The axe Jack Nicholson swung in The Shining and the small, wide-eyed Star Child from 2001: A Space Odyssey are heading to auction together in Stanley Kubrick’s first sale of material from his personal archive. The two objects make an unlikely double feature: one is a blunt piece of horror-movie history, the other the mysterious final image of a science-fiction classic.
Bonhams will offer hundreds of objects in London on February 3, 2027. The sale also includes the Grady sisters’ matching blue dresses, annotated scripts, clapperboards, a director’s chair, costumes and a chess set Kubrick owned. For fans, this is a chance to see the physical things that usually live inside the frame—and to get a closer look at how one famously meticulous filmmaker worked.
The axe behind one of horror’s most quoted moments
The auction’s Shining axe is a special-effects prop used by Nicholson as Jack Torrance delivers “Here’s Johnny!” The scene turns a bathroom door into a splintered frame around Nicholson’s grin and Shelley Duvall’s terrified Wendy. It is a practical object from a sequence whose image and line became shorthand for the film itself.
That makes the axe more than a recognizable souvenir. Its long, gently curved wooden handle and broad metal head are part of the visual memory: the tool that makes the door break open, then follows Jack into the Overlook’s corridors. Bonhams’ photographs, reproduced in The Guardian’s report on the sale, show the actual prop. The estimate is £30,000–£50,000.
The matching dresses worn by Alexa and Alexie Grady are another vivid piece of the film’s visual language. Their appearance is brief, but those pale-blue outfits turned a quiet hallway encounter into one of the movie’s most enduring images. The tricycle Danny rides through the hotel is not part of this auction, a useful reminder that a famous scene can involve several props without every familiar object being in the same collection.
The Star Child is real—and surprisingly small
The auction’s headline science-fiction artifact comes from the last moments of 2001: the original Star Child model, the infant-like figure that appears suspended above Earth after Dave Bowman’s journey beyond the infinite. Its gaze is direct, its posture curled, and Kubrick leaves the image open rather than giving viewers a tidy explanation.
The Museum of the Moving Image describes the model as about two and a half feet long. Prop artist Liz Moore sculpted it in clay before it was made into a final fiberglass version. The size is a delightful bit of movie magic: an image that feels cosmic on screen was built as a small practical object, handled by a crew and placed in front of a camera. The museum’s film-history feature also includes video of the Star Child being unpacked and installed for an earlier exhibition.
The prop’s power comes partly from what it refuses to settle. Is the Star Child a rebirth, an evolution, or an image meant to stay beyond a single interpretation? The film never pins it down. Seeing the model itself will not solve the ending, but it brings the final shot’s careful physical construction into view.
Kubrick’s notes are part of the story
Beyond the headline props, the collection offers a more intimate view of filmmaking. The sale includes scripts marked up in Kubrick’s hand, with annotations, drawings and alternate scenes; clapperboards from The Shining, 2001, Barry Lyndon and Eyes Wide Shut; costumes; his director’s chair; and a personal chess set.
Those pages and everyday objects help connect the finished films to the choices behind them. An annotated script can reveal what Kubrick was considering, while a clapperboard ties a physical production moment to a movie audiences know by heart. The sale covers hundreds of objects described as coming from Kubrick’s personal archive; it is not presented as every institutional collection devoted to his work.
The collection will be shown in public previews before the London sale, traveling through New York, Los Angeles and Paris before reaching London in January. That gives fans a chance to see the objects outside a screen or a still photograph before they pass into private hands.
One axe and one tiny figure make the perfect Kubrick pairing. The Shining turns a wooden door into a stage for a line people still quote; 2001 ends with a silent image that people still debate. The auction lets those two very different kinds of movie magic sit in the same room—and gives the rest of Kubrick’s working world a rare moment in the light.
Sources: Associated Press, October 6, 2026; The Guardian, October 6, 2026; Museum of the Moving Image, “Creating 2001: A Space Odyssey”.
Featured image: original editorial illustration informed by photographs of the auction artifacts; it is not an authentic photograph of either prop.
