Property from the Estate of Mrs. Anne Marie Aberbach

Best known as Elvis Presley’s music publisher, Julian J. Aberbach and his wife Anne Marie built a remarkable collection of modern art. As the founder of the music publishing business Hill and Range, Julian J. Aberbach together with his brother Jean helped propel stars ranging from Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Edith Piaf to international fame. While working with some of the period’s most renowned musicians, each brother also began to develop lasting relationships with a number of modern and post-war visual artists around the world. Themselves the sons of a successful jeweler in Vienna, both Julian and Jean spent time in Europe throughout the 1930s, where they became acquainted with the international contemporary art scene. After the war, Julian continued to make regular trips to Europe, where he later met Anne Marie. As early as the 1950s, Julian and Annie Marie had begun to collect pictures by various artists, not least on their regular trips to Europe.

Their unwavering dedication to supporting musicians was perhaps matched only by their shared interest in modern and post-war art, each accumulating significant collections and developing close relationships with several of the artists whose works they collected, including Henry Moore and Fernando Botero. Either jointly or individually, the Aberbach brothers donated works ranging from Francis Bacon to Fernando Botero, from Ellsworth Kelly to Willem de Kooning, and from Henri Rousseau to Georges Roualt to a wide-ranging number of institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Berkeley Art Museum, the Hood Museum at Dartmouth College and the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University.

In later years, the Aberbach brothers’ interest in art expanded enormously, and even saw them venturing into the dealers’ sphere. Reflecting their incredible business acumen, the brothers had marked success with artists as varied as Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Fernando Botero and Henry Moore. Julian also assisted artists in other ways, be it hosting Botero at weekends in West Hampton or by lending Dario Morales a Paris studio.

It was these worldly adventures that gave both Julian and Anne Marie a uniquely discerning taste in art that expanded far beyond the domestic scene in the United States. This international and varied spirit of collecting is evident in this season’s selection of Latin American art being offered across the evening day sales.

These works by Fernando Botero, Armando Morales and Sophia Vari were hand-picked by Julian and Anne Marie for their unique place in the trajectory of 20th Century art, and have been in the Aberbachs’ private collection since their acquisition.