Andy Warhol’s Vintage Rolls-Royce Finds New Owner

A luxury Rolls Silver Shadow, 1974, once belonging to famous artist Andy Warhol was bought by Wilkes-Barre art collector Ken Marquis in 1990, after the artist’s death in 1987. Last year, Marquis sold it to a Los Angeles businessman who is also a Warhol fan and his avid collector. The vintage car has reached Hollywood and is being used for a traveling exhibition of the artist’s work.

For nearly three decades, the car was kept in a downtown garage behind Marquis’s art business, who used to showcase this vehicle that once transported Warhol and many of his celebrity friends. “Everything has a time and place. I enjoyed it for 25 years,” Marquis said. “I was ready to see someone else enjoy it as well. I was using it less and less. I felt it should either be used or displayed. And it wasn’t getting used a whole lot and it wasn’t being displayed. I was housing it.”;…“I was looking for an Andy Warhol aficionado who loves automobiles who also had a sizable amount of disposable income. There really isn’t a big market for that,” Marquis said.

The buyer, Ron Rivlin, 44, of Revolver Gallery, Los Angeles, is himself a Warhol fan. He said he purchased the car as a birthday present to himself and the vehicle was part of his traveling “Andy Warhol: Revisited” tour throughout 2017. The tour coincided with the 30th anniversary of the artist’s death. He also said, the car will be featured in an upcoming two-month exhibition in March in Toronto, Rivlin’s hometown. According to Rivlin the car fits nicely in his studio. “It’s more of a museum piece. It’s a renaissance piece”, Rivlin said, “You sit in it and feel the age of it,” as reported by Standard Speaker.