Warhol foundation shuts its authentication board
But will continue work on catalogue raisonné
By Charlotte Burns | Web only
Published online 20 Oct 11 (News)
NEW YORK. The Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board will be dissolved in early 2012. The decision was announced by the Andy Warhol Foundation after a strategic review of its core aims, according to Joel Wachs, the president of the foundation. The foundation will continue its work in establishing the artist’s complete catalogue raisonné.
The closure of the authentication board means more money can be spent on the foundation's charitable goals, Wachs told The Art Newspaper. “It is a matter of priority, and our responsibility to Andy's mission. Our money should be going to artists, not lawyers,” Wachs said by telephone, referring to the astronomical sums that have been spent on legal fees defending the board's controversial decisions in the past.
The board was heavily criticised last year for spending nearly $7m defending an antitrust lawsuit brought by collector Joe Simon-Whelan, who accused the board of “engaging in a conspiracy to restrain and monopolise trade in the market for Warhol works”. Simon-Whelan also alleged that the board had denied the authenticity of a 1964 Warhol portrait he owned that had been widely accepted by other experts as a genuine work. Simon-Whelan dropped the case in October, saying that he could not afford to continue litigation. “Nobody was more angry than us [about] having to spend that money. It drove me nuts to have to do it,” Wachs said, adding that the not-for-profit board, which was formed by the Warhol Foundation in 1995, costs around $500,000 each year to run.
The Simon-Whelan case is not the only instance in which the board's decision-making has come under fire. It rejected a signed and dated work from the same series that had been owned by Warhol's former gallerist, Anthony d'Offay, despite the fact that the work had been included with the artist's knowledge in Rainer Crone’s 1970 catalogue raisonné. The dealer-collector had planned to include the 1964 self-portrait in the Artist Rooms collection of more than 700 works, which he gave to the Tate and National Galleries of Scotland in an unprecedented part-gift, part-purchase deal in 2008. The self-portrait, along with other works, was ultimately not included in the gift after discussions with the museums. The Tate told The Art Newspaper at the time that "we agreed with Anthony that it would be better not to include any work, the provenance of which might in any way be questioned. However, we ourselves have no reason to doubt the authenticity of this painting."
