Fifty years ago, Hugh Hefner introduced the first issue of Playboy with the words, "If we are able to give the American male a few extra laughs and a little diversion from the anxieties of the Atomic Age, we'll feel we've justified our existence."
All in all, Hefner kept his word, delivering abundant female nudity against a background of politics, art, humor and literature to readers who reveled in the magazine's male libido-driven observations on popular culture.
The "background," as it turned out, came to encompass a trove of significant voices and images, and as part of its ongoing anniversary festivities, Playboy invited experts from Christie's into the magazine's vast New York, Chicago and Los Angeles archives to go through 5,000 works of art, 10,000 photographs and countless manuscripts and put together an auction aimed at selling some of its legacy to its loyal fan base.
When the 311 lots -- including cartoons, rare manuscripts, fine art, photography and memorabilia -- go on the block on Wednesday in New York, they are expected to bring between $1.5 million and $2 million. Though this is nothing to sneeze at, the money is only part of Playboy's motive for holding the sale. "I thought we could generate a million dollars for the company and reach a million people with the extraordinary story of Playboy and its impact on the world of literature, design, ideas and art," says Christie Hefner, chairman and CEO of Playboy Enterprises, the founder's daughter.
"We know we have collectors, so we thought that instead of engaging in private negotiations to sell part of the collection, we would have a public auction, where anyone anywhere can own a piece of Playboy."
Leaving aside the feminist politics that evolved alongside, and at times in opposition to, Playboy's evolution -- famously critiqued by feminist Gloria Steinem, who went underground as a Playboy bunny in 1963 -- Playboy's archives offer a fascinating window onto the magazine's relationships with a remarkable array of intellectuals and artists who shaped American thought. In fact, the first lot in the sale goes a long way toward expressing Playboy's unique mix of artistic and intellectual content with sexuality and humor. It is a black-and-white cartoon drawn by Hefner that appeared in the first issue of the magazine. It shows a couple of geeky, grinning male art students staring at an entirely abstract painting. The punch-line, "Man -- is she stacked," says all we need to know about the Playboy ethos. Playboys live in a world of art and ideas while seeing naked women at every turn.
