A Warhol portrait, in Del. since ’85, to be auctioned

In “Face It,” Debbie Harry wrote about being captured by Andy Warhol. Pexels photo by Lance Gauer

A 1985 Andy Warhol portrait of singer Debbie Harry – thought to have been lost but in reality just on display in a Delaware home for almost four decades – is reportedly on its way to being auctioned, the New York Post reports .

It could sell for millions of dollars, ARTnews predicts .

“It’s been almost 40 years since I worked with Warhol,” the Post quoted owner Jeff Bruette.” “It was a life-changing assignment.

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“For just as long, any time someone has seen the portrait of Debbie hanging on my wall, or learned that I was ‘that guy who worked with Andy,’ especially after the recent explosion of NFTs and digital art, anyone who’s heard the story has been completely riveted.”

An online search matches the name and professional background to Middletown resident Jeff Bruette, who worked for Commodore Business Machines from 1984 to 1989.

He’s best known in Delaware for owning Great Big Stuff, a store that from 2001 to 2017 sold supersized renditions of everyday objects. He could not be reached for comment.

Warhol worked live at Lincoln Center

The Post said the portrait of the Blondie singer was made in 1985 using a Commodore Amiga 1000 home computer, created live at New York’s Lincoln Center, as a promotion for Commodore.

The Andy Warhol Museum developed an exhibiti on about it, called Warhol and the Amiga.

“They had a full orchestra and a large board set up with a bunch of technicians in lab coats,” Harry wrote in “Face It,” her 2019 memoir. “The techs programmed away with all the Warhol colors, as Andy designed and painted my portrait.

“I hammed it up some for the cameras, turning toward Andy, running my hand through my hair, and asking in a suggestive Marilyn voice, ‘Are you ready to paint me?’ Andy was pretty hilarious in his usual flat-affect way, as he sparred with the Commodore host.

“I think there are only two copies of this computer-generated Warhol in existence, and I have one of them.”

Bruette had the other.

He plans to sell off the work, as well as the Amiga disk, holding 10 digital images, signed by Warhol, the Post said.

“Even people who knew Andy made the portrait have only ever seen a photograph of it in a magazine or online,” the Post quoted Bruette. “I thought it was time the world got to interact with this extraordinary artwork the way it was meant to be experienced.”

“Parting with this collection now gives me the chance to help find it the right home,” the quote continued. “And, to be honest, could make retirement just a little bit more comfortable.”