Dissapointing Sales results at James Brown Auction
Posted by v on July 21, 2008
Childhood photo of Mr. James Brown
There will be no “Graceland” for James Brown, the Godfather of Soul. There will be no James Brown Museum and there will be no archive for Spike Lee to consult for a film the director is said to be planning about the Godfather of Soul.
Not only was an Entertainer’s legacy being irretrievably scattered, but a chunk of the American pop cultural narrative was was being sold off piece by piece at very dissappointing prices.
Jumpsuits and Sunglasses belonging to the late Mr. Brown
On Thursday , 328 items of the James Brown collection spanning the life of the Godfather of Soul went up for auction at Christies. Projected to realize as much as $2 million in its entirety, the sale fell short of expectations, with a take of $857,688.
In spite of last-minute efforts to block the auction, the auction had gone ahead under pressure from an estate that has been tangled and embattled since the day Brown died, leaving behind multiple wives and girlfriends, children that he acknowledged and some he did not, grandchildren, business managers and contentious trustees.
Projected to realize as much as $2 million in its entirety, the sale fell short of expectations, with a take of $857,688. “This is a very sad day for me and my family,” Larry Brown, the singer’s son said to IHT.
James Brown had held on to his legacy, and except for those things destroyed in a 1965 office fire, much of it was still around when he died on Christmas day in 2006. “He kept things immaculate, dry-cleaned and put in five walk in closets,” said Simeon Lipman, a pop culture specialist at Christie’s, who mined the closets to assemble the sale. “When Brown changed his style, he wouldn’t throw the old things away,” Lipman explained.
Of the top lots, the highest price paid was for a black satin cape with intricate beadwork and Brown’s name embroidered inside the collar. It fetched $47,500.
Why on earth is that not in the Smithsonian?.
Boots and platforms were kept in immaculate condition
“James Brown was a reflector of black attitudes toward hair and you can go through the whole history of black hair in his lifetime,” by tracking his evolution from a chemical “conk” to an Afro and Jheri curls and on to other processed hairstyles, said Nelson George, an editor of “The James Brown Reader.”
“The one thing people always talk about when they talk about meeting James Brown is him getting his hair done,” George said. “No matter who you were, you came backstage to see him and he was sitting in a chair with his hair in curlers and wearing a hairnet.”
After spirited bidding, Lot 242, simply labeled “Hair Supplies,” was hammered down to a private collector for $4,800, plus the auction house’s 25 percent buyer’s premium. (IHT)
Just sad, truly sad.
