Warhol groups accused in suit
In a lawsuit filed by a London-based filmmaker, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has been accused of manipulating the market for Warhol’s art.
Joe Simon-Whelan alleges that the New York-based foundation and the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board have controlled the Warhol market with “a 20-year scheme of fraud, collusion, and manipulation,” according to the suit, filed July 13 in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Warhol died in 1987.
Simon-Whelan’s Warhol self-portrait, a 24-by-20-inch silkscreen, was rejected twice by the authentication board, the lawsuit claims. Simon-Whelan seeks “to recover the value and reputation of his painting, which rightly is worth millions of dollars,” the suit says.
K.C. Maurer, the foundation’s chief financial officer, said she hadn’t been served with the lawsuit and declined to comment.
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