Nia Bowers
A monumental painting inspired by Elton John’s legendary 1980 Central Park concert sold for $190,000 Sunday night during the Elton John AIDS Foundation’s annual Academy Awards Viewing Party, raising funds for the organization’s global fight against HIV.
The artwork, titled Elton Takes Manhattan, 1980, was created by Los Angeles pop artist Andre Miripolsky, the artist behind the now legendary piano key suit that Elton John wore during the historic concert.
The painting was included in the evening’s art auction courtesy of Andre Miripolsky, Ray Williams, Leith Merrow and Angelo Gallo, with proceeds benefiting the Elton John AIDS Foundation.
Williams played a pivotal role in Elton John’s career. The legendary music executive discovered Elton and famously introduced him to lyricist Bernie Taupin, helping launch one of the most celebrated songwriting partnerships in music history.
“The Central Park concert was a defining moment in Elton’s career,” Williams said. “Andre captured the spirit of that night beautifully, and it’s wonderful to see the work help raise funds for the Elton John AIDS Foundation. I’m very proud of both Elton and Andre for using their art to make a meaningful contribution.”
Founded in 1992, the Elton John AIDS Foundation has raised more than $650 million to support HIV prevention, treatment access and care programs around the world. The organization’s Oscar Week viewing party has become one of Hollywood’s most prominent philanthropic gatherings, bringing together artists, filmmakers and music industry figures each year to raise funds for its global initiatives.
But the story behind Miripolsky’s painting begins more than four decades earlier.
On September 13, 1980, more than 500,000 people filled Central Park’s Great Lawn to watch Elton John perform beneath the Manhattan skyline. The free concert transformed the park into one of the largest open-air amphitheaters the city had ever seen.
At the center of the spectacle sat Elton at his piano wearing a flamboyant stage costume inspired by the keys of a piano. The unforgettable look was designed by Miripolsky himself.
Miripolsky first met Elton John in Los Angeles in the late 1970s when the musician visited the artist’s shop on Melrose Avenue after hearing about his work through actor Dennis Christopher. Elton asked Miripolsky to paint one of his graphic designs onto a pair of sneakers, beginning a creative connection between the two artists.
Soon afterward, as Elton prepared for the massive Central Park concert, Miripolsky was asked to design a new stage look. Working through the night, the artist created more than twenty costume sketches exploring possible directions for the performance wardrobe. Seven designs were ultimately selected, including the now famous piano key suit.
Miripolsky’s new painting revisits that extraordinary night from a strikingly different vantage point.
Rather than depicting Elton performing for the crowd, the artwork places the viewer beside him onstage. From that perspective, Central Park unfolds across the canvas in sweeping fields of color and movement. The audience appears not as individual faces but as a living landscape of light and energy.
“The Central Park concert was an unforgettable moment in music history,” Miripolsky said. “Elton brought such incredible energy to that performance, and the atmosphere in the park was electric. This painting is my way of returning to that moment and capturing the scale and spirit of the night.”
In the lower corner of the painting, Miripolsky includes an unexpected figure: Donald Duck, a subtle nod to another iconic Elton John stage costume from the same era designed by legendary fashion designer Bob Mackie.
The painting does not attempt to recreate the concert as a photograph. Instead, it reflects the way memory works.
Moments of enormous scale rarely remain perfectly sharp. They return as fragments of color, sound and movement. Miripolsky’s work captures the sensation of standing inside the moment itself.
More than four decades after that night in Central Park, the moment returned during Oscar Week in Los Angeles, bringing together figures connected to Elton John’s early creative circle.
For Miripolsky, the painting is not simply a tribute to a famous concert but a return to a moment when music, fashion and visual art collided on one of the biggest stages in the world.
This time the stage was not a park filled with hundreds of thousands of fans.
It was a canvas in Los Angeles on Oscar night.
And that memory helped raise $190,000 in support of the global fight against HIV.