Auction house on Elvis Presley

“So often in the careers of great men and women of history, there came a point in time where they were told their talents were not sufficient to realize their dreams. In the case of Elvis Presley, these words came early and often. But by the end of the 1950'a he was a musical phenomenon who electrified millions of attendees at his live performances. Until his untimely death in 1977, Elvis had an indisputable role in creating the modern American musical landscape and the development of a unique youth culture. Elvis' importance to the inception of rock and roll, and contemporary music as a whole, cannot be overstated, his image transcending the categories of the music he played and the movies he starred in to become a cornerstone of modern pop culture. Depicted in every material form imaginable, his estate at Graceland remains a pilgrimage site for fans of his music. In February of 1961, at a charity luncheon and concert arranged by the record company with the Governor of Tennessee present, RCA Records presented him with a plaque commemorating the 75 million records he had sold worldwide, the first artist in history to reach this impressive milestone. Accompanying this plaque, RCA Records also gifted Elvis with an 18-karat white gold and diamond Omega wristwatch, purchased by them at Tiffany & Co. The concert itself was an immense success, raising $51,612 (close to a half a million in 2018 dollars) for various charities. Sometime in 1962, the watch was exchanged by Presley to the current owner's uncle after the latter had expressed his admiration for the timepiece during a chance meeting inside a lounge at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas. We are proud and thrilled to present, for auction, what once belonged to the man who simply said, in response to questions regarding his popularity, "All I do is sing and dance a little." It is, without a doubt, a superb vintage timepiece with one of the most fascinating provenances to ever appear on the world auction market.”

“As with Marilyn, Liz and Marlon, Warhol instinctively understood the Elvis brand as an industrialized construct and radically revealed it as a precisely composed non-reality. Of course Elvis offered Warhol the biggest brand of all, and he accentuates this by choosing a manifestly contrived version of Elvis-the-film-star, rather than the raw genius of Elvis as performing Rock n' Roll pioneer.”