{"id":41726,"date":"2016-12-07T12:02:57","date_gmt":"2016-12-07T11:02:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/?p=41726"},"modified":"2016-12-07T12:02:57","modified_gmt":"2016-12-07T11:02:57","slug":"michael-jackson-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/michael-jackson-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Die K\u00fcnstler hinter Michael Jackson's exzentrischer Portr\u00e4tsammlung"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\"Ralph Ralph Wolfe Cowan\u2019s first abstract portrait of Michael Jackson from 1993 and “Michael” by David Nordahl. Images from starcasm.com<\/p>\n

 
\nThroughout his life, Michael Jackson<\/a> spent a good chunk of his wealth amassing\u00a0quite the interesting art collection. In addition to elaborate\u00a0chess sets and ornamental lamps, the king of pop\u00a0also had a penchant for collecting commissioned paintings of himself. The singer, who battled publicly with his self-image for his entire life, contracted a number of artists to make these bizarre paintings, which depict him as his favourite fabled characters. Many of these vanity artworks can be seen in\u00a0“The Official Michael Jackson Opus: The Ultimate Celebration of an Icon”, an artbook that includes pieces\u00a0by David Nordahl, Ralph Wolfe Cowan, Nate Giorgio, C\u00e9line Lavail and Leon Jones.
\nDavid Nordahl thought he was being pranked when he received a phone call requesting a portrait. Convinced only when Jackson described in detail a recent painting he had seen by him in Steven Spielberg\u2019s office, the artists met and a partnership was formed. Quickly becoming Michael Jackson\u2019s personal portraitist, David Nordahl spent nearly two decades illustrating the star. He created large-scale images showing Jackson as Peter Pan and Michelangelo\u2019s \u201cDavid\u201d as well as painting \u201cField of Dreams\u201d, which showed Jackson among children of all ethnicities (including his sister, Janet, and his friend Macaulay Culkin).
\n <\/p>\n

“‘Hello, this is Michael. I don\u2019t like dogs,’ he said in a soft, gentle voice. ‘I like monkeys.'” – Ralph Wolfe Cowan<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 
\n <\/p>\n

\"\u201cThe \u201cThe Storyteller\u201d by David Nordahl. Image from hhhhappy.com<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“He lived in a fantasy world and if he didn\u2019t like something, you felt as if he could behead you. But the way he does it is by not calling you again. And somewhere along the line he stopped calling me and I thought I had been beheaded.\u201d – Ralph Wolfe Cowan<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 
\nAnother man skeptical on approach was the self-taught artist, Leon Jones. His chance encounter with a member of Michael Jackson\u2019s staff when airbrushing on the streets of Orlando led him to create two large murals for the Neverland train depot. With each piece towering at\u00a015 feet high, the project took months to complete. The finished products show Jackson in knight\u2019s armour and angel wings, surrounded by a sea of angelic youth.
\nPortsmouth-based artist Ralph Wolfe Cowan painted four portraits of Jackson \u2013 three of which were commissioned. One of the abstract portraits, which featured Jackson once again in a suit of armour, also included his pet monkey, Bubbles, and a few German Shepherds.\u00a0\u201cWhen I painted it, I had these dogs down in the bottom somewhere. German shepherds,” Wolfe Cowan said.<\/a> “Michael Jackson called up his curator, who called the guy at the gallery, who called my business manager Steve (Mohler), and Steve told me Michael didn\u2019t want the dogs in there. ‘Hello, this is Michael. I don\u2019t like dogs,’ he said in a soft, gentle voice. ‘I like monkeys.'” Upon relaying the message that he didn\u2019t like dogs, Jackson paid $30,000 for the painting (sans the German Shepherds) before the pair\u2019s working relationship ceased. “He lived in a fantasy world and if he didn\u2019t like something, you felt as if he could behead you,” said Cowen. “But the way he does it is by not calling you again. And somewhere along the line he stopped calling me and I thought I had been beheaded.\u201d
\nThe constant media attention surrounding Jackson<\/a> oftentimes led to havoc in the\u00a0spotlight. However, commissioning these works allowed him to reimagine\u00a0his however he wanted. An attempt to skew the preconceived notions, these paintings allowed Jackson to be in control of his own likeness.
\n <\/p>\n

\""Camelot" “Camelot” by David Nordahl. Image from hhhhappy.com<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The king of pop commissioned a plethora of artworks in his image that were nothing short of special<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41736,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11856,139],"tags":[6947,6948,6949,3641,6950,3391,6867,6951,6598,6952],"class_list":["post-41726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sleek-art","category-art","tag-celine-lavail","tag-david-nordahl","tag-leon-jones","tag-michael-jackson","tag-nate-giorgio","tag-pop-culture","tag-portraits","tag-ralph-wolfe-cowan","tag-self-portraits","tag-the-official-michael-jackson-opus-the-ultimate-celebration-of-an-icon"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Artists Behind Michael Jackson's Eccentric Portrait Collection The Artists Behind Michael Jackson's Eccentric Portrait Collection<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/michael-jackson-art\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"de_DE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Artists Behind Michael Jackson's Eccentric Portrait Collection The Artists Behind Michael Jackson's Eccentric Portrait Collection\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The king of pop commissioned a plethora of artworks in his image that were nothing short of special\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/michael-jackson-art\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sleek Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sleekmag\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-12-07T11:02:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@sleekmag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@sleekmag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Verfasst von\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"sleek\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Gesch\u00e4tzte Lesezeit\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3\u00a0Minuten\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/\",\"name\":\"Sleek Magazine\",\"description\":\"Sleek is Germany\u2019s leading independent media house\/brand for creativity and innovation located in Berlin the creative capital of the world. 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