DALLAS, TX.- Heritage Auctions will present one of the most electrifying and influential works of 20th-century illustration — Frank Frazetta’s Conan the Conqueror (Berserker) — as the premier lot in its December 9–10 Hollywood & Entertainment Signature® Auction.
Coming on the heels of Heritage’s record-setting sale of Frazetta’s Man Ape (Conan the Barbarian) — which achieved $13.5 million in September 2025, the highest price ever paid for the artist and for any work of Comic or Fantasy art — this masterwork of illustration carries an opening bid of $10 million and is poised to set a new benchmark once again.
Created in 1967 for the Lancer paperback edition of Conan the Conqueror, Berserker forever altered how audiences imagined Robert E. Howard’s iconic barbarian, ushering in a new era that reshaped the visual language of fantasy art.
“Frazetta didn’t just illustrate stories — he reinvented them,” says Joe Maddalena, Heritage’s Executive Vice President. “With Berserker, he transformed Conan from a pulp hero into an elemental force. This single image captures his genius for channeling raw power and psychological depth through composition, gesture and light. It stands as a masterpiece of illustration, and a testament to how profoundly popular art can move us.”
In Conan the Conqueror (Berserker), 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, channels the lightning itself, while his figure, luminous amid muted chaos, anchors the entire scene.
In the decades since its creation, Berserker has achieved truly global recognition, reproduced on T-shirts, posters and even an iconic Gibson guitar. Its provenance is equally storied: The painting comes directly from Kirk Hammett, the renowned lead guitarist of Metallica and one of the world’s foremost collectors of horror and fantasy art. Hammett acquired Berserker directly from Frazetta in 2009 for $1,000,000 — an unprecedented figure at the time — and later featured it in his book Too Much Horror Business and the Peabody Essex Museum exhibition It’s Alive! Classic Horror and Sci-Fi Art from the Kirk Hammett Collection (2017).
Heritage Auctions is the definitive market leader for Frank Frazetta’s work, having established every major auction record for the artist in recent years. As stated above, earlier this fall Heritage achieved a world-record $13.5 million for Frazetta’s Man Ape (Conan the Barbarian). That historic result followed previous benchmarks set by Dark Kingdom ($6 million, 2023) and Egyptian Queen ($5.4 million, 2019), reaffirming Heritage as the premier destination for collectors of Frazetta’s work and the central force in shaping the artist’s continually rising market.
“Frazetta’s imagination built worlds as enduring as any film or novel,” continues Maddalena. “He gave fantasy art a face, a body and a pulse. Berserker isn’t just illustration; it’s myth-making in real time. To handle a painting of this magnitude is to hold a piece of modern mythology itself.”
Long before “fantasy art” was accepted in museums or major collections, Frazetta’s work bridged the gap between commercial illustration and high art. Today, his paintings are revered not just for their technical mastery but for their ability to evoke the universal themes of strength, struggle and imagination.
“Imagination is all of it,” Frazetta once said, and nowhere is that philosophy more vividly alive than in Conan the Conqueror (Berserker).
The painting will be offered as part of Heritage’s December 9–10 Hollywood & Entertainment Signature® Auction, alongside other cultural milestones including Tom Jung’s original Star Wars: A New Hope poster artwork from the Gary Kurtz Collection, Elvis Presley’s 1976 Harley-Davidson Bicentennial Electra Glide and Clint Eastwood’s Remington revolver from Pale Rider.
Images and information about all lots in Heritage’s Dec. 9-10 Hollywood/Entertainment Signature auction can be found here, where the auction is now open for bidding.
A preview of highlights from the auction takes place at Heritage’s New York City location Nov. 24-Dec. 6.
