DAVID BOWIE’S PERSONAL art collection, which includes a painting by Irish artist Jack Butler Yeats, will go under the hammer at a Sotheby’s auction in London in November.
For almost 50 years Bowie, who died on 10 January this year, was one of the world’s best-loved music stars.
His last album, Blackstar, was released on his 69th birthday, just two days before his death.
While Bowie painted throughout his life and was immersed in the artistic communities of London, New York and Berlin, not that much is known about his life as an art collector.
The Sotheby’s sale will be a first insight into a previously hidden side of the musician.
Sleep Sound
‘Bowie/Collector’ – a three part sale – features around 400 items from his private collection including many of the most important British artists of the 20th century, such as Henry Moore, Graham Sutherland and Damien Hirst.
The selection will also include a painting from Ireland’s Jack Butler Yeats; the oil-on-canvas titled ‘Sleep Sound’ is valued at up to $210,000. Measuring 18 x 24 inches, the painting was finished in October 1955.
Bowie was a great admirer of Yeats’s work and knew it well. He bought the painting from Sotheby’s in London in November 1993 for £45,500.
It depicts, according to catalogue notes, “two figures lying on a moor beneath a heavy sky”.
It is said that in Yeats, Bowie found a “pioneering and explorative artist that reflected his own creative impulses”. Yeats’s work also had strong romantic and narrative tones which aligned with Bowie’s literary interests.
Here’s a selection of the items going under the hammer as part of the sale:
An Auerbach painting
A Gilman painting
A Lanyon painting
A Basquiat painting
A Hirst painting
A Hazoumé sculpture
A Sottsass design
A Giacomo and Castiglioni design
From November 1-10, Bowie’s private collection will be exhibited at Sotheby’s New Bond Street galleries in London.
For further information see sothebys.com/BowieCollector
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