The forgery scandal at Knoedler & Company, the storied New York art gallery that closed back in December after 165 years in business, is more far-reaching than first suspected.
Collector and hedge fund manager Pierre Lagrange filed a complaint last month that the gallery sold him a forged Jackson Pollock back in 2007. The news came out amid dispute between the gallery and the Dedalus Foundation, which handles the estate of Robert Motherwell, after Knoedler sold a work attributed to Motherwell that was later determined to be a forgery. Now, according to The Art Newspaper:
“Legal papers and testimonies also suggest a number of leading art galleries have unwittingly been caught up in the scandals. Timothy Taylor Gallery and art dealer Jaime Frankfurt are named in the Lagrange papers as intermediaries in the sale of the Pollock. Court papers filed by the Dedalus Foundation state that Haunch of Venison opened its New York space in 2008 with a show that ‘put [a] supposed [Barnett] Newman painting from the so-called David Herbert collection in place of honour.’ The current whereabouts of this work is unclear.”
The Newman in question allegedly came from the same source as the disputed Pollock purchased by Mr. Lagrange.
Marc Blondeau, the art dealer that purchased the forged Motherwell and later received compensation, told The Art Newspaper, “We are facing a very serious problem, especially because markets are so overheated—historically, when markets are strong, forgeries appear. I was fooled—the works were an incredible quality.”