The a lot anticipated, first-ever sale of non-public results from famed, late author Joan Didion’s property concluded today with Hudson-based Stair Galleries, whose reside auctioneers fielded bids from each on-line and in-person attendees. Lot 1 opened at 11 A.M. Lot 224 closed a lot later, properly into the night, with just a few breaks between.
The sale raised funds to assist analysis into motion issues at Columbia College and likewise the Sacramento Metropolis Faculty scholarship for girls in literature.
Didion’s household chosen the sale’s beneficiaries, however Stair rigorously curated its intimate choices. Their eye for the on a regular basis created a basic Didion portrait: her Loro Piana cashmere scarf, her studying glasses, household images, the paperweights from her desk, even her Le Creuset dishware—maybe stained whereas making her well-known jambalaya.
The author’s artwork assortment of work, prints, sculptures, and exhibition ephemera additionally hit the block.
All the things was on public view at Stair’s Warren Road headquarters. “We set it as much as really feel like her condominium,” Stair’s director Lisa Thomas informed TheTopDailyNews of the showcase, which got here down this morning.
“An American Icon: Property from the Assortment of Joan Didion” on view in Hudson.
Scores made their pilgrimage to see Didion’s private belongings. Though Thomas declined to share specifics, she allowed that “Some notable individuals did come by way of the exhibition, together with artists.” Notable bidders from California had been additionally getting in on the sale, she added.
Some guests at Stair had been shocked by the modest estimates hooked up to every lot: $100 for Didion’s brass Cartier desk clock, $1,000 for a Robert Rauschenberg etching.
“The objects had been valued based mostly on their innate worth,” Thomas informed one potential bidder who was eyeing desk articles together with a journal and glass dice printed with the letter J. “We don’t add on worth based mostly on the notable particular person they belonged to.”
Effectively earlier than the sale began this morning, on-line bids for these desk articles pushed the lot from a gap estimate of $200 to an energetic ask of $2,200. Ultimately, all of it went for $11,000. The Cartier clock went for $35,000. The Rauschenberg etching bought for $27,000, as did an early standalone lot that includes the outsized fake tortoiseshell sun shades from Didion’s latest Celine advert marketing campaign.
“Holy moley the joan didion public sale seems to be just like the crypto bubble by no means popped,” somebody tweeted. Her scattered assortment of seashore shells bought for $7,000. YOLO.
Though Didion has handed away, her readers reside on. “We have now no plans to have one other Didion public sale sooner or later,” Thomas mentioned, “however we’d like to!”
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