, in February 1964, the 22-year-old then known as Cassius Clay shocked the sporting world in the Miami Beach Convention Center when he knocked out Sonny Liston. The Convention Center's own archive describes the moment as "a clash of personalities... a politically charged spectacle during the height of the Civil Rights Movement," with Ali standing over Liston in a moment now "etched into history as one of the most iconic photographs ever taken.""
""It all happened basically just a week after the sales," Gorvy told ARTnews. "We realized we had this masterpiece at a moment when the market is driven by masterpieces, and there was this amazing connection to Miami." The gallery debated the usual matrix of options: auction, private sale, or fair. But the alignment of market momentum, historical context, and Basel's high-net-worth foot traffic made the decision easy."
Lévy Gorvy Dayan sold Andy Warhol's Muhammad Ali (1977) for $18 million during the VIP Preview of Art Basel Miami Beach. The painting, autographed on the reverse by Ali and formerly owned by Richard L. Weisman, hung within a few hundred feet of the 1964 Miami Beach Convention Center boxing match where Cassius Clay knocked out Sonny Liston. The proximity created deliberate historical resonance between the artwork and Ali's emergence as a civil-rights symbol. The work was consigned barely ten days before the fair, emerging directly from the New York auction cycle. Gallery leadership chose the fair over auction or private sale because market momentum, historical context, and wealthy attendance aligned.
Read at ARTnews.com
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