Lawsuit Allowed to Proceed Against Warhol Foundation

Randy Kennedy of the NY Times is reporting a judge has allowed a class action suit to brought against the Warhol Foundation for fraud and other deeds in authenticating Warhol art. The AW Blog originally posted about this potential lawsuit at the end of March (click HERE to read that post). Film producer Joe Simon-Whelan brought the class action suit against the Foundation after it twice deemed the painting inauthentic. Simon-Whelan is claiming the Foundation intentionally declares Warhol art inauthentic in order to prop up prices of its own collection.

Kennedy reports Warhol’s estate determined earlier that it was real. Mr. Simon-Whelan maintains that beyond his case the foundation and board have conducted a 20-year conspiracy to inflate the prices for Warhol works — and thus the value of the foundation’s holdings — by denying the authenticity of a certain number as a way to create artificial scarcity. The board and foundation have denied the accusations and sought to have the suit dismissed. Judge Laura Taylor Swain ruled that Mr. Simon-Whelan had asserted his allegations “plausibly” enough for the case to continue to the discovery phase on many of its claims.

To read the full NY Times post, click HERE.