Warhol Authentication Body Being Sued

Linda Sandler of Bloomberg is reporting that the owner of a disputed Warhol painting has requested a judge to allow him to question a witness. The reason is the continuing length of trial and the aging of members of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the authenticating body.

The owner of the Warhol painting, Joe Simon-Whelan has had the painting authenticated several times. It was originally considered authentic and then failed the last two authentication reviews . Simon-Whelan planned on selling the painting and wanted a recent authentication. The painting was returned to Simon-Whelan stamped "denied", meaning a fake. Simon-Whelan decided to sue the Foundation.

Sandler states of Simon-Whelan He alleged in a 2007 lawsuit that the foundation was running “a 20-year scheme” to control prices in the market for Warhol pictures, according to a filing in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

More than two witnesses have died since then while five are “elderly or in bad health,” Simon-Whelan, a London-based filmmaker, said in a letter obtained by Bloomberg News that was faxed to the judge yesterday. In the note, he asked Judge Laura Swain to lift her January 2008 order postponing sworn interrogations before trial.

“Many of the people involved in the creation of this picture in the mid-1960s are now in their seventies or beyond and we need to depose them,” Brian Kerr, a lawyer for Simon- Whelan at Browne Woods George LLP, said in a phone interview today. The letter was “an informal request to the judge for a conference on the matter,” he said.

Sandler continues It was twice stamped “Denied,” or fake, in 2001 and 2003 when he resubmitted it before trying to sell it for an anticipated $2 million, the filing said. Buyers of Warhol pictures often ask sellers to have his pictures authenticated, dealers said.

The trial should be an interesting one to follow. As we all know, scholarship over the years can change, and what was once though of as genuine can certainly change. Changing scholarship is a strong reason for documenting the effective date of valuation in appraisal reports.

To read the Bloomberg article, click HERE.