LONDON - Irish rockers U2 are selling a painting by American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat valued at up to $12 million, Sotheby's auction house said Thursday.
Sotheby's said "Untitled (Pecho/Oreja)" will go under the hammer in London on July 1 and is expected to fetch between $7.8 million and $12 million.
It was bought by members of U2 in 1989 after being spotted by bass player Adam Clayton in a New York gallery and has hung in their Dublin studio ever since.
Basquiat was one of the most prominent American artists of the 1980s, lauded for his strong use of colour and the social commentary in his work. He died of a heroin overdose in 1988, aged 27.
'Untitled (Pecho/Oreja)," painted when the artist was 22, combines a stylized human head, reminiscent of a ritual mask, covered in marks and doodles.
In May 2007 a Basquiat painting sold for $14.6 million in New York, a record for the artist.
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