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Bowie at Sotheby's

F

fay spook

pfm Member
Her indoors has just come back from a PV of his collection at Sotheby's. there's a lot of excitement coming from her. Loads of stuff. Some value there with ceramics and Memphis items. It's open to the public now. Worth a visit if you're in town but I don't know if there's any queues.

The man had the excellent taste you'd hoped for.

I think we've mentioned the catalogue before- expensive.......

http://www.sothebys.com/en/news-video/slideshows/2016/a-glimpse-inside-david-bowies-private-collection.html
 
The man also happened to employ an art buyer/advisor.

He had Duchamp's sound sculpture With Hidden Noise, which impressed me.

I only looked through one set so far, but was slightly surprised by the quantity of mid-20th Century British painting and prints. Why I should be surprised I don;t know.
 
I understand he had a buyer. Much as he had a producer. He was involved with the art world a bought/invested. I don't instantly like everything in the collection but I do love Memphis furniture. Not brilliantly made. I've only got one piece by Michael Graves. From my girlfriend s report and photos there's a beautiful Patrick Caulfield. An obvious buy through his buyer or not.

Speaking of his buyer, it's impossible to know who had the last say. (I know you're not saying anything else) I'm being respectful of the dead.

There's plenty of hideous rock star collections and some good ones like Elton John. Her voice indoors worked quite a bit with a Spanish band Meccano, the main people lived in London and had incredible art around their home. The world, rock or regular, splits into those with taste and those without !!
 
It's well worth a look. The catalogue has a volume of interviews / essays as well as two volumes of the art works. I picked up a copy and lugged it home.
I dont plan on bidding for anything but there are works there for hundreds of pounds and many hundreds of thousand pounds.
 
andrew d said:
It's well worth a look. The catalogue has a volume of interviews / essays as well as two volumes of the art works. I picked up a copy and lugged it home.
I dont plan on bidding for anything but there are works there for hundreds of pounds and many hundreds of thousand pounds.
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How substantial is the catalogue? I'm very tempted even at £110 if it's a good few Kg of interesting reading material.
 
It's a beautiful collection. I can imagine the ceramics selling easily because they will be relatively affordable, are very interesting pieces and because Bowie owned them. I think paintings and sculpture will sell for their art value rather than for the Bowie connection.

The catalogue would be nice but I won't be buying one at that price.
 
vol 1 pp 185 The first 30 pages introduce Bowie and the collection. There are also summaries of the careers of the major artists in the sales alongside their lots. This process is repeated using different authors in the two other volumes.
vol 2 pp 285
vol 3 pp 164.
Its a good catalogue but perhaps not as good as the one they produced for the Hirst sale.
 
Does anyone remember about 15+ years ago he was selling his own prints and paintings on his website, starting at a couple of hundred quid for prints and under a grand for paintings and sketches? I so nearly got my credit card out on a 1500 quid self-portrait.

I'm not really into it but what I really admired about Bowie outside his own music was that he didn't seem to go for cars and the typical rock star stuff. I always imagined his house would be quite empty, except for a wall of records and works of art.

I can't believe he used that record player, though.....
 
richgilb said:
Does anyone remember about 15+ years ago he was selling his own prints and paintings on his website, starting at a couple of hundred quid for prints and under a grand for paintings and sketches? I so nearly got my credit card out on a 1500 quid self-portrait.

I'm not really into it but what I really admired about Bowie outside his own music was that he didn't seem to go for cars and the typical rock star stuff. I always imagined his house would be quite empty, except for a wall of records and works of art.

I can't believe he used that record player, though.....
Click to expand...

mmmm his NYC penthouse in on the market for $11.7m. Probably agree with you though: fairly modest all things considered.
 
wacko said:
mmmm his NYC penthouse in on the market for $11.7m. Probably agree with you though: fairly modest all things considered.
Click to expand...

Yes, was it not the same building as Moby? An E Type Jag does get occasionally mentioned too. But I have never seen him in one or read an interview where he mentions it.
 
Fascinating stuff.

My sister is a Director at Sothebys and she told me that the level of interest has been phenomenal.

As a huge Bowie fan I would have loved to have visited and had a private tour yet unfortunately I am 17,000 Km away which is a little prohibitive.

He had very interesting taste...
 
richgilb said:
Yes, was it not the same building as Moby? An E Type Jag does get occasionally mentioned too. But I have never seen him in one or read an interview where he mentions it.
Click to expand...

Nobody should begrudge him an E Type either. Classy guy. RIP.
 
I thought David Bowie was a pop singer, who recorded one or two reasonable songs.
It appears I was wrong, as according to Sotherby's he was 'an Icon' amongst other things...
 
You haven't been paying attention!! He was obviously an icon. Have a dig around. He was on to and prompting a lot of musical movement. He had the look, the sound and the collaborators that set him up as a visionary performer. He stumbled around a bit when he was starting out but once he got going he was (to quote Smash Hits) imperious. If you need some pointers please say
 
I loved his MTV rant about black music and his self effacing ways in some of his later docu's,


Bloss
 
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