The New York-based Mugrabi family of dealers is considering a deal to sell its holdings of work by Andy Warhol to an unidentified sheikh in the United Arab Emirates, according to a report on Artinfo.com. The deal could be worth around $1 billion and the group would be displayed in a museum. Museum building has become almost a craze in the Middle East with rival countries vying to become cultural destinations; Abu Dhabi has recently signed a $1 billion deal with the Louvre. The Art Newspaper’s attempts to reach the Mugrabis were unsuccessful. However a source told us that they may be considering selling only about half of their entire Warhol holdings. The family has an inventory of about 600 works, foremost among them the iconic Twenty Marilyns, 1962, which they bought at Sotheby’s in November 1988 for $3.96m, setting a new world record at the time.
Originally appeared in The Art Newspaper as 'Mugrabis in Warhol deal with sheikh?'