Desks, cutlery, books, photos – Joan Didion’s estate is extensive. Items from a long, intense life. Joan Didion was born in Sacramento in 1934. She died in 2021, the day before Christmas Eve, in New York. Joan Didion is an icon – not only of American literature, but also of style and an intellectual life between the East and West Coasts, which she shared with her husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne. Joan Didion took a close look, dissected performances and society and always reflected her perspective in her texts. She became a role model for many journalists and essayists.
The auction in Upstate New York is now also about writing – at least implicitly always. Anyone who has the wherewithal to purchase spoons, vases or armchairs from Joan Didion’s estate will do so in memory of this great author, perhaps in the hope that a bit of her aura rubs off. Joan Didion’s empty notebooks, which will be auctioned on November 16th, are explicitly about writing. For a batch of 13 pieces, there were already 16 interested parties online, as can be seen on the Bidsquare Auctions website a few hours before the start of the auction. Current bid: $4750.
If you want to see the world through the eyes of Joan Didion, you can rely on one of her sunglasses. Current bid: $7500. The New York correspondent of the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” visited the estate exhibition before the auction and caught this reaction of a visitor: “How incredibly cool it would be to wear a pair of Joan Didion sunglasses”.
According to the auction description, highlights of the estate include works by Richard Diebenkorn, Sam Francis, Brice Marden, Ed Ruscha, Jennifer Bartlett, Vija Celmins and Patti Smith. A selection of portraits showing Joan Didion is also included, taken by well-known photographers such as Brigitte Lacombe, Annie Leibovitz, Mary Ellen Mark and Julian Wasser.
Colin Stair, President and Founder of Stair Galleries, is quoted as saying, “We are thrilled to be able to auction items from Joan Didion’s collection. It is an honor to be in the home that houses one of America’s greatest women writers lived and worked, and to curate a sale of their artwork and personal belongings.”
The proceeds of the auction go to charity. He will support Columbia University’s Parkinson’s research in New York and City College in Sacramento’s women’s writing grants. A lot should come together.
Sources: CNN, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Bidsquare
