Queer art, bowler hats and an Annie Hall script: inside Diane Keaton’s archive as treasures go on sale
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- Diane Keaton's 8×30‑ft collage of personal ephemera, including Parisian photo‑booth snaps, a fake ear, Victorian mugshots, bingo cards, a defunct gambling‑den menu, and a photo of Carol Kane, is being displayed at Bonhams in West Hollywood before a New York sale on June 8.
- Bonhams is holding a four‑part auction titled “Diane Keaton: The Architecture of an Icon,” featuring the collage and other items such as original scripts for Annie Hall and The Godfather, as well as Keaton’s photographic prints and a glass box of coffee‑table books arranged as she kept them at home.
- Anna Hicks, head of private and iconic collections at Bonhams, says the wall‑size collage shown in West Hollywood is only a slice of the full 8×30‑ft piece Keaton kept in her Sullivan Canyon home, and that the display mimics Keaton’s own “pinned‑up” style.
- The auction includes thematic groupings—e.g., a metal wastebasket overflowing with unopened black‑and‑white polka‑dotted wrapping paper and a table of items related to Keaton’s film roles—showcasing her “panache for California‑imbued design” and her habit of collecting things that intrigued her rather than items for resale.
- Diane Keaton grew up making collages with her mother, continued the practice while acting in Broadway productions like Hair in her 20s, and describes herself not as an artist but as “a person who cuts out paper, throws it up on the wall or finds old photographs that I see at the swap meet.”
Why it matters: Collectors and Bonhams stand to profit as the rare Keaton pieces, including original film scripts and a massive personal collage, hit the market, while the auction cements Keaton’s cultural legacy and drives up prices for similar celebrity archives.
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