Opening Bid of $10m for Frank Frazetta’s Conan the Conqueror (Berserker) Cover Art

Heritage Auctions is offering Frank Frazetta’s Conan the Conqueror (Berserker) as the leading lot today in its Hollywood & Entertainment auction.

Frazetta’s Man Ape (Conan the Barbarian) was sold for $13.5m in September, the highest price ever paid for the artist and for any work of comic or fantasy art. Berserker, created in 1967 for the Lancer paperback edition of Conan the Conqueror, carries an opening bid of $10m. 

Frazetta’s hero towers at the apex of a pyramidal composition, surrounded by a maelstrom of bodies and motion, his blood-tipped sword raised skyward. In the decades since its creation, Berserker has been widely reproduced on T-shirts and posters.

“Frazetta didn’t just illustrate stories, he reinvented them,” said Joe Maddalena, Heritage’s Executive Vice President. “With Berserker, he transformed Conan from a pulp hero into an elemental force."

The painting comes directly from Kirk Hammett, lead guitarist of Metallica and a collector of horror and fantasy art. Hammett acquired Berserker directly from Frazetta in 2009 for $1m and later featured it in his book Too Much Horror Business.