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David Bowie’s Personal Art Collection To Be Auctioned After 4-City Touring Exhibition

By Victoria Miller
Published on: 06:35 PST, Jul 14, 2016

David Bowie fans will have the opportunity to see the late music legend’s personal art collection up close and personal. And the Bowie fans with the biggest budgets may even be able to own a piece of the action. According to rock website NME, 400 items from David Bowie’s art collection will be exhibited for the first time before being sold at auction this fall. The David Bowie art auction will be curated by Sotheby’s in London in November.

The Sotheby’s website reveals that the bulk of David Bowie’s private collection consists of more than 200 works by important British artists of the 20th century, including works by Henry Moore, Graham Sutherland, Frank Auerbach, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Damien Hirst. There are also examples of Surrealism, contemporary African art and, perhaps the most coveted piece of all, Bowie’s retro stereo cabinet. The Sotheby’s site describes David’s collectible record player as a “wonderfully unconventional piece of 1960s Italian design.”

A spokesperson for David Bowie’s estate revealed that while this is not Bowie’s complete art collection, it is a nice sampling that his family would like to share with the world.

“David’s art collection was fuelled by personal interest and compiled out of passion. He always sought and encouraged loans from the collection and enjoyed sharing the works in his custody. Though his family are keeping certain pieces of particular significance, it is now time to give others the opportunity to appreciate – and acquire – the art and objects he so admired.”

More than a decade before his death—and after years of keeping his high-cost hobby a secret from fans—David Bowie talked to the New York Times about his love for art and his supersized collection. Bowie, a former art student himself, told the Times that he started collecting art at a young age.

“I collected very early on,” David said in the 1998 interview. “I have a couple of Tintorettos, which I’ve had for many, many years. I have a Rubens. Art was, seriously, the only thing I’d ever wanted to own. It has always been for me a stable nourishment. ”

David also went into detail about his admiration for English artist Damien Hirst. Bowie credited the artist with helping to make art more accessible to the public in Britain.

“He’s different. I think his work is extremely emotional, subjective, very tied up with his own personal fears — his fear of death is very strong — and I find his pieces moving and not at all flippant,” David said.

David Bowie actually worked with Hirst on one of the artist’s famous retro “spin paintings,” and the rock legend reportedly had a blast doing it.

“I did one of those with him. He encouraged me to dress up like a Martian, stand on a ladder and throw paint at a spinning canvas. I had a ball. I felt like I was 3 years old again. It reminded me of Picasso’s attitude. You know, he set parameters in the studio that produced a kind of playfulness out of which came a very pure thing. With Damien the work is not earnestly striven for. I mean, he certainly applies his intellect, but there’s not a desperation about it.”

While David Bowie created a lot of his own artwork in the 1990s, none of that will be for sale in the Sotheby’s auction. But, in addition to the paintings, some 120 pieces of 20th century furniture and sculpture are expected to fetch millions.

Before the auction takes place, David Bowie’s collection will be displayed in London, Los Angeles, New York and Hong Kong in a touring exhibition titled “Bowie/Collector.”

The first leg of the exhibition tour begins July 20 in London, finishing in Hong Kong in mid-October. The pieces will also be able to be viewed at Sotheby’s in London from November 1-10, before the two-day auction on November 10 and 11.

Take a look at the video below to see David Bowie talking about his eclectic art collection.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TQPn-k7DD8

[Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images]

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