In his final decades Gene Hackman lived just outside of Santa Fe, N.M., where he had escaped Hollywood in search of a quieter life steeped in art and nature.
The home he shared with his wife, Betsy Arakawa, was a hideaway of sorts at end of a cul-de-sac in a gated community, far from the eyes of a curious public. The discovery of their bodies in February in separate rooms of their home stunned and saddened many. Investigators later determined that Arakawa, 65, died first of a rare viral infection and Hackman, 95, who had Alzheimer’s disease, died about a week later of heart disease.
Now the auction house Bonhams is preparing to sell a collection of more than 400 items from the compound, including the artworks Hackman created and collected, memorabilia from his 40-year film career and personal items, including his Ray-Ban sunglasses. The sale, which will take place online and in a live auction in New York next month, provides a rare window into the final refuge of actor who devoted much of his later life to art.
Draft of a “Silence of the Lambs” film he never made
The sale includes scripts from some of the most celebrated titles from Hackman’s illustrious film career, including “The Royal Tenenbaums,” “Mississippi Burning” and “Bonnie and Clyde.” But one of the most interesting scripts may be from a film he never made: It is an early 33-page partial draft for a film adaptation of the 1988 novel “The Silence of the Lambs” that he signed on to make but then abandoned.
Hackman had bought a portion of the rights to the novel — once calling it “one of the most cinematic books I’ve ever read” — and there was talk of him both directing and acting in the film. But he ultimately dropped the project, clearing the way for the 1991 Jonathan Demme film, which starred Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter.
A Gene Hackman landscape
Hackman was an avid artist in his later years, and the sale includes more than 70 of his works, including this untitled painting of Southwestern homes nestled in a tree-lined valley. All come with modest estimates: This one is estimated to sell for $800 to $1,200.
But they show the work he made as an active member of Santa Fe’s community of artists, who spoke of drawing inspiration from the surrounding landscape. The collection also features his still lifes, seascapes, self-portraits and copies he made of van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” and Matisse’s “Fruits and Bronze.”
Galaga
The auction contains a wide assortment of his personal belongings, including the arcade game Galaga (circa 1981) that stood in the home alongside a pinball machine and other games.
Not every actor’s everyday belongings would draw the interest of a major auction house. For Hackman, a broad array of possessions were deemed of value: Up for sale are multiple sets of golf clubs, a dart board, books, wristwatches, painting easels, a palette and a paint-splattered straw hat.
Personal notes on art
Hackman’s art studio, which was on his property in a separate building from the main house, offered insights into his views about art. Papers with motivating quotes (“Art: It’s great to do it well, if you can … It may be even better just to simply do it”) were found in the studio, including on his easel and his desk. Those papers are being sold along with a notebook containing sketches and notes from workshops on painting and composition techniques.
“His studio was really a true artist’s studio,” said Anna Hicks, the head of private and iconic collections at Bonhams in the United States. “It was paintbrushes everywhere, half finished canvases, finished things, some framed things.”
A Milton Avery
Hanging in Hackman’s personal library was one of the most valuable works of art he owned: a 1957 painting by the American modernist Milton Avery titled “Figure on the Jetty.” Hackman purchased the work from Sotheby’s in 1997.
With an upper estimate of $700,000, the work is the highest valued entry in a collection of 13 artworks that will be sold live at the Bonhams auction in New York, on Nov. 19. The other works include brightly colored, abstract works by Richard Diebenkorn and Auguste Rodin bronzes that were cast posthumously in the 1980s.
The bronze he made of Betsy
Inside his studio, Hackman kept a 14-inch-tall bronze bust that he had made of Arakawa, his wife of more than 30 years. Friends have described Arakawa, a classical pianist who met him working a part-time job at a fitness center, as Hackman’s fierce protector, devoted to caring for him until the end.
Julia Jacobs is an arts and culture reporter who often covers legal issues for The Times.
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