The visual art collection of A&M Records’ Jerry Moss, who died earlier this August at the age of 88, will be auctioned this upcoming November. The late music mogul’s assets include highly valuable paintings from Frida Kahlo, Tamara de Lempicka, Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso and more.
Moss co-founded the leading independent record label A&M Records alongside Herb Alpert. The label went on to influence and establish the careers of several top musical acts including Sting, Janet Jackson, Peter Frampton, Cat Stevens, Carole King, and countless more. Aside from his penchant for music, Moss was also an aficionado of visual arts and amassed a valuable collection over the years that will appear as a part of Christie’s 20th Century Evening Sale on Nov. 9.
“The Collection of Jerry Moss” will be presented across a series of touring exhibitions slated for this month. In total, the collection is estimated to earn $50 million, with partial proceeds going towards benefitting the Music Center.
Highlights in the collection include Kahlo’s “Portrait of Cristina, My Sister,” which is estimated to start at $8 million, and Picasso’s “Nu couché,” estimated to achieve between $10 million and $15 million. In total, 13 works from the collection will be showcased in a single-owner section of Christie’s 20th Century Evening Sale.
“The interest that [Moss] took in the artist and respect for their artistic creativity was at the heart of who he was and what he collected.He did not want to purchase something because someone told him he should,” said Moss’ wife Tina in a statement ahead of the sale. “Jerry believed that you had to have confidence in yourself to risk displaying your personal taste on the walls for all to see.His passionate interest, combined with a deeply rooted humbleness made him special in a world of luxury.”
“The Collection of Jerry Moss” will be presented across a series of touring exhibitions ahead of Nov. 9, with the first group of collection highlights being unveiled in an exhibition at Christie’s in London between Oct. 10 and 13. The second group will be on view at Christie’s in Los Angeles between Oct. 16 and 19. The works will then travel to Christie’s New York Rockefeller Center galleries, where the full collection will be on view from Oct. 28 through the day of the auction.
“The collection of Jerry Moss was like A&M Records… A wonderful, decades-long adventure united by taste, genius and personal bonds,” said Max Carter, Christie’s vice chairman of 20th and 21st century art. “Each of its portraits tells of an important and revealing love, whether of Kahlo for her sister, Cristina—whose likeness is the extraordinarily rare pendant to Kahlo’s first-ever self-portrait—Lempicka for her daughter, Kizette; Benton for his son, T.P.; Picasso for his wife, Jacqueline; Beckmann for the man on the street; or Warhol for the specter of fame.”
In recent years, Moss had focused his efforts on philanthropy, including a 2020 gift of $25 million from Moss to L.A.’s Music Center that resulted in the complex’s outdoor plaza being renamed after him. His last public event, in January of this year, found him being feted by the Music Center with a tribute concert at the Mark Taper Forum, where Alpert spoke, David Foster hosted and Peter Frampton, Amy Grant and Dionne Warwick all serenaded the guest of honor.
