Moderna Museet’s Warhol Brillo Boxes Are Fake
Six wooden Brillo boxes in the collection of a Swedish museum are fakes that were made in 1990, three years after Warhol died, the New York Times reported (via the Associated Press) on Saturday. The Moderna Museet in Stockholm said it had investigated the six Brillo boxes, donated in 1995 by its former director, Pontus Hultén, after a Swedish newspaper claimed that they were copies. In a letter to the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board in New York, the museum director, Lars Nittve, confirmed the claims. “These boxes are not authorized by the artist and should be removed from the official list of Andy Warhol Brillo boxes,” Nittve wrote. The Swedish paper Expressen reported in June that Hultén, who was director of the museum in the 1960s and the Pompidou Center in Paris in the 1970s and 1980s, had Swedish carpenters build 105 copies of the box for an exhibition in Russia in 1990. Expressen claimed that Hultén, who died last year, sold a number of the copies with certificates falsely stating that they were made for a Warhol exhibition in Stockholm in 1968. Be Warned!
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Raw art Weblog- Royal Academy of Arts to show “The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters”In January 2010, the Royal Academy of Arts will stage a landmark exhibition of the work of Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890). The focus of the exhibition will be the artist’s remarkable correspondence. Over 35 original letters, rarely exhibited to the public due to their fragility, will be on display in the main galleries of Burlington [...]
- Royal Academy of Arts to show “The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters”
Andy Warhol Controvery
The following information is included in the $20 million dollar plus $100 million damages lawsuit filed by filmmaker Joe Simon. .
What has been omitted from the press articles, which are growing by the minute, is the fact that both the co-curator for the museum show. Olle Granath, a curator at the Museem Modern in Sweden , and Paul Morrissey publicly stated that the sculptures were not real and yet this information was ignored by the warhol authentication board and foundation. The boxes were submitted to the board for the first time in 1995, while Lord Palumbo was director of the foundation. Lord Palumbo and others close to the board own several of these boxes which is acknowledged in the warhol catalogue raisonne part 2, (page 81) These boxes were estimated by Christies at $150-$200,000 each, giving the 105 an approx value of $21,000,000.
The point being that the board and foundation refuse to acknowledge information by those closest to Warhol and who were actually there, but rely on information given to them by dealers while those closest to them seem to profit. This is the crux of the class action lawsuit launched by Joe Simon. The board refuse to acknowledge the testimony of Paul Morrissey( warhol’s manager and filmmaker who recently sold the Montauk home he shared with Warhol for approx $30 million dollars and others who were close to the artist, preferring to acknowledge the testimony of favored dealers who stand to profit.
A source close to Warhol sent this comment: The news media has been pussy-footing
for too long handling art corruption with kid gloves. The time is now
for the media to take off the gloves and reveal the corruption & lies
which lurk beneath the veneer & vanity of what passes off as “art.”
Joe Simon has been steadfast & relentless in his pursuit for
justice and I know he will be even more relentless as time goes on.
http://www.myandywarhol.com
A rather novel way of raising awareness and fighting funds to battle a massive corporation.
This website is about Joe Simon’s $120 million dollar battle with the Warhol foundation, their dealer Vincent Fremont and its arm the mysterious and evasive Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board Inc.
Instead of buying a house, Joe Simon bought a 1960’s Warhol. Signed, authenticated by the artist’s estate and foundation before being defaced by a group without first hand knowledge of Warhol or his working methods. If authentication is so unstable, who is going to invest in art?
You make up your own mind, go into the site, read the evidence which has been accumulated, weigh the testimony of Warhol’s friends, colleagues and studio assistants who were there in the early days and who have a thorough knowledge of Warhol’s working methods in general and this portrait in particular.