Art News

Personal handwritten letters by James Dean to be auctioned at Christie’s for the first time

LONDON.- A selection of personal handwritten letters by James Dean, which have never been offered for sale before, are to be sold at Christie’s auction of Popular Culture: Film and Entertainment Memorabilia in South Kensington on 23 November 2011. The letters are each addressed to Dean’s on-off girlfriend of two years, Barbara Glenn. They provide candid accounts of his private life before becoming a star, sent from out-of-town tryouts for The Immoralist in Philadelphia and from behind the scenes of his first foray into Hollywood, the celebrated East of Eden. The emotional letters, which reveal the strains of Dean’s work and their long distance relationship, are to be offered along with copies of unpublished private family photographs of the couple directly from the son of Barbara Glenn – filmmaker Keith Gordon. Keith Gordon comments, “As I re-