Sotheby’s Unveils the Full Auction Contents of LADY BLUE EYES: PROPERTY OF BARBARA AND FRANK SINATRA

Debuting 200+ Works Illuminating Their Shared Lives & Careers, Featuring:

FILM AND ENTERTAINMENT MEMORABILIA Including Frank’s personal scripts for From Here to Eternity, Ocean’s 11 and The Manchurian Candidate

JEWERLY Including Barbara’s 20.60-carat Diamond Engagement Ring, Gifted to Her by Frank in a Glass of Champagne

FINE ART Including a Norman Rockwell portrait of Frank commissioned directly from the artist

POLITICAL & SPORTS MEMORABILIA, FURNITURE & DECORATIVE ARTS, & MORE

LIVE & ONLINE AUCTIONS TO BE HELD THIS DECEMBER

NEW YORK, 12 November 2018 – Today, Sotheby’s unveils the full auction contents of Lady Blue Eyes: Property of Barbara and Frank Sinatra, which will be offered across a series of auctions this December in New York.

A reference to Barbara Sinatra’s best-selling memoir, Lady Blue Eyes: Property of Barbara and Frank Sinatra will offer a rare window into the personal lives of the famed couple, through more than 200 works that Barbara and Frank assembled and lived with together throughout their 22-year marriage. Drawn primarily from the Sinatras’ residences in Palm Springs, Los Angeles and Malibu, Sotheby’s sales will offer fine art, decorative art and furniture collected by the couple, as well as objects and memorabilia left to Barbara upon her husband’s passing – in addition to her dazzling personal collection of jewelry and accessories. Together, the auctions will illuminate the two worlds that the Sinatras’ occupied: the fashionable lifestyle of a beloved entertainer and philanthropist, and the home life where the couple surrounded themselves with the people and objects they loved.

A portion of the proceeds from the December auctions will benefit the Barbara Sinatra Children's Center in Rancho Mirage, California, a nonprofit organization founded by the couple in 1986, which seeks to provide counseling for victims of physical, sexual and emotional child abuse.

Lady Blue Eyes: Property of Barbara and Frank Sinatra will be offered across three sales:

Lady Blue Eyes: Property of Barbara and Frank Sinatra – 6 December

Magnificent Jewels – 4 December Lady Blue Eyes: Online – Open for Bidding from 27 November – 7 December

Sotheby’s will hold public previews for Lady Blue Eyes in our Los Angeles galleries on 19 & 20 November and in our New York galleries from 30 November – 5 December.

HIGHLIGHTS ACROSS THE COLLECTION

FILM & ENTERTAINMENT MEMORABILIA

The significant selection of film & entertainment memorabilia on offer features material associated with projects spanning Frank’s career in music and film. Highlights include: more than 30 personal copies of scripts and screenplays associated with iconic roles, including From Here to Eternity– the film that earned Frank an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor – Ocean’s 11, On the Town, The Manchurian Candidate, Guys and Dolls and The Man with the Golden Arm; music recordings including RIAA awards to commemorate the sales of Duets and Frank Sinatra: The Reprise Collection; two AKG microphones used on various professional engagements; and concert and film posters from his career including a poster from Frank’s two-week run of shows in 1950 at The London Palladium, marking the entertainer’s first concerts outside of America.

FRIENDS AND ICONS
The auction also includes numerous signed letters, books, photographs and even artwork from the couple’s celebrity friends, from Ethel Barrymore, James Cagney, John Wayne, Tony Bennett and Kirk Douglas, to members of the infamous Rat Pack, including Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin.

FINE ART
The Sinatra’s fine art collection is highlighted by a number of paintings and sculptures by American artists, including Walt Kuhn, Childe Hassam and Leroy Neiman. The group is led by Norman Rockwell’s Sinatra: An American Classic (Portrait of Frank Sinatra) (estimate $80/120,000), commissioned by Frank in 1973 and later hung in Barbara’s Los Angeles penthouse. The couple particularly enjoyed works by Impressionist and Contemporary artists, including Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, Marc Chagall and David Hockney among others.

POLITICAL MEMORABILIA
The auction offers a number of signed letters, books and photographs from every-sitting President of the United States, from Harry Truman to Bill Clinton. Frank’s relationship with John F. Kennedy is illustrated by a number of objects, from an inscribed and signed book of Profiles in Courage by a then-Senator Kennedy, to a limited deluxe edition of the Kennedy-Johnson Inaugural Program from January 20, 1961 – for which Sinatra served as the producer of the inaugural gala – and an article from the Texas State Journal of Medicine, with markings in Frank’s hand, that recounts the treatment given to President Kennedy after the fatal shooting by Lee Harvey Oswald in 1964.

After years of publicly supporting Democrats, by 1972 Frank began endorsing Republican politicians and causes. Once President Ronald Reagan was elected, Sinatra became more of a celebrity fixture at the White House than he had been during any presidency since Kennedy. He personally raised millions towards Reagan’s 1980 Presidential campaign, and organized the inaugural galas in 1981 and 1985. The auction offers a medal from the Reagan inauguration identifying Frank Sinatra as Entertainment Director, as well as a pair of velour jackets from the 50th American Presidential Inaugural Gala in 1985.