LOS ANGELES – On Wednesday, May 18, Andrew Jones Auctions will present, online, property from the collection of Kirk and Anne Douglas to benefit the Douglas Foundation. More than 200 lots of modern art, antiques, tribal works, fine and costume jewelry, personalized accessories, memorabilia, books and ephemera will be offered. Absentee and Internet live bidding will be available through LiveAuctioneers.
Before becoming an internationally acclaimed movie star (and the father of actor Michael Douglas), Kirk Douglas endured an impoverished childhood to study at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City on a scholarship to begin his career on the stage. After World War II, he took his first major motion picture role in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers in 1946.
Kirk’s natural talents in front of the camera led to nearly 60 more films, his favorites being Ace in the Hole, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Spartacus, Seven Days in May and Lust for Life, the 1956 film in which he portrays Vincent Van Gogh, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor and won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama.
Kirk met Anne Buydens, a film publicist, on the set of Act of Love in 1953 and they married a year later. Before joining the film industry, Anne worked in a Paris gallery where she developed a keen eye for modern art. Kirk and Anne Douglas spent six decades building a collection of fine art, antiques and memorabilia that capture the time they shared, their friends, work and history.
The top lot of the sale is L’enfant a l’oiseaux by the celebrated Catalan artist Antoni Clave. It has a pre-sale estimate of $20,000-$30,000. Another art treasure on offer is a 1963 monumental abstract sculpture in aluminum by William (Bill) Tarr, which was displayed at the foot of the couple’s own Walk of Fame in the backyard of their Beverly Hills home. It is estimated at $3,000-$5,000.
Lithographs by Alexander Calder, David Hockney and Andy Warhol, mixed media pieces by Eric Orr, and works by Yaacov Agam, including an untitled, gold-plated kinetic sculpture estimated at $600-$800, are included, as well as pieces by Jim Dine, Pablo Picasso, Jean Porcher, Malcolm Susman and Chaim Topol.
The couple’s tastes were eclectic, from modern art to African tribal masks, among them a striking Yaure example estimated at $800-$1,200. Asian works that caught their attention include a Chinese blue glazed junware censer, estimated at $800-$1,200, and a pair of monumental Chinese white marble temple lions that greeted guests at their front door.
The Douglases entertained often in their Beverly Hills home and hosted lavish dinner parties at their radially expanding Jupe-style mahogany extension table, estimated at $4,000-$6,000, which they ringed with 12 William IV mahogany dining chairs, estimated at $4,000-$6,000. Modernist porcelain dinner services by Galvani and Limoges mixed with an eye-catching set of Chinese Export tobacco leaf pattern serving ware, estimated at $400-$600.
Longtime philanthropists Kirk and Anne started the Douglas Foundation in 1964, which has since supported many institutions focused on the arts, healthcare, education and women and children’s wellbeing. The Douglas Foundation has donated nearly $120 million to the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, the Motion Picture & Television Fund (MPTF), and the Entertainment Industry Foundation’s Women’s Cancer Research Fund.
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