What Elton John’s Million Dollar Auction Is Like and Why He’s Selling Out

Elton John is shrinking, and the superstar’s former residence in Atlanta is being emptied for a series of auctions at Christie’s starting Feb. 21. The items are estimated to raise around $10 million.

Someone wants the conservatory grand piano Yamaha where Rocketman played keys for his Broadway shows Billy Elliot AND Aida? It will cost about three times what similar models cost on the Internet, with a maximum estimate of $50,000.

How are you a Julian Schnabel portrait of the superstar dressed in a nightgown and a ruffled collar? The auction house is asking for 300 thousand dollars.

And the most expensive item, a Banksy painting from 2017 The work, depicting a masked man throwing a bouquet of flowers, coming directly from the anonymous artist, will be sold for almost $1.5 million.

The reason for the auction

Elton John declined to comment on the auction. (Christie’s spokesman Agostino Guerra cited “long overdue scheduling conflicts.”) However, the singer’s husband and manager, David Furnish, discussed the sale in a recent interview.

“As time went on, the walls became busier,” Furnish said. “Elton never kept things in drawers; he bought them to live with his art.”

But the sale of his 1,200-square-foot, 36th-floor Atlanta townhousefor more than $7.2 million last fall gave the couple the opportunity to consolidate their collection of artwork and memorabilia.

The inventory includes the singer’s famous sunglasses, silver platform boots and one of his first sets of stage clothes: an ivory and gold suit made by textile designer Annie Reavey in the 1970s.

“I met Elton John and we hit it off,” Reavey says in an interview published in 2007 in a Nevada newspaper. “I had purple hair, he had green. I had diamonds, he had diamonds.”

The condominium of Peachtree Road served as his US headquarters during his tours. and hideouts to stay sober during the ’90s. It symbolized a turning point for the British singer.

He bought it in the 1990s, but soon the walls were filled with dozens of photographs, part of a vast collection of images by modern masters such as Dorothea Langewhose images of Depression-era desperation include emigrant motherand the Hungarian photographer Andre Kertesz.

John also collected works by Andy Warhol, Cindy Sherman, Robert Mapplethorpe and others, who now have museums asking for donations.

Above his bed, he displayed Black and whiteimages by surrealist photographer Man Ray.

“I love living with my collection”John said in a video promoting an exhibition of his work at London’s Tate Modern in 2016. “I see these wonderful images on the wall that people took a long time ago that still have relevance and still scream at you.”

A unique collection

When part of his collection was exhibited at the Tate Modern, “what was most surprising was its depth,” said Shanay Jhaveri, head of visual arts at the Barbican Center in London.

“For someone whose public persona was so indelibly associated with excess and kitsch, a collection of mostly black-and-white, modestly scaled Western modernist photographs seemed incoherent.” Perhaps the revelation was this apparent irreconcilability.”

Atlanta was where John cultivated his love of photography, thanks in large part to a local gallerist, Jane Jackson, who in 2003 became director of the Sir Elton John Photography Collection, which now includes thousands of images.

Christie’s auction features some of the most important works from a 2000 exhibition, Choir of Lightat the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, including works by Irving Penn, Richard Avedon AND Andrés Serrano.

“The collection was very disciplined,” says Ned Rifkin, curator of the High Museum exhibition, who developed a working relationship with the singer. “It wasn’t just about acquisitions, it was about the beauty of having art.”

Rifkin, now retired, added, “I remember sometimes going to an auction and getting really frustrated when I didn’t get something. I’m disappointed to hear it’s going to sell, but on the other hand, it has so much!”

The singer’s husband said the time has come to start pruning the collection. “You have to get to a point where you can’t keep accumulating,” Furnish explained. “Elton hates letting things go. “It’s a very emotional decision.”

From Sotheby’s to Christie’s

For this, Furnish was the lead curator of the auction, the first time a major selection from John’s collection had been offered to the public since a 2003 Sotheby’s auction of objects from his London home, where he raised 1 .67 million dollars.

In 1988, another Sotheby’s auction in London featured a medley of works of art and rarities – including a René Magritte painting of a blue fish wrapped in pearls, a urinal and a pair of silver baskets by Cartier that John once used as a soap dish – which reached $8.2 million, about 21 million in today’s dollars.

Now, John and Furnish have decided to team up with the auction house’s rivals.

“It was a competitive situation,” said Tash Perrin, a vice president at Christie’s who organized the sale and helped close the deal. “It coincides with Elton closing a chapter in his time in the United States.”

Perrin said most of the 900 items up for auction will have modest prices. Many are offered for a few thousand dollars, including Lange portraits, jeweled rings and Versace tableware.

But, as recent celebrity auctions have shown, collectors have no qualms about spending money on the trinkets of their pop idols. Last year’s Sotheby’s auction of items belonging to Queen co-founder Freddie Mercury fetched $50.4 million, more than triple the initial estimate of $14.2 million. Bidders vied for items such as a silver whisker comb, cat ornaments and a neon telephone.

In a turbulent market, auction houses have increased their promotion of these celebrity auctions, with recent sales of items owned by news presenter Barbara Walters, fashion editor André Leon Talley, French actor Gérard Depardieu and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, each of whom got millions of dollars.

Furnish said John’s sale was intended to begin his reflection on the singer’s legacy as John retires to spend more time with his sons, Elijah and Zachary.

“That could mean more sales, gifts to institutions, gifts to friends,” Furnish said. “One of the reasons we were able to raise money is because artists know that when they sell to us, their work ends up in a home,” Furnish added. And she acknowledged, “As our children grow, they may have connections to the pieces. We need to elegantly find a way for them to participate in the process.”