Warhol Authentication Board Under Fire - Again

David Leigh of the Guardian UK is reporting on Warhol authentication issues.  The disputed piece is a silk screen self portrait of Warhol with a red background. The silk screen was  recently offered to the Tate Museum by a London gallery.  According to Leigh, the Tate believes the Warhol is authentic, but has declined to accept the silk screen because of the controversy surrounding it. There are 10 known Warhol self portraits with a red background, and according to the article, all have had authentication problems. If authentic, the silkscreen could be worth $2 million.

The article details some of the dealings owners of these specific Warhol portraits have had with the Warhol Authentication Board.  There are claims of conflict of interest with the Authentication Board being linked to the Warhol Foundation which sells Warhol art and tries to maintain high prices and manage the market.  The thought process is that in denying true art as Warhol art, the oeuvre becomes smaller, and therefore more valuable.  The Authentication Board and Foundation have been accused of having conflicts of interest in the past so the recent allegations are not really that sensational.. The article is interesting and well worth reading for appraisers.

Nor is D'Offay the only British-based connoisseur to be stuck with an unsaleable Warhol. The famous set of 10 identical so-called Red Portraits have all had their authenticity questioned.

Invective is being hurled back and forth across the Atlantic as a result. David Mearns, a Sussex businessman and underwater explorer, accuses the New York body that pronounces on Warhol authentications of "conspiring to remove" all the red portraits from the market.

Mearns, whose firm Blue Water Recoveries discovered the sunken remains of the second world war British battleship HMS Hood, says his antique dealer father bought one of the same Warhols 30 years ago and his family has no immediate interest in selling.

But the authentication board contacted him "out of the blue", inviting him to submit it for an opinion.

It transpires, he claims, that its real intention was to destroy the picture's value by stamping "Denied" on the back, in a "premeditated and underhanded ploy".

A third victim is American film producer Joe Simon, who lives in London. Simon launched a lawsuit in 2007 after his hopes were dashed of selling his Warhol portrait for $2m. The board also stamped it "Denied".

To read the full Guardian article, click HERE.