LIZ FEVER HITS THE ART WORLD

It appears that New Yorkers are still mourning the loss of Elizabeth Taylor, who died this past March. No less than two new Chelsea exhibitions and a major auction are all paying tribute to the late actress this season.

The dramatic, tragic and glamour-obsessed Taylor was an obvious muse for Andy Warhol, who created more than 50 portraits of her in the 1970s and 1980s. Now, Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea has brought them together for an exhibition titled, simply, “Liz,” Sept. 16-Oct. 22, 2011. The classic 1963 images of Taylor with the turquoise eye shadow and bright red lips share pride of place with works that capture her on set as Cleopatra or as the young horse-lover in National Velvet.

Less conventionally, Liz is the subject of the inaugural show at the new 3,500-square-foot Leila Heller Gallery in Chelsea, which specializes in Middle-Eastern art (the new location, at 568 W. 25th Street, is working in tandem with the uptown gallery at 39 East 78th Street). “Firooz Zahedi: Elizabeth Taylor in Iran,” Sept. 22-Oct. 29, 2011, presents 40 photographs from the actress’s travels to Iran in 1976. Zahedi, then a recent graduate from the Corcoran School of Art, followed the Hollywood star everywhere, from Persepolis to Shiraz.

Later in the year, of course, is the much-ballyhooed auction of Taylor’s jewelry at Christie’s New York -- almost 270 items, many purchased by Richard Burton, worth an estimated $30 million, which go on the block in New York, Dec. 13-14, 2011, after a global tour that started in Moscow a few days ago. Among the offerings is a near-perfect platinum diamond ring known as the Elizabeth Taylor Diamond, bought by Burton in 1968 for $305,000 and estimated to sell at Christie’s for $3.5 million. Also on the block are the Taj Mahal Diamond, a pendant from 1627 (est. $300,000-$500,000), a ruby ring Taylor found in her Christmas stocking (est. $1 million-$1.5 million), and a series of small diamond rings Burton gave Taylor for winning at table tennis matches -- the “Ping Pong Diamonds” as they’re known -- estimated at $5,000-$7,000.

As Christie’s president and chairman Marc Porter has said, “This is without a doubt the greatest private collection of jewelry ever assembled in one place.”

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