{"id":435222,"date":"2026-05-19T15:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T15:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/435222\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T15:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T15:56:09","slug":"queer-art-bowler-hats-and-an-annie-hall-script-inside-diane-keatons-archive-as-treasures-go-on-sale-diane-keaton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/435222\/","title":{"rendered":"Queer art, bowler hats and an Annie Hall script: inside Diane Keaton\u2019s archive as treasures go on sale | Diane Keaton"},"content":{"rendered":"

On a recent Friday afternoon, I stood before \u201cthe wall\u201d: a sprawling collage created by Diane Keaton<\/a>. The late actor pinned objects of fascination to this collage \u2013 including snaps of herself in Parisian photo booths, a fake ear with acupuncture points, mugshots of Victorian women, bingo cards, a menu from a defunct California gambling den and a photograph she took<\/a> of her friend Carol Kane \u2013 over many decades.<\/p>\n

The piece is one of Keaton\u2019s many personal effects on view at Bonhams in West Hollywood before showing in New York<\/a> later this month. Anna Hicks, the head of private and iconic collections at the auction<\/a> house, tells me that this sizable piece, covering nearly an entire wall, constitutes a mere slice of the 8x30ft collage Keaton kept inside her Sullivan Canyon home. Bonhams specialists found even more ephemera, such as signed photos of her The Godfather<\/a> co-star Al Pacino<\/a>, tucked underneath this towering assemblage. \u201cI think it tells you a lot about her,\u201d Hicks says. \u201cAll her thoughts and different things that she found important or interesting, she just pinned up here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keaton, who grew up watching her mother make collages, took to the craft early. In her 20s, when Keaton was acting in Broadway<\/a> stage productions including Hair, she would spend contemplative evenings piecing together collaged works. Keaton never considered her habit an art form; she once described<\/a> herself as a \u201cperson who cuts out paper, throws it up on the wall or finds old photographs that I see at the swap meet\u201d rather than an artist. The absorbing collage at Bonhams suggests otherwise. With each cutout, Keaton seemed to be constructing an amorphous catalogue of her life \u2013 a gradual, tactile process that, in her inventive hands, couldn\u2019t help but become an art unto itself.<\/p>\n

A selection of the actor\u2019s clothing at Diane Keaton: The Architecture of an Icon, Los Angeles. Photograph: Courtesy of Bonhams<\/p>\n

The West Hollywood auction, Diane Keaton: The Architecture of an Icon<\/a>, is one of four sales dedicated to the prolific<\/a> actor<\/a>, menswear<\/a> enthusiast, home design aficionado, bookworm and knick-knack collector. Each sale focuses on a distinct aspect of Keaton\u2019s identity, including her sartorial inclinations and photographic works, while illustrating how she amassed things that intrigued her rather than accumulating objects that might one day be especially valuable. Architecture of an Icon, which will be held as a live sale in New York City on 8 June, features a bit of everything but stresses Keaton\u2019s panache for California-imbued design and the trinkets that charmed her.<\/p>\n

Diane Keaton\u2019s original Annie Hall script, estimated between $2,000 and $3,000. Photograph: Courtesy of Bonhams<\/p>\n

Bonhams shrewdly opted to display some items the same way Keaton did at home \u2013 like a glass box with artfully arranged coffee table books inside, with subjects ranging from dogs to the works of visual artist Arnold Mesches, and a metal wastebasket overflowing with unopened rolls of black-and-white polka-dotted wrapping paper. Other effects are grouped thematically. One table sees Keaton\u2019s own photographic prints and items from films she had acted in, with original scripts for Annie Hall<\/a>, and materials related to her roles in The Godfather<\/a> and Father of the Bride<\/a>. Some of these bear notes to herself about specific characters: in the Book Club<\/a> script, Keaton had scribbled \u201cthis scene is about fighting for independence in a dependent way\u201d in the margin.<\/p>\n

Keaton\u2019s eye for tailoring also features prominently in the sale. Keaton favored coats, suits and dresses from designers such as Thom Browne and Comme des Gar\u00e7ons<\/a>, with an emphasis on linear cuts and cinched waistlines. More than 150 lots of clothing<\/a> will be auctioned, including one of her trademark black bowler hats, a sequined Gucci suit and a beret worn to the Lacma gala in 2021, as well as her 2020 Oscars suit by Ralph Lauren. Meanwhile pieces from her personal art collection on sale include works from David Wojnarowicz<\/a>, Maynard Dixon and Ed Mell, as well as a drawing that her friend Jack Nicholson<\/a> made for her. Also on view: Heaps of Keaton\u2019s south-western-inspired jewelry and footwear ranging from various Dr Martens to a pair of clown shoes. The clothes and kicks alike have a lived-in feeling, with some well-trod boots bearing scuff marks. Throughout her lifetime, Keaton repeatedly wore and rewore her most beloved articles of clothing, a rarity in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

Photo booth portraits of Diane Keaton, estimated at $400-600. Photograph: Courtesy of Bonhams<\/p>\n

As is fitting for a lifelong collagist, the auction provides fans with a layered view of Keaton, her hobbies and the multitudinous interests that captivated her. Viewers can parse through Keaton\u2019s more idiosyncratic proclivities, such as her large-scale collection of stylized car crash photography and models of veneer teeth, which traveling salespeople once carried with them, alongside photographs of antique dentistry equipment at Bonhams. Nearby, lined baskets inside a dresser brim with little treasures: tiny bowler hats, rubber stamps, toys, postcards and other things culled from the \u201cfile cabinet\u201d of Keaton\u2019s mind, as Hicks describes. Taken as a collective, these objects foreground Keaton\u2019s near-extrasensory gifts in observation, a constant in the multi-hyphenate\u2019s legendary career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a recent Friday afternoon, I stood before \u201cthe wall\u201d: a sprawling collage created by Diane Keaton. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-435222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}