Streisand Aids Others’ Lives by Simplifying Hers

“Every time I see it, I get a little twinge,” Barbra Streisand confessed about Lot No. 176, a red peony-design Tiffany lamp made of leaded glass, mosaic, turtleback tile and bronze with an estimated price of $250,000 to $350,000.

The Barbra show--no, not the Vegas act, but the Barbra Streisand Collection of 20th-Century Decorative and Fine Art--traveled to the St. James Club on Sunset on Wednesday night after stops in Tokyo and Paris. The collection will be auctioned March 3-4 at Christie’s New York.

Streisand said she named the UCLA Breast Cancer Center as the beneficiary of the reception and private viewing in honor of her “dear friend,” Virginia Clinton Kelley, who lost her life to breast cancer. Guests included producer Doug Cramer, Victoria Principal, Jackie Collins and Christie’s International representative Terry Stanfill.

“I’d like to simplify my life,” Streisand said for the umpteenth time, trying to explain why she was selling some 600 lots of items, from furniture with stratospheric price tags to what Christie’s America Chairman Christopher Burge termed fun things, such as an ordinary club chair, estimated to bring $100 to $150.

“The earthquake puts things in the proper perspective,” the actress-singer-director-producer- composer said. “I lost a lot of objects and three chimneys, but I’d bought a little puppy from the Northridge Mall the Saturday before the quake and all I could think of was, where was the puppy? So while I love to be surrounded by beautiful things, they’re still things.” (The puppy survived.)

Acquisitiveness, or the lack thereof, is something many in this audience could relate to. “I understand it,” Cramer said. “You do hit periods in your life when you need to change. I’m selling my African art in the spring.”