[NewsPoster]

A painting by Andy Warhol based on an early Macintosh ad from 1985 will go on auction at Sotheby's in New York City in just over a week, with an opening minimum of $280,000 and an expected estimate of between $400,000 and $600,000 for a final purchase price. Warhol, who once met Steve Jobs (and received a brief tutorial on how to draw on the original Macintosh) when the Apple co-founder was installing a machine at John Lennon's house, painted the six-color Apple logo as part of the illustration.

The artist, who worked for years as a trained graphic designer and magazine illustrator, is best known for exploring commercial graphic design as a form of artistic expression, asking viewers of his iconic Campbell's Soup, Tide box installation, and other art projects based on commercial projects to look at the package designs in a new light, to study what went into the works and to "see" the illustration, design, and thought that went into "utilitarian" packaging. He later adapted the approach to painting celebrities, examining the concept of famous people -- or people who could be made famous, presaging the 21st century obsession with that idea -- as "brands" and "products."

The painting, as seen above, is a more-or-less unadorned painted representation of the iconography and branding associated with Apple at a critical juncture in the company's history -- the emergence of the Macintosh. Apparently painted in 1985, Warhol encountered Jobs as the latter was setting up a Mac for a young Sean Lennon. "We went into Sean [John Lennon's son]'s bedroom–and there was a kid there setting up the Apple computer that Sean had gotten as a present, the Macintosh model. I said that once some man had been calling me a lot wanting to give me one, but that I'd never called him back or something, and then the kid looked up and said, 'Yeah, that was me. I'm Steve Jobs,'" Warhol recalled.

"Jobs looked so young, like a college guy. And he told me that he would still send me one now. And then he gave me a lesson on drawing with it. It only comes in black and white now, but they'll make it soon in color ... I felt so old and out of it with this young whiz guy right there who helped invent it." The painting will go on sale on November 12 at 9:30AM Eastern.

[ElectroTech]

I would like to be able to have a copy of it at least.

[DudeMac]

But Andy Warhol fell in love with the Commodore Amiga :-)

[Charles Martin]

I wondered if anybody would spot that in the thumbnail!

It was the only picture of Warhol and a computer I could find, with bonus points for Debbie Harry.