David Bowie's private art collection on show ahead of auction

Items of artwork belonging to David Bowie have been unveiled for the first time for a public exhibition before they are auctioned off.

The late singer and art collector's vast personal collection was largely kept private, meaning the Sotheby's exhibit and sale will be a first look into a previously elusive side of the musician.

Jean-Michel Basquiat's 1984 painting Air Power is the most valuable of the entire collection with an estimated price tag of £2.5 million to £3.5 million.

In 1996, Bowie described the painting as having "a burning immediacy to his ever-evaporating decisions that fires the imagination 10 or 15 years on, as freshly molten as the day they were poured on to the canvas".

The rock star - who passed away in January at the age of 69- bought the painting a year after he played the role of the artist's mentor and collaborator, Andy Warhol, in the 1996 film 'Basquiat'.

Other pieces available for sale include a spin painting Bowie created with Damien Hirst in 1995 called Beautiful, hallo, space-boy painting, which has an estimated value of £250,000 to £350,000.

Bowie was vocal about his love of art. In an interview in 1998 with The New York Times he said: "Art was, seriously, the only thing I'd ever wanted to own. It has always been for me a stable nourishment. I use it."

The collection is on display at Sotheby's galleries in New Bond Street in London between November 1-10. Three auctions will take place on November 10 and 11.