Bohemian Club & Grove posters, books and ephemera at Turner Auctions

Turner Auctions + Appraisals presents Bohemian Club Books & Ephemera on August 10 with more than 200 books, brochures, posters, flyers, programs, playbills, invitations, wine lists and menus as well as reports from the private men’s club based in San Francisco and Northern California.

The items, owned by a California collector, date from 1909 to the 2000s and reflect a wide range of events held at the Bohemian Club in San Francisco or at the Bohemian Grove in Monte Rio, California, where the Midsummer Encampment, an annual 18-day retreat for members, takes place every July.

The sale includes Bohemian Grove posters from 1956-2005 and Cremation of Care posters from the 1970s. In addition to plays from 1913 and 1919, there are playbills for the Grove plays and programs for various events such as art exhibitions, ladies
Nights, “Low Jinks” nights, tribute dinners, aviary and more. The extensive selection of event flyers or invitations includes those for film, music, comedy, opera, theater, jazz, anthropology, holidays and Oktoberfest, authors, sons and grandsons, golf, baseball, skeet, Vienna, Italy, veterans and much more. Most of this ephemera dates from the 1950s to the early 1980s. Some menus and wine lists are also available.

In addition to printed materials advertising the club’s many events, there are also official documents from various years, most from 1908 to 1940, including the president’s and treasurer’s reports, as well as the club’s constitution, by-laws, rules and annals.

The Bohemian Club was founded in 1872 and was “for the association of gentlemen professionally connected with literature, art, music, theatre, and also those who may be considered suitable by their love or appreciation of these objects and their interest in participating in club activities… The club is social in nature and has a social purpose, its emphasis being on the fine and performing arts and literature.” Early on, science became the “four pillars” of literature, art, music and
Drama. Priding itself as a haven for artistic and intellectual pursuits, the conduct of business is prohibited.

Although the names of members are not publicly disclosed, many well-known men are known to have been members of the Bohemian Club, including Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Xavier Martinez, William Randolph Hearst, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Since its founding, there have been only four women in the club, honorary members elected during the club’s first two decades, although women and other guests are present at many club events.