Vanity Fair is reporting that the purported last painting by Jackson Pollock, which was scheduled to be sold at Phillips on September 20th has been pulled for further research and authentication. The painting, titled Red, Black and Silver had never been authenticated by the Pollock-Krasner Authentication Board, and it long has been a piece surrounded by controversy and questions.
According to the article, the painting may be auctioned by Phillips next year.
Vanity Fair reports
Source: Vanity Fair
Controversy has long surrounded the painting, which was never authenticated by Pollock’s widow and executor, artist Lee Krasner, or the official Pollock-Krasner Authentication Board, which evaluated works from 1990 to 1995. In various correspondences with Kligman and her attorneys over the years, the former Authentication Board members asserted that the painting was plagued by incongruity, and considered Kligman a self-interested party whose account of the work’s creation could not be adequately corroborated. (A representative for the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, attorney Ronald Spencer, had no comment regarding the painting’s removal from auction.)
Kligman, on the other hand, believed that she was the victim of an elite art-world clique honoring a personal vendetta against her on behalf of Krasner. In response to the Authentication Board’s stated doubts, Kligman and her team amassed a body of evidence to bolster her claims of the work’s authenticity: the painting underwent fractal analysis, pigment testing, and scholarly examinations. At one point, Kligman voluntarily took a lie-detector test—and passed.
When Kligman died in 2010, Red, Black & Silver remained unauthenticated. Her trustees and attorney approached Phillips de Pury & Company about selling the work. The auction house agreed to represent the painting but billed it as “Attributed to Jackson Pollock,” as opposed to “By Jackson Pollock,” with a price-range estimate available upon request.
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