Turner Auctions + Appraisals is pleased to present Bohemian Club Books & Ephemera on August 10, 2024. The sale features books, booklets, posters, flyers, programs, playbills, invitations, wine lists and menus, and reports from the private men’s club based in San Francisco and Northern California. These offerings from a California collector range from 1909 to the 2000s. Several related lots from other collections round out the sale.
The offerings in this auction reflect a vast range of events held at the Bohemian Club in San Francisco or the Bohemian Grove in Monte Rio, California, where the Midsummer Encampment, an annual 18-day members’ retreat, is held each July. The sale features Bohemian Grove posters from 1956-2005 and Cremation of Care posters from the 1970s. Besides plays from 1913 and 1919, there are playbills for the Grove plays; and programs for diverse events – art exhibitions, ladies’ nights, “low jinks” evenings, tribute dinners, aviary and more. The extensive selection of events flyers or invitations includes those for film, music, comedy, opera, theater, jazz, anthropology, holidays and Oktoberfest, authors, sons & grandsons, golf, baseball, skeet, Vienna, Italia, veterans, and much more. Most of these ephemera date from the 1950s-early 1980s. Some menus and wine lists are also available. Prominent artists of these lots include Ray Sullivan, Phil Frank, George Lichty, Wayne Pope, Amado Gonzales, Antonio Sotomayor, Vincent Perez, and Lonnie Bee.
Besides printed material promoting the club’s numerous events, there are also official documents from various years, most from 1908-1940, including the President’s and Treasurer’s Reports, and the club’s constitution, by-laws, rules, and annals.
For over 30 years, the California owner has assembled an extensive collection of Bohemian Club and Bohemian Grove items, keeping them in a well-preserved condition. Commenting on his collection, he says he enjoys and appreciates these “highly unique and rare items from the most exclusive men’s club in the world.”
Founded in 1872, the Bohemian Club was created “for the association of gentlemen connected professionally with Literature, Art, Music, Drama and also those who, by reason of their love or appreciation of these objects and their interest in participating in Club activities, may be deemed eligible…The Club is social in nature and purpose with its focus on the fine and performing arts and literature.” Early on, science was added to the “four pillars” of literature, art, music, and drama. Proud to be a refuge for artistic and intellectual activities, conducting business is prohibited. In fact, the club’s motto is “Weaving spiders, come not here.”
While members’ names are not made public, many notable men are known to be or have been Bohemian Club members – politicians such as Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush and son, George P. Schultz, and Newt Gingrich; artists or writers such as Maynard Dixon, Granville Redmond, Xavier Martinez, and Herman Wouk; business tycoons such as William Randolph Hearst and David Packard; and other famous men including Eddie Rickenbacker and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Today the club has about 2,600 members at a time, with some waiting up to 15 years to become regular, full members. In addition, there are honorary or professional members, usually in the arts, who assist with the club’s various activities. Since its inception, there have only been four women in the club – honorary members chosen in the club’s first two decades – although women and other guests are included at many of the club’s events.
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