Michael Stipe photo of Kurt Cobain sets personal record at Vancouver auction
CTV
Before Michael Stipe was known the world over as the lead singer and lyricist for the multimillion-selling rock band R.E.M., he was taking pictures. And while his outsized music career has since overshadowed his visual pursuits, the 64-year-old set a personal sales record earlier this month at a private art auction in Vancouver.
Before Michael Stipe was known the world over as the lead singer and lyricist for the multimillion-selling rock band R.E.M., he was taking pictures. And while his outsized music career has since overshadowed his visual pursuits, the 64-year-old set a personal sales record earlier this month at a private art auction in Vancouver.
Stipe was one of roughly three dozen artists and collectors invited to the West Vancouver home of fellow artist, writer and long-time friend Douglas Coupland for an auction benefiting the Capture Photography Festival. And he didn't show up empty-handed.
The "Losing My Religion" singer donated a 1993 photograph he took of late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain's hands to the auction in support of the non-profit group. The photo would fetch $75,000 from a patron in the room, setting a record high for Stipe's photographic work, according to the festival's director.
"It was really, truly, incredibly generous for him to support the organization in this way," executive director and chief curator Emmy Lee Wall told CTV News.
"It's not lost on me that artists who make donations to auctions then are not making a sale," she added. "So it's a really, really generous thing for artists to participate."
The arresting black-and-white photo depicts Cobain’s clasped hands, adorned with three rings and a cheap promotional wristwatch from a Seattle-area car dealer.
Frances Bean Cobain, the late musician’s daughter who also happens to be Stipe’s goddaughter, posted the photo to her Instagram account last month on the 30th anniversary of her father’s death at the age of 27.
