A trove of Gene Hackman’s personal artworks and awards will be brought to auction in November, nine months after the late actor’s death.
Bonhams international auction house secured more than 400 items from Hackman’s estate, including his own drawings and cinematic memorabilia.
The “deeply personal” collection also features a number of trophies, including Hackman’s best performance Golden Globe award for his role as an eccentric patriarch in “The Royal Tenenbaums.”
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The cast gilt metal globe on a marble base is valued from $3,000-$5,000. Additionally, Hackman’s best performance Golden Globe award for the 1992 film “Unforgiven” is also available for auction.
“The Gene Hackman Collection: A Life in Art” offers buyers a “rare window into the mind of a profoundly disciplined and instinctive artist,” according to Bonhams. A series of three single-owner auctions will be hosted across one live and two online sales next month.
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Potential buyers have the opportunity to bid on pieces created by the “Heartbreakers” actor, including still-life drawings, self-portraits and handwritten notes featuring Hackman’s signature.
Fine art by Richard Diebenkorn is valued at over $300,000, while Milton Avery’s “Figure on the Jetty” will go up for sale at $700,000. Work by Wassily Kandinsky is expected to bring in up to $15,000.
Hackman’s personal Seiko stainless steel “Pepsi” quartz wristwatch should fetch anywhere between $600-$800, and an Everett Raymond Kinstler portrait of the late star will go up for sale at $2,000.
Annotated books from his library, scripts and posters will also be featured in the live and online auctions. Hackman pursued his love of painting after leaving Hollywood behind and immersing himself in Santa Fe culture.
Jennifer LaBar-Tapia, the Santa Fe Film Commissioner, previously told Fox News Digital that the “Superman” star supported the community and the arts.
“Gene Hackman is an icon, as all film fans know. But having Gene Hackman the neighbor here, he was just a man about town,” she said. “He was very approachable. He and his wife were woven deep into our community. She was a business owner. He sat on the board of directors for our Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.”
“He invested in a handful of restaurants here in Santa Fe, so he was very much a foodie. He was an artist. He was an author. So really, his time in Santa Fe was really toward the end of his career as Gene Hackman, the actor that we already knew him as. But we got the privilege of getting to know him as the author, the artist and the foodie.”
Hackman died due to hypertensive atherosclerosis cardiovascular disease, with Alzheimer’s disease as a significant contributing factor, New Mexico officials confirmed to Fox News Digital. He was likely alone in the home for about a week until he died around Feb. 18, which was the last time activity was recorded on his pacemaker.
Betsy died due to hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, which is transmitted from animals to humans and is commonly found in rodents, the New Mexico Department of Health confirmed.
Hantavirus is characterized by “flu-like symptoms consisting of fever, muscle aches, cough, sometimes vomiting and diarrhea that can progress to shortness of breath and cardiac or heart failure and lung failure,” Chief Medical Investigator Dr. Heather Jarrell explained during the news conference.
Shortly after Gene and Betsy’s deaths, the Hackman estate was awarded a temporary restraining order against the release of records regarding the deaths of Gene and Betsy.
The order stated that the “Office of the Medical Investigator and the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office, including each entities’ agents, assigns, and employees are hereby temporarily restrained from disclosing through IPRA or other means, any and all photographs or videos containing images of the following: the body of Gene Hackman, the body of Betsy Arakawa-Hackman, the interior of Mr. and Mrs. Hackman’s residence.”
Additionally, “any lapel video footage,” including the Hackmans’ bodies or footage of “images of any deceased animals at the Hackman residence,” was added to the temporary restraining order.
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