“Bowie/Collector” Reveals the Private Passions of a Remarkable Man

Artwork: Jean‐Michel Basquiat, Untitld, acrylic, spraypaint and paper collage on canvas, 105 by 105 cm., 413⁄8 by 413⁄8 in., Executed in 984 Est. £500,000/700,000.

Collecting art is a curious affair, for you invest in something that will most likely outlast you on this earth. You don’t quite own it; you are simply passing through, adding your name to the provenance. And when you pass, the collection rarely holds; bits and pieces are sold off or donated. But for the time you spent on this earth, those works were here to serve your purpose.

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For many, art is an acquisition, a marker of status. Nothing says, “I’ve arrived,” like a Picasso in the foyer. For others art is an investment, to be bought and sold, ideally, at a profit. But then there are those who simply collect for the very real fact that they cannot imagine life without this object. And for those people art is more than a physical thing; it is a relationship. It greets you every morning and every night, always the same and yet somehow changing right before your eyes. The greatest works deepen and grow as we age, manifesting our ability to perceive new understandings and experiences we might not have seen earlier in life. It’s a curious and compelling phenomenon.

Méret Oppenheim, La condition humain, oil on canvas, 100 by 90cm., 35 1/2 by 39 3/8 in,. Painted in 1973, Est. £20,000/£30,000

David Bowie understood, and told The New York Times in 1998, “Art was, seriously, the only thing I’d ever wanted to own. It has always been for me a stable nourishment. I use it. It can change the way I feel in the mornings. The same work can change me in different ways, depending on what I’m going through.”

Bowie was a serious collector, a fact he kept to himself, an action that speaks to the intensely personal nature of his relationship with art. Now, in his death, a new layer of Bowie’s soul is being revealed as Sotheby’s stages Bowie/Collector, a three-part sale that includes 400 works from his private collection. A preview world tour is now being held in Los Angeles (September 20-21), New York (September 26-29), and Hong Kong (October 12-15). The exhibition will be held at Sotheby’s New Bond Street London (November 1-10) before the auctions begin (November 10-11).

Johann Fischer, Meine Richtige Mutter, in jungen Jahren, pencil and coloured crayon, 40 by 30mc, 15 3/4 by 11 3/4in., Executed in 1985, Est. £2,000/£3,000

At the heart of Bowie’s collection are over 200 works of Modern and Contemporary British art, including works by Henry Moore, Graham Sutherland, Frank Auerbach, and Damien Hirst. Bowie also collected Outsider Art, Surrealism, Contemporary African art, and works by Italian designer Ettore Sottsass and the Memphis group.

“David’s art collection was fueled by personal interest and compiled out of passion,” a spokesperson for the Estate of David Bowie said. “He always sought and encouraged loans from the collection and enjoyed sharing the work in his custody. Though his family is keeping certain pieces of particular personal significance, it is now time to give others the opportunity to appreciate—and acquire—the art and objects he so admired.”

Percy Wyndham Lewis, Circus Scene, pen and ink, watercolour and gouache, 23.5 by 31.5 cm, 9 1/4 by 12 1/2 in., Executed in 1913-14, Est.£70,000-100,000

To see the works in Bowie/Collector is to see his sound made visible, like synesthesia in reverse. There’s an edge the cuts down to the quick, which opens you up and makes you reflect. Then it sweeps you away into another world, one that is as familiar as it is foreign. Then, licketty split, everything changes just like that. We are suddenly face-to-face with a new understanding of the same person. And in this way, one can understand why the works in Bowie/Collector are a most fitting elegy to the man who was as much Ziggy Stardust as he was the Thin White Duke.


Miss Rosen is a New York-based writer, curator, and brand strategist. There is nothing she adores so much as photography and books. A small part of her wishes she had a proper library, like in the game of Clue. Then she could blaze and write soliloquies to her in and out of print loves.

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