It’s the largest group of privately held collections of the legendary singer/songwriter’s archival material and personal effects were auctioned
Julien’s Auctions concluded the headline making Celebrating Leonard Cohen | The Collections Of Aviva Layton, Anjani Thomas, & More, the industry leading music memorabilia auction house’s tribute to the great modern poet and legendary Grammy and Juno Award winning Canadian singer and songwriter held Friday, February 28th live at Julien’s Studios in Los Angeles, along with hundreds of bidders and collectors from countries such as the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, Spain and New Zealand participating online.
Nearly 170 pieces including never before seen manuscripts, unpublished poetry, letters, and personal effects from the collections of Cohen’s inner circle of close friends and colleagues, Aviva Layton, Anjani Thomas, with selections from the personal archives of Cork Smith and Nancy Bacal were presented for the first time to the public in the auction that brought in over half a million dollars in total. The exclusive event presented the largest privately held group of Leonard Cohen artifacts ever to come to auction.
“In the words of Leonard Cohen, today’s exceptional auction was ‘all good things’ and truly a celebration of his extraordinary life and achievements,” said Laura Woolley, Managing Director, Head of Consignments & Appraisals, Julien’s Auctions. “Not surprisingly, we received incredible interest from all over the world in this never-before-seen group of private collections that featured Cohen’s important works, inspirations and objects that filled his life and fueled his creativity and passion throughout his sweeping six-decade career.”
The top highlight of the event was the sale of Leonard Cohen’s rare green Apica notebook, dated January 21, 2007, containing 76 pages of handwritten notes, poems, and lyric drafts of his songs “Treaty” and “It’s Torn,” unpublished works, personal reflections, and a playful ledger of bets with Anjani Thomas which sold for $120,650. This important artifact is the only known Leonard Cohen notebook outside Cohen’s private archive, and likely to ever become available.
Exceptional highlights included the key to Leonard Cohen’s house in Hydra at $19,500, 6.5 times the estimate of $3,000; Leonard Cohen’s iconic “magic writing” black Greek fisherman’s cap at $7,800; a first edition of Let Us Compare Mythologies, Cohen’s first published volume of poetry, inscribed to Irving Layton at $10,400; two images of Cohen laying Tefillin at the Western Wall in Jerusalem in 1973 that were on display in his Los Angeles home and are the only known copies of these images extant at $9,100, 11 times estimate of $800; two mezuzahs, one with menorah decoration given to Anjani Thomas at $7,800, 19.5 times estimate of $400; evil eye protectors at $4,550, 45.5 times estimate of $100; a signed copy of Cohen’s 1992 anthology of poetry and song lyrics, Stranger Music, and inscribed to Aviva and Leon [Whiteson] at $2,275; and more.
