When is a Warhol not a Warhol?
November 15 2013
Picture: TAN
Or rather, when is a Not Warhol a Warhol? In The Art Newspaper, Richard Dorment has unearthed fascinating new evidence on how the Warhol authentication board upgraded to 'authentic' a series of 35 works it once deemed to be not authentic. Briefly, the works in question are a series of paintings made without Warhol's knowledge by his printer, Rupert Jasen Smith. In 1991 these were confiscated by the Warhol estate and deemed to be 'not the works of Andy Warhol'. But in 2003 (against, Dorment notes, a backdrop of rising Warhol prices), the Warhol Art Authentication Board changed its mind - and then sold the works! Easy money...
More background on the case here.
