Leonard Cohen lock of hair, 'explicit digital artwork' fetch big prices at auction

Jackson Weaver · CBC News

· Posted: Feb 28, 2025 5:50 PM EST | Last Updated: February 28

Personal effects belonging to the precocious Canadian instrumentalist and writer Leonard Cohen, who died successful November 2016, went up for merchantability connected Friday in what the auction location advertised arsenic the "largest radical of privately held collections" of his works. 

A personal creation notebook containing 76 pages of poems and lyrics was the highest priced item, selling for $120,650 US ($171,400 Cdn).  Other items ranging from symbolic (a skeleton cardinal to Cohen's home in Greece), to idiosyncratic (a locket containing his hair), to unusual (a faxed erotic drawing) sold for little prices, though inactive supra asking.

The pieces were among much than 150 items up for merchantability by Julien's Auctions successful Los Angeles and were collected from aggregate sources. Some were from Cohen's long-time person Aviva Layton, who met Cohen done her erstwhile partner, the precocious Canadian writer Irving Layton.

Others came from exertion Cork Smith and longtime person and exertion Nancy Bacal, arsenic good arsenic immoderate from instrumentalist and erstwhile spouse Anjani Thomas. 

The top-priced point was from Thomas's collection, and was besides the auction's highest valued: Cohen's avocado-green creation publication was expected to merchantability for betwixt $120,000-150,000 US ($170,000-213,000 Cdn). 

The notebook, dated Jan 21, 2007, contains drafts for aggregate Cohen works. There were 2 pages of drafts for the song Treaty from the 2016 album You Want it Darker, arsenic good arsenic 7 pages of drafts for Thanks for the Dance's track It's Torn. It besides contained unpublished poems, notes and bets with Thomas — bets, Thomas wrote, that were ridiculously high, but ne'er collected on.

"We'd stake connected things similar whether oregon not Phil Spector would spell to jail, and I said helium would," Thomas was quoted arsenic saying connected the auctioneer's website.

"This is the lone notebook of Leonard's successful backstage hands extracurricular of the Cohen Family Trust Archives, and I ideate those volition ne'er beryllium disposable for purchase."

Along with corrections to his book The Favourite Game, unpublished poems and his "magic" fisherman's headdress that supposedly helped him write, were ephemera less academically inclined. A gilded locket containing a fastener of Cohen's hairsbreadth (originally a day acquisition to Thomas) sold for $5,080 US ($7,200 Cdn) — astir 10 times supra its estimated merchantability price.

A cardinal to Cohen's location successful Hydra — wherever Cohen moved successful the 1960s and got his commencement arsenic a self-sustaining writer and instrumentalist — sold for $19,500 US ($27,700 Cdn), astir 4 times supra asking. Two mezuzahs (a accepted Jewish point meant to beryllium placed on door posts) sold for $7,800 ($11,000 Cdn) — more than 10 times supra estimates.  

And a "faxed explicit integer artwork" from Cohen fetched $1,170 US ($1,650 Cdn). The cartoonish, erotic drafting was reportedly sent personally to Layton. It is unsigned, lone bearing the words "Finger F--k!". It had an estimated terms of $100-150 US ($140-215 Cdn). 

Legal battles

Cohen famously suffered from fiscal strain aft discovering his erstwhile manager, Kelley Lynch, embezzled ample amounts of his savings successful 2005. He embarked connected a whirlwind comeback circuit to cushion the blow, starring to a revitalized vocation and fame. Lynch was aboriginal convicted and jailed for harassment. 

The auction comes amid protracted ineligible jousting betwixt Cohen's children and different erstwhile manager, Robert Kory. Children Lorca Cohen and Adam Cohen person alleged their father's instrumentality steadfast covered up "malfeasance" by Kory, the Los Angeles Times reported. Friday's auction was capable to spell up arsenic it is from backstage collections instead of from the Leonard Cohen Family Trust, which controls the bulk of Cohen's memorabilia.

As reported by the Globe and Mail, that ineligible quality has enactment a large Cohen archival task successful jeopardy. As planned, it would spot unreleased recordings and items from the spot showcased crossed the Art Gallery of Ontario, University of Toronto, University of British Columbia, McGill University and National Music Centre successful Calgary. The ongoing ineligible enactment person prevented it from being realized, biographer and task advisor Ira Nadel told the Globe.

Julien's Auctions specializes successful personage auctions. It previously held income containing items from Bob Dylan, Olivia Newton-John, Princess Diana and more.