New Details Emerge from 'Document Dump' in Knoedler Case
- October 08, 2014 12:02
A "document dump" of legal filings and exhibits has made new information public in the multimillion-dollar art-forgery scandal surrounding New York's Knoedler gallery, reports the Art Newspaper. A week ago, motions were filed by the defendants--including, the gallery, its former director Ann Freedman, the head of a related holding company Michael Hammer, and former employee Jaime Andrade--to dismiss two lawsuits brought on by collectors who acquired fake artworks from Knoedler.
Collectors Eleanore and Domenico De Sole and John Howard refused to back down. They want their cases to go to trial and have accused Freedman of perjury “on multiple occasions, including before this court." Freedman denies the claims.
Among the new details that have emerged from 500 pages of legal documents:
-
Family members of Richard Diebenkorn told Freedman that some works did not look like they were done by the artist. The Diebenkorn Foundation asked Freedman to inform the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art that a work it bought would not be in the artist's catalogue raisnonne unless submitted for review to the foundation. Freedman refused.
-
E.A. Carmean, the former curator at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, questioned the provenance tied to David Herbert that Knoedler provided
-
After the Dedalus Foundation, which authenticates the work of Robert Motherwell, informed Knoedler in 2007 that some works were not by the artist, Freedman continued to sell them.
Freedman stands by her claim that she did due diligence as far as provenance research. Thousands of pages of filings will be reviewed in Manhattan federal court.
