Talk about a “rogues” gallery.
Two Manhattan art dealers — including the former longtime president of the prestigious Knoedler Gallery — have been accused of selling forged paintings, and concocting phony stories about their origins, by a group that authenticates the artwork of famed abstract expressionist Robert Motherwell.
Explosive court papers allege that Ann Freedman — who left Knoedler amid questions about the paintings’ authenticity — and Julian Weissman, a former Knoedler salesman, claimed the works came from “secret” and “private” collections, with one supposedly owned by a Kuwaiti princess and another “acquired directly from Motherwell.”
But the Dedalus Foundation, which was established by Motherwell before his death, says that the paintings all appear to be forgeries, with one board member calling them “laughable fakes.”
It also says Freedman and Weissman may have sold phony paintings purportedly by other famous modern artists, including Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock.
The foundation charges that Freedman and Weissman got seven forged Motherwells from a Long Island woman, Glafira Rosales, whose “husband or partner,” José Carlos Bergantinos Diaz, has “been accused publicly, as far back as 1999, of allegedly trafficking in forgeries.”
The stunning allegations came in the wake of a pending Manhattan federal court suit against Weissman for selling one of the “worthless” paintings to a European gallery, Killala Fine Arts, for $650,000 in 2007.
Killala’s suit also claims the Dedalus Foundation broke a promise to include the painting “Spanish Elegy, 1953.P.24” in a definitive catalog of Motherwell works to be published next year.
In response, the foundation is cross-suing Weissman for $9 million-plus for “negligent misrepresentation” for allegedly lying about the painting’s provenance in a bid to get it authenticated.
Lawyers for the Dedalus Foundation didn’t respond to inquiries.
Freedman didn’t respond to phone and e-mail messages yesterday.
Weissman referred a call for comment to his lawyer, Glenn Colton, who said Weissman “would not sell a work that he knew or believed to be anything other than authentic.”
Lawyer Anastasios Sarikas, who represents Rosales and Bergantinos Diaz, called the claims “a lot of crap.”