Miller Memorabilia On-Line Auction

A significant collection of Henry Miller's artwork and personal memorabilia will be auctioned both on-line during a live internet webcast and during a Direct TV broadcast on April 22, 2006 at 8 PM EST.

The event is being coordinated by Barry Chappell's Fine Art Showcase. The Celebrity Shopping Network (through which this sale is being publicized) claims it took them three years to "close" the deal and secure the rights to sell this "Henry Miller Centennial Collection." According to the official press release:

"A rare opportunity to buy artist/writer Henry Miller's personal memorabilia, books, paintings, lithographs and serigraphs during a LIVE AUCTION on Barry Chappell's Fine Art Showcase. Henry Miller’s works will be available on this rare simultaneous broad/webcast on Saturday, April 22nd, 2006 at 9:00 pm EST/6:00 pm PST on: Direct TV Channel 239, DISH Channel 225, and on streaming video on the FINE ART SHOWCASE website. The legacy of Miller,the archetypical sexualist whose notorious Tropic of Cancer and subsequent books ultimately changed the boundaries of literature will be evident to all who participate in this exciting auction. Barry Chappell will celebrate the ebullience, the contradictions, the humor and above all the freedom that defined Henry Miller's life and art."

The webite for this sale can be found here. If you click on this page, you'll get a 5-minute audio sales pitch.

According to the wesbite and press release, the following items are up for grabs:

1) Miller's travel trunk [left], "The same trunk he used on his visits to Paris when writing Tropic of Cancer";

2) Miller's shaving kit and cologne;

3) Miller's paints, brushes, boxes of pastels, ink wells, colour charts and cleaning rags;

4) Miller's "good luck" hand puppet;

5) Miller's red vest that he wore "for deacdes";

6) "a collection of signed and unsigned books from his library";

7) Miller's eyeglasses [left];

8) The original of Miller's Henry In A Red Vest [1, below] watercolour, "painted two days before Henry died";

9) The original of Miller's Four Figures [2] painting from 1925, "one of the earliest known Henry Miller watercolors";

10) Five other Miller original paintings: Paris (1940) [3], Antoine the Clown (1940) [4], A Vous Cher Ami (1962) [5], Chicago (1962) [6], and Marseilles (1963) [7].

Also listed is the so-called "Lost Collection." According to the website: "Each piece offered in the Henry Miller gallery is an estate authorized, posthumous print representing the last artworks to be published bearing the original signature of Henry Miller."

I do not in any way endorse these items or vouch for the credibility of the Barry Chappell or the Celebrity Shopping Network. Do your own reserach before committing your own cash to any of these items.

The webstream/broadcast will occur on Saturday, April 22, 2006, on Direct TV Channel 239, Echo Star Channel 225 and on streaming video on FAS’s site www.fashowcase.com at 9:00 pm EST/6:00 pm PST. The streaming video page is here and the schedule and showtime page is here.