Playboy magazine is unloading a ton of artwork on the auction block this December 8th, with a Christie's event titled The Year of the Rabbit. This includes a Salvador Dali watercolor that's been hanging in Hugh Hefner's bedroom (and appeared in a 1967 issue), 80 photographs, 24 cartoons and a dozen contemporary works, according to the AP.
Nearly all of the items going up for auction have appeared in the magazine, and Christie's Cathy Elkies says because of that, "there's a link between the collection and the ethos of the publication itself." Even after the auction, Playboy will have a lot of original works on hand, they reportedly have 20 million photographs in a storage building, and 5,000 contemporary artworks in their archives. In the below video, Heffner says, "Playboy helped to change the very direction of commercial art—breaking down the wall between fine art and commercial art."
If you're more a Playboy fan than art aficionado, you'll appreciate some of the other items on the block, like layout boards from old issues. One example of this is a 1996 cover photograph of Playmate of the Year Stacy Sanchez, with Hefner's sign off and editorial comments like "move leg to this position" and "missing eye shadow." Amongst the cover girls to go on auction are Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot, and even Anna Nicole Smith.
