Jose Mugrabi


Jose Mugrabi is an Israeli businessman and art collector. He is the leading collector of Andy Warhol, with 800 artworks.

Biography

Yosef Mugrabi was born to a Syrian-Jewish family in Jerusalem. He grew up in the Mahane Yehuda neighborhood. His family managed a grocery store in Nahalat Ahim. They have two sons,
Alberto Mugrabi and David Mugrabi.
In September 2016, Alberto married Colby Jordan, daughter of investor Jay W. Jordan II, at the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes, France.
Mugrabi lives with his wife Mary in Trump Tower in New York City. His three sisters live in Israel.

Business career

At the age of 16, he went to Colombia to stay with relatives, and became involved in the textile business. Starting as an errand boy, he became one of the country's major importers. In 1982, he moved to New York, where he met art dealer Jeffrey Deitch and began collecting art.

Art collection

Mugrabi owns the world's largest collection of paintings by Andy Warhol. His art collection includes works by Renoir, Picasso, Rodin, Ernst, Daumier, Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons, in addition to 800 Warhols. Their art is stored in Zurich and near Newark, New Jersey.
The Mugrabis say they base their collecting model on Charles Saatchi, although he purchased multiple works of many artists and the Mugrabis collect only a preferred few.
In 2008, the Wall Street Journal reported on how the Mugrabis were said by several art dealers to be "doing whatever they can to keep Warhol prices high, including occasionally overpaying -- or overcharging -- for the artworks."
In November 1988, at Sotheby's in New York, he set a new world record for Warhol's work when he purchased "Twenty Marilyns" for $3.96m. In May 2002 he acquired one of Duchamp's Fountain Readymades for $1 million. He owns the largest collection of :fr:Philippe Pasqua|Philippe Pasqua's paintings.
In February 2020, Mugrabi lent items from his Jeff Koons collection to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art for the "Absolute Value" exhibition, which runs to October 2020.

Controversy

The Mugrabis, who live in New York, were investors in a Madoff fund and lost money as a result. The fund was backed by loans from banks including Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria and Nomura Holdings, which invested about $304 million."We had very little money with the fund – just under a million dollars – so I am not that upset personally," said Mugrabi's son Albert. "It was a very informal thing. We know Andrés since forever, from Bogotá, he’s a great guy, and he says to us, ‘This is the Madoff thing, he’s the master.’ I trusted Andrés. I still trust him."