Lot 2: MICHAEL ESCOFFERY, Portrait of Harry Belafonte, 2012 (acrylic on canvas). Signed by Escoffery. | Estimate $400-$600
CONCERT AND MOVIE POSTERS. Portraits of Harry Belafonte (1927-2023) by various artists. Signed “Belafonte at Carnegie Hall” album. Kennedy Center Honors award. Correspondence with President John F. Kennedy, President Bill Clinton, President Jean Bertrand-Aristede of Haiti, Grace Kelly, Liza Minelli, Gregory Peck, and Andrew Young. Substantial cache of Martin Luther King Jr., materials.
These items and hundreds more are available at Julien’s Auctions. In partnership with Turner Classic Movies, the auction house is selling an array of memorabilia and personal items from the Estate of Harry Belafonte that reflect the iconic life and legacy of the singer, actor, and activist who died in New York in 2023. The 378-lot sale includes art, awards, manuscripts, letters, photographs, posters, albums, international instruments, signed books, furniture, clothing, and jewelry. Bidding is now open online, culminating with a live auction in Los Angeles on March 6.
Julien’s, which describes itself as “the auction house to the stars,” has titled the sale Harry Belafonte: A Man of Action, an apt choice that references both Belafonte’s groundbreaking entertainment career and his storied dedication to civil rights. A singular cultural figure, he was affiliated with everyone from King, Kennedy, Paul Robeson, James Baldwin and Nelson Mandela to Sidney Poitier, Marlon Brando, Lena Horne, and artist Charles White.
Lot 21: Harry Belafonte, Live double album “Belafonte at Carnegie Hall,” RCA Victor, 1959 (12.5 x 12.5 inches). Cover is signed in black marker “To Gabi- Peace Harry Belafonte.” | Estimate $200-4300
BELAFONTE WAS BORN in Harlem, the son of Jamaican immigrant parents. He grew up poor, dropped out of high school, and joined the Navy where his fellow shipmates encouraged him to read Black authors and study Black history. When he returned to New York, Belafonte used the GI bill to study acting. He struggled to find roles and got the opportunity to sing during intermission at a jazz club in 1949. Recognized for folk-style Caribbean music called calypso, he soon built a trailblazing career at the height of segregation. A breakthrough album came in 1956 when “Calypso” topped the Billboard chart. The first-ever, million-selling solo album featured popular songs such as “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” and “Jamaica Farewell.”
“By 1959 he was the most highly paid Black performer in history, with fat contracts for appearances in Las Vegas, at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles and at the Palace in New York,” according to his New York Times obituary. “But making movies was never Mr. Belafonte’s priority, and after a while neither was making music. He continued to perform into the 21st century, and to appear in movies as well (although he had two long hiatuses from the screen), but his primary focus from the late 1950s on was civil rights.”
Belafonte marched, donated money to King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), helped bail civil rights activists out of jail, and used his Hollywood connections to encourage other celebrities across racial lines to join the fight for racial equality and justice. Belafonte once said: I’m an artist and I am not a politician. Like most Americans I have a great interest in the political and economic destiny of my country.”
“I’m an artist and I am not a politician. Like most Americans I have a great interest in the political and economic destiny of my country.”
— Harry Belafonte
Lot 315: INGE HARDISON, Paul Robeson, 1979 (painted plaster bust with a bronze patina, 8.5 x 13 x 5 inches), Signature “Inge 1979” engraved on verso with Alva Museum sticker on the underside). | Estimate $300-$500
IN 2020, A FEW YEARS BEFORE he died, Belafonte’s personal archive was acquired by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, where it is accessible for public study. The Schomburg purchase, for an undisclosed sum, was made possible by support from a consortium including the Ford Foundation, Mellon Foundation, and Open Society Foundation. Measuring 400 linear feet, the collection included photographs, films, art, recordings, letters, ledgers, scrapbooks, film and television memorabilia, and other materials.
The selections offered at Julien’s may not be the most historically significant in terms of scholarly interest, nonetheless, there are plenty of items of documentary value for collectors and admirers of Belafonte.
The auction includes artifacts from Belafonte’s entertainment career, including promotional movie posters. A certificate dated March 2018, documents the addition of Belafonte’s “Calypso” album to the Library of Congress National Recording Registry. One lot includes two dozen membership cards with Belafonte’s name, dating from 2013 to 2022, for SAG-AFTRA, Actor’s Equity, American Guild of Musical Artists, and the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Photographs of Belafonte with King, Mandela, Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Anthony Hopkins, Jesse Jackson, Rosa Parks, Pope John Paul II, Ed Sullivan, and Rev. Desmond Tutu are up for bid, too.
Several portraits of Belafonte are featured in the sale. A painting by Michael Escoffery has an engraved metal plate on the frame indicating it was commissioned by Karl and Fay Rodney “in Tribute to Harry Belafonte, November 10, 2012.” The Rodneys are the founders of Carib News in New York. There is a Sophia Dawson painting, caricature by Charles P. Livolsi, and Michael Bell giclee print. Belafonte’s musical friends also expressed themselves in visual art. Folk singer Joan Baez and vocal legend Tony Bennett are also among those who made portraits of Belafonte. Meanwhile, figurative drawings by Belafonte are included among the lots—an undated self-portrait and sketch of stage costumes, both executed in pen.
Lot 52: Two black and white photographs of Harry Belafonte and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. one signed in silver marker, “Harry Belafonte,” the other inscribed in black marker “To Ulrike / Peace / Harry Belafonte.” | Estimate $300-$500
BELAFONTE WAS WIDELY celebrated and received countless awards recognizing his contributions to arts and humanity. Nearly 60 lots in the auction are awards from an array organizations. Several honors are from the City of New York, including a key to the city issued posthumously by Mayor Eric Adams on Aug. 20, 2023, four months after Belafonte died.
Two awards seem to be based on a design by Elizabeth Catlett—sculptures of a female torso with her hands clasped above her head. On both sculptures, the artist’s initials appear on the reverse near the base, but the association is not mentioned in the lot descriptions. The awards are The Immortal in honor of Paul Robeson, presented to Belafonte by Associated Black Charities. Both are dated Feb. 7, 1996. One is bronze toned. The other is slightly larger, in an ebony hue, with Robeson’s name spelled incorrectly on the plaque.
A few notable African American artists are represented in the sale. A 1952 photograph by Roy DeCarava, features a tight shot of his young male subject on a Harlem street. The image is from “The Sweet Flypaper of Life,” the collaborative volume with Langston Hughes. Photographs by P.H. Polk capture George Washington Carver in his lab, Henry Baker, and Robeson. Polk was the official photographer at Tuskegee Institute from 1939 until he retired in the early 1980s. A painted plaster bust of Robeson by Inge Hardison is dated 1979.
More than 100 books are available in individual and group lots. Reflecting Belafonte’s vast interests, the selection includes books on Africa, Jamaica, history, politics, race, biography, poetry, drama, and travel; first editions by Hughes, Charles W. Chestnutt, W.E.B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, and Malcolm X; an advanced proof of Huey P. Newton’s autobiography “Revolutionary Suicide” (1973); James Baldwin’s “If Beale Street Could Talk” (1974), inscribed “For Harry & Julie B. with love, Jimmy B.”; and a good number of celebrity memoirs and other books signed and dedicated to Belafonte, from Poitier, Maya Angelou, Diahann Carroll, Ossie Davis, Sammy Davis Jr., Walter Mosley, Bill Russell, Carlos Santana, Patti Smith, and Cicely Tyson, among others.
Lot 48: Western Union telegram from Coretta Scott King to Harry Belafonte on the Fathers Day, a few months after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, Dated June 16, 1968 (5.5 x 8.5 inches). | Estimate $600-$900
THE LOT DESCRIPTIONS provide varying amounts of background information on the items up for sale, from basic specifications to extensive summaries. Some of the most interesting contextual details are drawn from “My Song,” Belafonte’s 2011 memoir. The excerpts shed light on Belafonte’s role in integrating New York nightclubs (accompanying a poster for a show in the Empire Room), for example, admiration for Robeson (“the extraordinary actor, singer, and activist whose path I’d try to follow my whole adult life”), and closeness with King’s family.
Belafonte was a friend, political ally, and patron of King, providing the civil rights leader with financial support and serving as a sounding board. Their connection is reflected in the items up for auction, more than 30 related to King.
The lots include a 1964 letter from King to Belafonte, typed on SCLC letterhead. King wrote: “Dear Harry / Enclosed you will find a copy of a recent journal / which seeks to give a brief sketch of the work of the / Southern Christian Leadership Conference in pictures / and words. I wanted you to have a complimentary copy. / In a real sense, your commitment and contribution to / the civil rights movement made this booklet possible. / Sincerely yours, / Martin Luther King, Jr.” Above his name, he signed “Martin” in pen. Also available are an official copy of King’s 1964 Nobel Peace Prize lecture (one of 2,000 printed by Harper & Row “for distribution to friends of the House and of Dr. King”) and a 1963 typewritten letter from Belafonte’s personal attorney, advising him against traveling to Birmingham, Ala., to visit King in jail.
There are lots specific to Coretta Scott King. A few months after the assassination of her husband, she sent Belafonte a Western Union telegram dated June 16, 1968, with the following all caps message: “On this Father’s Day my children and I are thinking of you / in a very special way with love and appreciation / Coretta King.” Three years later, Coretta sent a June 17, 1971, letter that stated in part: “As we approach this Father’s Day occasion, my children and I are painfully aware of the absence of our beloved father and devoted husband. Yet our hearts are filled with gratitude for the blessings of your friendship, love, and support.” Also included in the sale are Belafonte’s handwritten notes for a 2006 eulogy of Coretta.
A tan leather Chesterfield sofa that “furnished Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s guest suite at Harry Belafonte’s New York City apartment of more than 45 years, upon which the two men talked late into the evening during King’s visits” is also on offer.
Harry Belafonte was a friend and patron of King, providing the civil rights leader with financial support and serving as a sounding board. Their connection is reflected in the items up for auction, more than 30 related to King.
Lot 68: Original lead sheet music for “We are the World” (CBS, 1985), performed by U.S.A. for Africa. The item is signed and inscribed to Belafonte by many of the artists who participated in the single. | Estimate $30,000-$50,000
AMONG OTHER PERSONAL ITEMS belonging to Belafonte are monogrammed cuff links, a Taico chess set on a burl wood-style board, his cassette and CD music collection, a Jackie Robinson prayer candle, Lladro King figurine, and 1990 South African visa documents. In terms of clothing, there is a white cotton Cuban shirt and fringed rainbow sash Belafonte wore a dozen years ago when he served as Grand Marshal of the 2013 New York City LGBTQ Pride March. A “Trayvon Martin” hoodie is described as worn by Belafonte in the 2024 documentary “Following Harry.”
An Original African Heritage Study Bible (King James Version) with “Baba Harry Belafonte” debossed in gold on the front cover is also featured. The lot description states: “The book is signed and inscribed by Rev. Dr. Al Sampson, a preacher in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference who was ordained by Martin Luther King, Jr. His inscription begins ‘To Baba Harry Belafonte, thank you.'”
The auction estimates range from $25-$50 to $30,000-$50,000. Eight items are related to We Are the World, the charitable recording produced by Quincy Jones that gathered more than 40 pop and rock stars, such as Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, and Sheila E., to raise funds for famine relief in Africa. The lot with the highest estimate in the auction is sheet music for “We Are the World” – USA for Africa (1985) inscribed by Belafonte and signed by more than a dozen other artists who participated, including Bruce Springsteen, Kenny Rogers, Cyndi Lauper, Dionne Warwick, Kenny Loggins, Paul Simon, and Lionel Richie, who co-wrote the song with Michael Jackson. CT
FIND MORE about Harry Belafonte in his New York Times obituary
FIND MORE about “Harry Belafonte’s complicated relationship with the civil rights movement” from CNN
FIND MORE about Belafonte’s papers at the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem
Julien’s Auctions and Turner Classic Movies is presenting an array of memorabilia and personal items from the Estate of Harry Belafonte. | Julien’s Auctions
Lot 3: Harry Belafonte, Concert Poster, Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center Performance, Sept. 9-11, 1993, Belaftonte’s first concert in New York in 25 years (Frame: 82 x 40 inches). | Estimate $300-$500
Lot 6: “The Empire Room Presents: An Evening with Belafonte,” with Emil Coleman and His Orchestra and Bela Babai “King of the Gypsies” and His Orchestra, circa the 1950s-60s (poster is mounted on board with hand touchups). | Estimate $300-$500
The lot description features an excerpt from “My Song,” Belafonte’s memoir describing the role Belafonte played in integrating hotel night clubs:
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This poster is likely for an event at the Waldorf, where Belafonte, Coleman, and Babai all played regularly. Belafonte’s first performance at The Waldorf famously led to the integration of the notoriously segregated hotel and nightclub space, which Belafonte said had been “one of the most racist pieces of real estate in America” in a speech he gave there for The Amy Winehouse Foundation Gala in 2013.
Belafonte told this story many times. After he made his Broadway debut, to great acclaim, in 3 for Tonight in 1955, Claude Philippe–a Frenchman who had come to work for the Waldorf-Astoria–called and asked him to perform. In his memoir My Song (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011) Belafonte writes:
“When I heard that, I had to laugh. ‘Claude,’ I said, ‘you must have just come from France.’
Everyone in the entertainment world knew the Waldorf had a Jim Crow policy: no black entertainers allowed. You could play in the orchestra if you were black, or maybe work as a substitute waiter, but not take the stage. Lena Horne, Ethel Waters, Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole—none of the major black stars had played the Waldorf, not once. The strict keeper of this policy was Muriel Abbott, a powerful executive in Conrad Hilton’s hotel empire, which included the Waldorf in New York and the Palmer House in Chicago. Read More
Lot 17: HARRY BELAFONTE, Self Portrait, n.d. (pen on paper, 5 x 3 inches). | Estimate $300-$500
Lot 18: May 12, 1960, Typed letter on African American Students Foundation, Inc. letterhead regarding the Airlift-Africa student program which returned Barack Obama’s father to the U.S with facsimile signatures of Harry Belafonte, Jackie Robinson, and Sidney Poitier, together with Belafonte’s typed foreword to the ebook Airlift to America by Tom Schacthman (St. Martin’s Press, 2009) | Estimate $300-$500
Lot 33: An original black and white studio promotional photograph of Harry Belafonte and Ed Sullivan holding hands (9 x 7 inches), Inscribed in pen, “To Harry God love you- Ed Sullivan.” On the verso, “C4” is written in pencil. Photo is from Belafonte’s appearance on March 29, 1964, when he performed “Medley: Look Over Yonder & Be My Woman, Gal,” “In My Father’s House,” “Shake That Little Foot,” and “Scarlett Ribbons.” | Estimate $200-$300
Lot 53: Group of nine newspapers documenting the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., including The Atlantic Inquirer, New York Post, and New York Times (11 x 14 x 4 inches, overall folded and stacked), with a commemorative booklet titled “I Have a Dream: The Story of Martin Luther King in Text and Pictures” (Time Life Books, 1968). | Estimate $200-$300
Lot 61: Framed promotional poster for the comedy-western “Buck and the Preacher” (Columbia Pictures, 1972), Co-starring Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier, who also directed (Framed, 41 x 28 x 1.5 inches). | Estimate $200-$300
Lot 78: South Africa travel visa, March 16-April 15, 1990, with NY consulate stamps and black-and-white passport photo of Harry Belafonte. Plus printed note from Department of Home Affairs, Pretoria, and envelope (4.25 x 9.5 inches). | Estimate $300-$500
Lot 101: Lithograph of a watercolor portrait of Harry Belafonte by his friend, colleague and fellow activist Joan Baez, signed and dated 2017 (20 x 24 inches, rolled). | Estimate $1,000-$2,000
The lot description notes that Joan Baez wrote about making the portrait on her website. References to her comments include:
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“His was the easiest portrait I’ve ever painted,” Joan says. “He’s so frigging handsome. His face is so smooth. It’s like a setup.”
“He was the first singer I heard in folk music, before Pete Seeger and Odetta,” she says. “I couldn’t know at that early age that we would end up marching with Dr. King and that he would become a close friend of mom’s.”
But he was an even closer friend of Joan’s. When he met her son, Gabe, who was still in his teens, he shook Gabe’s hand and said, “If I’d played my cards right, you’d be MY son.”
“We had a little thing,” Joan admits. “I always just took it as a compliment that it came to his mind.”
Lot 118: Harry Belafonte, Kennedy Center Honors Award, 1989 (comprised of seven ribbons in the spectrum of rainbow colors with three engraved brass clasp that read, “Kennedy Center Honor,” “December 1989” and “Harry Belafonte,” 9.5 x 14.5 x 3 inches). Award rests on a black felt display mat housed in a display case with an acrylic top with a printed inscription . Offered together with five photographs at event with Barbara Bush stamped on the verso “Official White House photograph 4 Dec 89,” and two CBS promotional images for the event. | Estimate $5,000-$7,000
Lot 257: Framed Marian Anderson playbill cover from her Teatro Odeon concert on Aug. 11, 1937. Signed by Anderson at lower right. Verso is inscribed “From Julie B / Christmas / Dec. 25th 1985,” Frame, 14.5 x 12.5 inches, sight, 8.75 x 6.75 inches). | Estimate $200-$300
Lot 261: ROY DECARAVA, “David, New York, 1952,” (photograph, Frame: 20.5 x 16.75 x .5 inches; Sight: 19.25 x 15.5 inches), Signed in ink by the artist to the lower left. From Langston Hughes and DeCarava 1955 collaboration, “The Sweet Flypaper of Life.” | Estimate $5,000-$7,000
Lot 262: PRENTICE HERMAN (P.H.) POLK, (American, 1898-1984), Framed Photograph of George Washington Carver in His Lab, 1930, probably printed in 1981 (Frame, 21.5 x 17 inches; Sight, 11 x 8.5 inches), Signed in pencil “P.H. Polk.” | Estimate $800-$1,200
Lot 301: Chesterfield tan leather sofa that furnished Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s guest suite at Harry Belafonte’s New York City apartment for more than 45 years, upon which the two men talked late into the evening during King’s visits (29 x 83 x 34 inches). | Estimate $3,000-$5,000
Lot 311: SOPHIA DAWSON, Portrait of Harry Belafonte, 2015 (acrylic and gold leaf, 48 x 34 inches), Signed and dated, “Sophia Dawson, 11/15.” | Estimate $500-$700
Lot 328: MICHAEL BELL (American, B. 1971), Portrait of Harry Belafonte depicting his first visit to Rwanda as an International UNICEF Ambassador in 1994 (giclee print on canvas, 41.5 x 41.5 x 2 inches). Estimate $200-$400
Lot 329: JACK MILLER (American, 20th century), Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Follow Your Dream,” n.d. (mixed media, Sight: 12 x 7.75 inches; Framed: 23.5 x 19.5 inches), Signed lower right. | Estimate $200-$400
Lot 358: Harry Belafonte’s personal chess set and board. Belafonte enjoyed the game of chess and was a very good player. The high gloss board has dark burl wood. The wood pieces read “Taico” to the bottom (Board: 17 x 17 inches). | Estimate $100-$200
BOOKSHELF
The memoir “Harry Belafonte: My Song” was published in 2011. Julien’s Auctions used excerpts from the book in many of the lot descriptions for the estate sale to provide first-person insights from Harry Belafonte about various people and issues. First published in 1955, “The Sweet Flypaper of Life” by Roy DeCarava and Langston Hughes was reissued in 2018 with a new afterword by Sherry Turner DeCarava, the photographer’s widow. “Called to the Camera: Black American Studio Photographers” explores the work of P.H. Polk and other photographers of his era who documented their local communities.
