More Dennis Hopper at Christies

TAKE THE SURVEY – Don’t forget to take the Appraiser Workshops Fine and Decorative Arts Market Survey.  Click HERE to be part of the survey. Participation in the survey has been very good, but the more input we have, the stronger and more significant the results.  Please take a few minutes and complete the online survey.  The free results will be posted on the AW Blog, and will be available for download.  Click HERE to take the survey. 

---

On January 11 and 12 Christie's NY will be offering close to 300 lots of art and memorabilia from the estate of movie actor and director Dennis Hopper.  In November Chrisite's sold about 30 lots from the Hopper collection, including a Jean-Michael Basquiat for $5.8 million.  The items Chrisitie's is offering is far less in value, with the top estimates of around $40,000.00, but there are some interesting pieces, including some Warhol prints, (one of Mao Zedong [see image] which Hopper shot twice with a gun) a script from Easy Rider and a large group of movie posters.

It will be interesting to see if there is a celebrity provenance  premium to the values.  It is also nice to see some more middle level items being sold which there could be a premium.  I will post results after the sale.

The Washington Post reports on the sale.

Hopper's four children are selling the collection because "it was Dennis' wish to sell everything," said Hitz.

"How do you cut a Warhol and all those other wonderful pieces by four," he added.

Elkies said Hopper's Venice Beach house was filled "literally from floor to ceiling with art, and realistically they (the children) couldn't take that on."

She said the family was holding on to the more sentimental pieces, including Hopper's own photography and paintings.

Posters from the movies he starred in, including "Apocalypse Now," "Blue Velvet" and "Speed," are estimated to sell for $200 to $500.

A 158-page unbound "Easy Rider" script, with extensive handwritten notes on the back of two pages is being offered at a pre-sale estimate of $2,000-$3,000. A three-sheet poster from the film, which also starred the then unknown actor Jack Nicholson, is estimated at $1,000-$1,500.

Hopper costarred with Peter Fonda in "Easy Rider," about two pot-smoking, drug-dealing hippies on a cross-country motorcycle trip. It netted a best-screenplay Oscar nomination for Hopper, Fonda and Terry Southern.

To read the Washington Post article, click HERE.