The siblings of the late New York artist Jean-Michel Basquiat slapped Christie’s auction house with a $1 million lawsuit Tuesday, claiming an upcoming sale of his works may be full of fakes.
Out of the roughly 40-piece collection from Basquiat’s former lover Alexis Adler, the estate’s authentication committee was only presented with seven pieces for inspection, according to the Manhattan federal lawsuit filed by sisters Jeanine Basquiat Henveaux and Lisan Basquiat.
The committee rejected one of the seven works, the suit says. The members believe the $300,000 radiator with the word “Milk” painted across the middle was not done by Basquiat, according to court papers.
The suit says that, unlike with past auctions, Christie’s never bothered to submit the remaining items to the authentication committee because it knew the works were not done by the graffiti artist-turned-art world superstar.
“If the items in the catalog are not authenticated, they are virtually worthless,” the sibling executors claim in court papers filed Tuesday morning.
James Cinque, the estate’s attorney, said the family believes Basquiat did shack up with Adler, now a 57-year-old embryologist, in the East Village for a few months between 1979 and 1980, but they think the couple’s friends did much of the scribbling that’s being auctioned off as Basquiat originals.
“I’d like to know why Christie’s is attempting to sell these,” Cinque said.
The attorney explained that the doodling in notebooks was “clearly” done by different people.
“You don’t have to be an expert to tell that a lot of it is clearly not Jean-Michel,” Cinque said.
Adler defended the pieces, telling The Post, “I’m not sure where this is coming from. I have no doubt that everything will progress because the work is authentic. Nobody has ever questioned whether it was or not in all these years because they knew we lived together.”
The suit takes the auction house to task for using language in its catalog that claims the works are copyrighted by Basquiat’s estate.
That inclusion has the potential to “deceive and confuse” potential buyers into believing the sale is approved by the estate.
Christie’s auctioned off a Basquiat piece called “Dustheads” last May for over $48 million.
The Manhattan auction house did not immediately return requests seeking comment.