AUCTION SPREE IN THE UK
‘Extraordinary’ collection of Sex Pistols memorabilia to be sold off
A PRIVATE collection of “extraordinary” Sex Pistols artwork, posters, lyrics and documents will go under the hammer at Sotheby’s auction house.
The collection was assembled during the 1990s by contemporary art dealer Paul Stolper and critic Andrew Wilson, who was formerly the senior curator of modern British art at the Tate.
It highlights how the influential punk band, fronted by John Lydon, led a revolution in popular music and culture in the 1970s alongside manager Malcolm McLaren.
Collection
The Stolper-Wilson collection will go up for auction in London from October 10-21 after being exhibited at locations around the world including the Villa Medici in Rome, the Musee De La Musique in Paris and the Kunsthalle Vienna.
It features the work of artist Jamie Reid, who McLaren met at Croydon
School of Art in 1968 and designed the band’s logo and their instantly recognisable cover art.
Featured is his torn union flag for the band’s first single Anarchy In The UK in 1976, held together by bulldog clips (€3,400€5,700) and the official Silver
Jubilee portrait photograph of the Queen “desecrated” in 1977 by a safety pin through the mouth and featuring ransom lettering reading
God Save the
Queen (€1,400-€1,700).
Reid’s 1977 image of two tour buses whose destinations are Nowhere and Boredom also features and is estimated to sell for between €6,900-€9,100.
His working notebook from 1979 (€17,200-€22,900) features preliminary drawings for record sleeve designs as well as memos and records of phone conversations, many illustrating the collapse of his relationship with McLaren and with Virgin Records.
Also featured are posters owned by bassist Sid Vicious for God Save The Queen, released to coincide with the Silver Jubilee (€4,600-€6,900) and their album Never Mind the Bollocks Here’s the Sex Pistols (€5,700-€8,000).
Stolper said: “The Sex Pistols were about so much more than music alone, they were about attitude, and in a wider context about art.”