Months into their engagement, former New York Yankees player Alex Rodriguez and singer-actress Jennifer Lopez have been busy settling their affairs for their future as husband and wife.
They've recently listed some properties on the market including a New York City condo and Rodriguez's former bachelor pad.
And now, the 43-year-old is going the extra mile as he sells some valuable pieces from his personal art collection.
Selling Paintings
Rodriguez let go of an art piece by Basquiat (left) and one by Princ
According to Rodriguez's longtime adviser Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, who's also an art dealer, the former baseball star made the decision to sell some art pieces because he and his celebrity fiancee are committed to collect art as a couple.
The pieces in question are a 1984 painting by African American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat called 'Pink Elephant with Fire Engine' and artist-photographer Richard Prince's 'Mustang Painting'.
Together, the pieces are estimated to have a value of $6.5 million. However, they might still sell for more or less. The paintings are part of the auction block at London's Phillips auction house.
Rodriguez is mostly known as a professional athlete but not many people know that he's also quite the art aficionado. Aside from buying and keeping art, he's also known to interact with artists he admires and has even invited some of them to see him play during his baseball tenure. He's been collecting art for about a decade now and says that he's ready to start a 'fresh chapter' in his life and become art patrons with his future wife, Lopez.
A-Rod’s Collection
Some of the art pieces displayed in the bedrooms of Rodriguez's Florida home
Rodriguez's impressive collection is filled with works from 20th-century 'masters' like Andy Warhol, Basquiat and Keith Haring as well as pieces from more modern talents like Joe Bradley, Glenn Ligon and Dan Colen. According to the athlete turned art collector, he personally enjoys these artists and has even watched some of them work in their own respective studios.
A lot of these precious works are kept and displayed at his Coral Gables, Florida home. For example, he displays his 'Self-Portrait in Mirror #1 (Raina)', a piece by Jonathan Horowitz, a New York City-based artist, by his home's bar. Even his daughter, Ella's room features a blue heart-shaped artwork by Nate Lowman (pictured above). Meanwhile, house guests can sleep in a room where a 2013 Adam McEwen piece (also pictured above) hangs from above the bed.
A Ligon painting (left) hangs from Rodriguez's own bedroom.
Meanwhile, a painting called 'Figure #40' by conceptual artist Glenn Ligon, adorns a wall of the Florida home's master bedroom. The 2010 piece is reportedly made by a mixture of materials from coal dust to acrylic and is part of a series which Ligon made on a 1953 essay by author and activist James Baldwin.
Considering Rodriguez's already impressive collection, it would be very interesting to see which direction he and Lopez would take their conjugal art collection to.