Andy Warhol
Portrait of Karl Ludwig Schweisfurth. 1980
Oil and silkscreen on canvas
102 x 101,5 cm (40.1 x 39.9 in)
Estimate: € 80.000-100.000

Munich, 4 June, 2012, (kk) – Andy Warhol couldn't believe what he saw: "Pigs, pigs, pigs (…) everywhere. And art". His visit at Karl Ludwig Schweisfurth, the then owner of the meat company Herta in February 1980 left deep impression on Warhol. And that wasn't all: He also made a portrait of Schweisfurth that will be now be sold at Ketterer Kunst in Munich in the auction of Post War/Contemporary Art on 9 June.

Next to a great number of self portraits as well as portraits of, for instance Jackie Kennedy, Mick Jagger and Joseph Beuys, Andy Warhol executed the "Portrait of Karl Ludwig Schweisfurth" in typical Pop-Art manner. In his diary Warhol wrote about the deep impression that Schweisfurth, his company and his art collection had left on him: "He owned the complete Picasso portfolio, to which I added the Picasso print of Paloma. We looked at it, then (…) even more pigs, more salami and more ham (…) - smoked and painted. We shot Polaroids for the portrait and had tea"*. The work from a private German collection will be called up with an estimate of € 80.000-100.000. First interest has already been shown which comes from the Schweisfurth family.

In 1984 Karl Ludwig Schweisfurth sold the Herta meat factory and began to produce organic food on a farmstead in Upper Bavaria. Today the 'Hermannsdorfer Landwerkstätten' are a model company for species-appropriate breeding and sustainable farming.

For further information on the auction on 9 June, please see press release from 9 Mai, 2012.

* Cf. : Book of diaries: selected by Rainer Wieland, Munich 2010