A collection of Michael Jackson's drawings is to go up for sale.
Joseph McBratney claims to have privately amassed over 100 drawings by the late 'Thriller' hitmaker - who died in June 2009 aged 50 - including sketches of The Beatles, the late Princess Diana, Abraham Lincoln and Charlie Chaplin, Bart Simpson, Peter Pan, Mickey Mouse, Snoopy and Garfield, and now wants to sell them to raise money to help at-risk children.
21 January 2016
He told the New York Post newspaper's Page Six column: "It's a big responsibility, I put this collection together.
"[I want to create] a non-profit endowment to help kids.
"It would be a shame for this beautiful property to be anything else but a healing property for suffering kids and adults who would never have the chance to be in recovery or treatment."
Joseph - who has also been known as Joe Brat - first began collecting the drawings after buying some of the 'Billie Jean' star's memorabilia on eBay, and was when directed to a Mexican woman by a dealer, who didn't speak English but said she'd acquired a number of the sketches while working for Sony.
All the pictures are signed by the star and the collector said he has had them authenticated by an autograph authentication service.
Speaking on behalf of Joseph, his adviser Jeffrey Gurian said: "Many people don't know that Michael Jackson, besides being the King of Pop, was also a talented artist. His mentor in the art world was Brett-Livingstone Strong, with whom he created the Jackson-Strong Alliance collection."
Joseph also wants to stage an exhibition of the drawings.
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