David Lynch’s director’s chair sells for $70,000 at Los Angeles auction

Auctions of Hollywood memorabilia are often dull affairs, but Wednesday, Julien’s Auctions, in partnership with Turner Classic Movies, gave movie buffs a rare opportunity to own a piece of film history — an item from the personal belongings of David Lynch, the avant-garde filmmaker who died in January at 78.

Lynch’s personalized director’s chair sold for a winning bid of $70,000. “It’s going be sad to see it go because it’s become a personal attachment in the office because it’s been there,” the auctioneer said.

A group of unfinished screenplays for Ronnie Rocket sold for a bid of $150,000 while Lynch’s 35-millimeter print of the film Eraserhead went to the highest bidder at $40,000. Even an espresso machine owned by the director went for the winning bid of $35,000.

Lynch’s clothing, music equipment, cameras, miscellaneous movie memorabilia and even some furniture he designed were among the more than 400 other items sold during the hours long auction at the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel.

Martin Nolan, a co-founder and executive director of Julien’s Auctions, said in an interview Tuesday that Julien’s had initially estimated the entire auction would bring in between $200,000 and $400,000, but the total of the pre-auction bids had soared beyond $1 million, signalling widespread interest.

“This has already far exceeded our expectations,” Nolan said. “We thought if we could get half a million for this auction it would be a really successful auction.”

Dennis Lim, who wrote The Man From Another Place, a 2015 biography on Lynch, said the auction struck him as “Lynchian” because the director’s films often imbued objects with a mysterious power. Whether it was a telephone or a key, the manner in which Lynch filmed them made them take on an “otherworldly fetishistic charge,” said Lim, who has written about culture for The New York Times.

“I think the very idea of this auction acknowledges that,” he added. “I mean, you can own these objects that have come to acquire this charge of significance through their association with David Lynch.”

This spring, the auction house was contacted by Lynch’s estate, and a team at Julien’s then presented ideas about how they would shape the auction. “It’s almost unheard of that we would have an auction ready to go and taking place within six months of the person passing,” Nolan said.

Many of the items offered could be considered ordinary were it not for their provenance: books, stage lights, a Shop-Vac, saws and a fog machine. “This is stuff that is in every home that we’d probably donate to Goodwill when somebody passes, but because it’s David Lynch, there is a value,” Nolan said.

Lim, the biographer, said he was not bidding on anything, but he was drawn to a box of handmade wooden creations by Lynch and the wide selection of furniture, some of which he designed. “I think Lynch is somebody who was so interested in design and architecture, specifically modernist architecture and mid-century design,” Lim said. “He’s somebody who really understood and appreciated material culture."

Lynch, a formidable polymath devoted to a daily practice of transcendental meditation, started off his creative career as an artist and painter, and throughout his life he continued to work in visual mediums like photography, sculpture and furniture design. “He had a parallel career as a gallery artist,” Lim said.

Last week, Lynch’s director’s chair was shepherded around Los Angeles to drum up interest in the auction. It caught the eye of Mark Frost, his Twin Peaks co-creator, who in an interview Tuesday said, God bless anyone who felt strongly about the director and wanted to win such pieces that “makes them feel closer to that feeling that he gave them.”

Frost noted that Lynch’s tools, which were also up for auction, were meaningful. “For somebody who was as spiritual as he was, he also really loved his tools, the things that helped him do his work,” Frost said. “He had a fondness for good craftsmanship and that sort of bespoke work that goes into the making of things, as much as into fine art painting or drawing.”

When Lynch died in January, he left behind an extensive film and television legacy. Early in his career, he released Eraserhead, an unclassifiable film about a depressed young woman and a bewildered young man who welcome a baby that resembles an animated skinned rabbit.

He went on to earn three Oscar nominations for best director with The Elephant Man (1980), Blue Velvet (1986) and Mulholland Drive (2001). He didn’t win an Oscar for those films, but was given an Honorary Academy Award in 2019 for his life’s work. Lynch also won the 1990 Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for Wild at Heart. He released his last feature, Inland Empire, in 2006.