Grossman LLP | Four And Counting: Knoedler Sued Yet Again Over Sale Of Allegedly Counterfeit Painting
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  • Four And Counting: Knoedler Sued Yet Again Over Sale Of Allegedly Counterfeit Painting
    03/31/2013
    Knoedler, founded by Michael Knoedler in 1846, was for many years one of the oldest and most prominent American art galleries.  But earlier this year, amid reports of a federal forgery investigation focusing on Knoedler’s sales of artworks that—despite attribution to Modernist masters—have no documented provenance, Knoedler’s reputation has gone the way of its business (Knoedler shuttered its doors unexpectedly in December 2011).  The lawsuits followed.

    The first suit involved the sale of a $17 million work attributed to Jackson Pollock.  Before that case settled in October 2012, two others were filed:  one was brought by Domenico DeSole, the chairman of Tom Ford’s fashion firm, and his wife, Eleanore, over a $8.3 million work attributed to Mark Rothko; and the other was filed by John D. Howard, a Wall St. executive, over a $4 million painting attributed to Willem de Kooning.

    Now a fourth suit has been filed by the Martin Hilti Family Trust, a charity created by the construction tool magnate of the same name, claiming that a forensic analysis of the work “Untitled (1956)” reveals that a particular red pigment used in the work “was not developed until the 1960s, years after the purported ‘1956’ date of the work.”

    The four works at the center of these lawsuits all are alleged to have been sourced from a little-known Long Island art dealer named Glafira Rosales.  According to the plaintiffs in these suits, these four works represent only a fraction of the total number of artworks that Knoedler acquired from Rosales and then sold to unsuspecting collectors.  Time will tell how many more suits will follow.
    ATTORNEY: Judd B. Grossman
    CATEGORY: Uncategorized