While Michael Jackson’s music will come into focus through a blockbuster biopic set for the big screen this year, a lesser-seen part of his oeuvre, his visual art, could soon be headed to a gallery near you.
Jermaine Jackson, the singer’s older brother, revealed plans this past December to launch a touring museum that will debut in Monaco toward the end of 2026 as part of a biennial being staged there. First up for the traveling institution’s programming will be a 120-work show of Michael Jackson’s art.
“As well as being a stage artist, he was also a visual artist, a painter,” Jermaine Jackson reportedly said.
According to a report published by the Monaco Tribune, the museum has a 200-work collection and is being labeled a “Showseum” instead of an institution. MonacoLife reported that these works have gone “largely unseen, in a secure facility in Washington, D.C.,” and that they are worth $1.6 billion. The publication also claimed that the museum owns a $160 million portrait of Marilyn Monroe that Jackson signed alongside the Pop artist Andy Warhol.
MonacoLife also said that these works are not for sale, because the museum is about “sharing a legacy the world never knew existed, in a way that’s never been done before.”
Reportedly included in that collection are other works Jackson made in collaboration with Warhol, with whom the singer produced a set of portraits in 1984. One portrait was even featured on the cover of Time that year. Jackson also drew portraits of US Presidents such as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln; those works are also owned by the new museum.
The Monaco Tribune reported that the museum is “inspired by the Venice Biennale, with installations spread across several sites in Monaco.” (In fact, the main exhibition of the Biennale takes place at just two sites, though many other biennials are set across multiple venues in one locale.) Those sites are set both at indoor and outdoor venues.
The museum is now slated to open during the same year that the film Michael releases in theaters across the world. The film has been delayed times from its original release date due to legal complications resulting from still-pending allegations from several people who claim they were sexually abused by Jackson for decades prior to his death in 2009. The estate has denied that Jackson sexually abused his accusers and it has attempted to silence them.
