Guillermo del Toro, the three-time Oscar-winning director celebrated for his gothic imagination, will be parting with pieces of his famed “Bleak House” collection in a Heritage Auctions sale next week.
Fresh off acclaim for his new film “Frankenstein” at the Venice and Toronto film festivals, the 60-year-old native of Guadalajara said the decision came after wildfires in Los Angeles earlier this year threatened to destroy the more than 5,000 items stored in two of his homes.
With only hours to act as the flames approached, he reportedly was able to remove about 120 pieces stored in his two adjacent Santa Monica homes — which serve as an archive and workspace he calls Bleak House I and II.
Fortunately, the fire never reached those houses.
“Look, this is in reaction to the fires,” Del Toro said of the auction. “This is in reaction to loving this [collection],.
Items in the first part of the auction currently up for bid will be sold on Sept. 26. The second and third parts are slated for next year.
Guillermo del Toro has won Academy Awards for best director and best picture for “The Shape of Water” (2017) and best animated feature for “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” (2022).
His films have won eight Oscars, including three for his 2016 breakout hit “Pan’s Labyrinth,” plus 14 Ariel Awards, Mexico’s top film honors, including nine for his 1992 debut feature “Cronos.”
Along the way, the director has accumulated what he calls a “library of images, sounds and ideas.”
His collection of 10,000 items amassed over decades and scattered at his homes in the Los Angeles area and Toronto (there is no record of him owning a current home in Mexico) contains props, sketches, paintings, comics and rare artifacts.
It was large enough to inspire a major 2017 exhibition at the L.A. County Museum of Art titled “Guillermo del Toro: At Home with Monsters,” and is often called a mirror of his obsessions with monsters, myths and horror.
Highlights among the first 132 items include two original plates from Bernie Wrightson’s acclaimed 1983 illustrated edition of “Frankenstein,” carrying starting bids of US $200,000 and $100,000.
Del Toro called parting with them “pretty brutal.”
Other offerings include Ron Perlman’s hero jacket and the oversized shotgun “Big Baby” from “Hellboy,” concept art for “Pan’s Labyrinth,” a rough-draft sculpture of the Amphibian Man from “The Shape of Water” and a protective suit worn by giant-robot drivers in “Pacific Rim.”
Comic art by Mike Mignola, Richard Corben, Jack Kirby and H.R. Giger will also be up for bid, alongside rare animation drawings and early Disney sketches.
Del Toro compared caring for the collection to tending “a bus with 160 kids that are very unruly.”
Letting go, he said, is both estate planning and a way to ensure history survives disasters.
“As collectors, you are basically keeping pieces of culture for generations to come. They’re not yours,” he said.
At the Venice Film Festival, which concluded last week, “Frankenstein” was up for the Golden Lion (top prize), but settled for the unaffiliated Fanheart 3 Award for best film.
At the Toronto International Film Festival that closed Sunday, “Frankenstein” was first runner-up for the prestigious People’s Choice Award.
The gothically tragic 2-hour, 29-minute film is set to open at select U.S. theaters on Oct. 17, with limited theatrical release in Mexico starting Oct. 23. It will hit Netflix on Nov. 7.
With reports from Euronews, Associated Press, Artnet and Reuters
Fascinating. Thanks for the interview and article.