Further information is coming to light regarding the scandal around New York's Knoedler Gallery.  The Upper East Side gallery abruptly shut its doors in late 2011, after having been open for 165 years.  The closing of the gallery followed hard on the heels of news that two former employees of the gallery were being investigated for allegedly having peddled fake artworks. 

Ann Freedman, former longtime president of the gallery, stands accused of fobbing off a fake Jackson Pollock to hedge fund manager Pierre Lagrange for $17 million. She stands behind the artwork. Meanwhile, former salesman and associate director of the Knoedler Gallery, Julian Weissman, wound up in court regarding a dispute over the authenticity of a painting supposedly by Robert Motherwell entitled “Spanish Elegy.” The Dedalus Foundation, an association founded by Motherwell himself back in 1981, has since declared this painting a forgery.  These events seem only to be the tip of the iceberg.

In a new twist, legal documents and testimonies are implicating that a number of other premier galleries may be embroiled in the Knoedler imbroglio, albeit unwittingly. 

Jaime Frankfurt and the Timothy Taylor Gallery have been named as intermediaries in the Pollock sale to Lagrange. The gallery Haunch of Venison has been mentioned in conjunction with another disputed work, purported to be by renowned Minimalist artist Barnett Newman.  The painting was displayed back in 2008 at its opening show and has ties to the same shady sources involved with questionable Knoedler Gallery dealings.

The Dedalus Foundation has spent $136,000 to have authentic Motherwell paintings tested scientifically, thus establishing, “a technical baseline for his artistic practice”, says Jack Flam, the president of the Dedalus Foundation. They are not the only ones to turn to forensics. 

As part of the investigation, the federal government is continuing to look into potential forgeries of works by other modern masters, such as Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Clyfford Still, Franz Kline, Richard Diebenkorn and Barnett Newman.

(Report: Christine Bolli for ARTFIXdaily)