By TRILBY BERESFORD | Reporter
When Sir Brett-Livingstone Strong was living full-time in Pacific Palisades, the Australian-born artist enjoyed a client list that reached from Fleetwood Mac to the White House.
He was taken very seriously when he proposed designing a 720-foot-high “art tower” in downtown Los Angeles. What people did not realize was that during these years, he was also Michael Jackson’s art mentor, helping the reclusive pop star express himself in wax pencil and water colors. And that Strong was storing the artistic output, estimated at different times between 80 and 160 paintings, in an industrial corner described by an associate as “not far from the Palisades.” There is also, reportedly, a Lamborghini and, even more excitingly for Jacko fans, a red leather jacket that may have appeared in the groundbreaking “Thriller” video.
Now Strong, who still has family connections in Upper Bienveneda, is preparing to rehouse the works. And, if tangled legal issues of ownership can be resolved, put works from Jackson’s highly colorful “Palisadian Period” on public display. Jackson’s works have reoccurring motifs, including chairs, keys and the number seven. “The art works cost a fortune in storage and security, and so they are being moved. And over the next six months, we may start seeing them in public,” an associate said last week.
The relationship between Strong and Jackson is well documented. In 1989 they set up a joint partnership to create art for children’s hospitals. Strong sold his portrait of Jackson, reportedly the only one for which the kinetic pop star sat, for more than $2 million to a Japanese company. Strong was close to the family: Jackson’s mother Katherine filmed a CNN interview with Strong in the industrial space. Debbie Rowe, a former Mrs. Michael Jackson, nominated him for a knighthood in the Imperial & Charitable Order of Constantine the Great and St. Helena. It charges $100 per year in dues.
Strong was famed before his friendship with Jackson emerged. He broke through in 1977 when he carved John Wayne’s face in a boulder that had fallen onto PCH in Malibu: It’s now at Lubbock Christian University in Texas. He was commissioned by former Chief Justice Warren E. Burger to create a monument to the U.S. Constitution, to be sited in the White House garden. Fleetwood Mac asked him to paint the cover of their album “Tango in the Night.” His bronze statue of John Lennon was unveiled in New York by Andy Warhol. But Strong’s scheme to build a $3 billion art park with a giant angel waving a blazing sword over Los Angeles ended up in Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Today, facing further family and legal issues, and spending time in Brentwood, he is sorting out the Jackson legacy. Strong maintains he owns all the works, yet still could face further negotiations with Jackson estate attorneys before they see the light of day. Yet fan curiosity about such artifacts, described as “sunny as the Palisades,” will remain undiminished.
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