Playboy Flaunts Its Artwork in $1.1 Million Sale
PUSSSYKATT
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Turns out some people like Playboy for more than just
its articles.
Artworks by Leroy Neiman, a mainstay of the pages of Playboy for almost 50
years, were the top sellers at an auction of 500 paintings, photos and cartoons
from the magazine's archives Sunday.
In addition to selling 17 Neimans via Butterfields, Playboy also unloaded works
by the likes of Andy Warhol, Alberto Vargas, Ed Paschke and Edward Gorey, and
even a cartoon by Playboy founder Hugh Hefner.
For Playboy fans with more basic tastes, the magazine sold proof sheets of
naked centerfolds, many with Hefner's editing notations in the margins, such as
"kill lines around nipples" and "Good except for face."
In all, the auction yielded $1,118,865 before the buyers' commission of 17.5
percent. The items carried an estimate of about $935,000, and Butterfields
officials had hoped to crack $1 million. Butterfields is a unit of eBay Inc.
Playboy magazine is owned by Playboy Enterprises Inc.
The top-selling lot was a pair of Neiman watercolors, "Man at his Leisure" and
"Dancer at the Lido," which sold for $40,000 -- a hefty surplus over its
estimate of $3,000-$5,000. A 1967 Neiman acrylic, "Man at his Leisure
(Surfing)," sold for $25,000, up from an estimate of $3,500-$5,000.
The highest profile lots were 10 original paintings by the late pin-up artist
Vargas, some with estimates as high as $50,000. But only half of them sold. Two
watercolors, both from 1966 issues, fetched $27,500 each, "How do you like my
dynamic duo?" and "He tried everything -- flowers, jewelry, candy, furs -- and
they all worked."
A Playboy spokesman said the magazine held the auction in order to share a tiny
selection of works with fans as it gears up to celebrate its 50th anniversary
in the coming year.
Other big sellers included a group of unframed 11 black-and-white Helmut Newton
photographs from a 1976 pictorial dubbed "200 Motels Or How I Spent My Summer."
They sold for $18,000, up from an estimate of $5,000-$7,000.
Supermodel Cindy Crawford still has her fans. A dozen sepia-toned Herb Ritts
photographs from a 1988 pictorial sold for $11,000. They carried an estimate of
$7,000-$9,000.
The magazine also sold photos that have accompanied its in-depth interviews --
candid shots of the likes of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lennon, Jimmy
Hoffa and Keith Richards.
Hefner's ink cartoon from 1953 -- he was an aspiring cartoonist before he
founded Playboy -- sold for $2,000, below its estimate of $2,500-$4,000. It
features two art students leering at an abstract painting beside the
handwritten caption, "Man, is she stacked!"
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