May 10 (Bloomberg) -- Andy Warhol, the second most actively traded artist, made images of sports stars including Muhammad Ali and O.J. Simpson in the 1970s. The seller today puts the joint value of the pictures at more than any Pablo Picasso painting.

U.S. collector Richard Weisman is offering a set of Warhol's sportspeople for $28 million through London dealer Martin Summers. Based on that price, the eight sets Warhol made would be together worth $224 million -- more than twice the auction price of Picasso's ``Boy With a Pipe,'' or Warhol's ``Marilyn'' series.

``This price is beyond absurd,'' said Richard Polsky, a California dealer and author of ``I Bought Andy Warhol,'' a book about trading the pop artist's works. ``Traditionally, individual canvases of athletes do poorly at auction,'' he said in an e-mail.

Warhol's ``The Athlete Series'' (1977-1979) consists of 10 polymer-painted prints, 40 inches (102 centimeters) by 40 inches, based on Polaroid snapshots. It goes on show at Martin Summers Fine Art Ltd. on May 23. Weisman is selling 12 more items, including separate Warhol pictures of Grand Slam tennis winner Chris Evert and golfer Jack Nicklaus, winner of a record 18 major tournaments, at $1.5 million to $3 million, Summers said.

``The $28 million includes my commission,'' Summers said in a telephone interview. ``If no one buys at that price by the time the show opens, we might consider dropping it a bit.'' The set is signed by Warhol and by each athlete portrayed.

Marilyn, Liz, Mao

Warhol, who died in 1987, produced images of U.S. culture in a so-called factory in New York. Only Picasso's work is more actively traded. Sellers of 1,010 Warhol pop images realized $199.4 million last year, said Artprice.com, a data service. Warhol narrowed the gap to Picasso, whose ``Boy With a Pipe'' sold for $104.2 million. Picasso collectors traded 2,087 items for $399.2 million at 2006 auctions, according to Artprice.

The most valuable Warhols are portraits of Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe and Mao Zedong, owned by collectors such as London jeweler Laurence Graff and Hong Kong billionaire Joseph Lau. They run to $17.4 million at auction -- the price Lau paid for Mao at Christie's International in November -- and mostly date from the 1960s and early 1970s.

Weisman, a nephew of museum founder Norton Simon, wasn't available for an interview, according to his press agent Will Bennett and Summers. The collector commissioned eight sets of the sports pictures from Warhol for a sum that may have been $800,000 -- although he doesn't remember for sure -- and is selling one of the four complete sets he retains ``because he feels it's time to amortize what he's done,'' Summers said.

Car-Crash Record?

Warhol's so-called disaster images also fetch high prices. The artist's auction record may double to $35 million at a Christie's sale on May 16 in New York with a 1963 car-crash picture, the company says.

That contrasts with estimates for Warhol's sporting heroes: Sotheby's next week will offer a 1983 image of Wayne Gretzky with his hockey stick at a top estimate of $200,000.

A Gretzky image from the series, 50 inches by 42 inches, was valued at as much as $250,000 in 2005 and went unsold at Sotheby's, according to sale-tracker Artnet AG. Christie's sold a Gretzky picture for $87,591 in the same year and fetched $18,045 for a 4.3-inch-by-3.4-inch image of boxer Ali, Artnet said.

Four images of Evert with her tennis racket from the late 1970s were auctioned between 1989 and 2001. Two went unsold and the most expensive took $88,000, Artnet said.

Warhol and his factory workers often used old photographs to make images colored with silkscreen inks and synthetic polymer. Warhol's handling of paint and obsession with celebrities attract 21st-century collectors who find other 1960s artists dated, said Cheyenne Westphal, Sotheby's European contemporary art chief.

Unique Offer

Collectors have never before been offered a complete set of Warhol's 10 sports stars, so it deserves a premium price, said Summers, who usually trades a dozen artists such as Balthus and Peter Blake, according to his Web site.

Summers, who said he is a friend of Weisman and before this set had never before sold a Warhol picture, started seeking buyers for the athletes late last month. He has so far sold two Warhol images of soccer player Pele and basketball player Kareem Abdul- Jabbar for more than $1.5 million, he said, adding that one buyer was an acquaintance of Weisman.

Two of the eight sets of the athletes are in public collections including the University of California, Berkeley, Summers said. One went to the athletes and one to sports organizations, he said. Weisman will give the remaining editions to his three children, according to Summers.

In addition, he said Warhol made a few smaller images, and tested colors for the 40-inch images that weren't used in the completed series. Summers is asking $3 million for a pair of 10- inch Nicklaus pictures.

Other sporting figures in the series are jockey Willie Shoemaker, skater Dorothy Hamill, ice-hockey player Rod Gilbert and baseball pitcher Tom Seaver.

To contact the reporter on this story: Linda Sandler in London at lsandler@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: May 10, 2007 01:46 EDT