‘Andy Warhol’ sketch bought for £3 is valued at £1.3m

Andy Fields, from Devon, claims he bought the work of art in Las Vegas from a drug user, whose aunt cared for Warhol as a child.

The father of one plans to put it on display adding that he had been told it could be worth “ten times” the official valuation.

The drawing, of Thirties US singer and actor Rudy Vallee, is thought to have been done by Warhol when he was ten or 11-years-old and is signed by him.
Mr Fields said he has no plans to sell the painting, which he bought in 2010 at a garage sale as part of a collection of paintings.

Speaking to Channel 4 News, Andy said: “I was reframing one of the pictures I bought – a picture of Hopalong Cassidy. I took the back off and I saw Andy Warhol’s picture staring back at me.

“Anyone who follows Warhol, to find something probably done at least ten years before he was famous for doing that style of art, and it being an original is really quite incredible.”

Andy said he spent weeks trying to find the man who sold him the sketch. He said: “I needed to find out everything he knew about it – but he’d vanished.”

Works by Andy Warhol, who died aged 58 in 1987, have commanded multi-million pound prices at auction.

A 12ft painting entitled Eight Elvises sold for $100m (£65m) in the autumn of 2008, in the biggest ever Andy Warhol sale.

His portrait of actress Elizabeth Taylor sold for £14.5m, while the painting Soup Can (Tomato) sold for £5.6m two years ago – while Lemon Marilyn fetched £17.5m at auction in 2007.