Vandal who slashed £2m picture in gallery ‘is owner’s son’
AS ART mysteries go, this one is an old master.
A £2million painting part-owned by a British businessman is slashed by a razor-wielding vandal in the glitzy resort of Aspen, Colorado.
On top of that, the man suspected by US detectives of flying 10,000 miles under a false name to commit the crime is the businessman’s son – the other owner of the painting.
Police say Nicholas Morley, 40, strolled into the art gallery in sunglasses, hat and a pantomime-looking beard before slashing the painting.
The modern artwork is owned by Mr Morley and his father Harold, a 73-yearold former Manchester dentist who moved to Barbados 17 years ago, married a beauty queen and is renowned as the island’s oldest rally driver.
Now an American court has issued a warrant for Mr Morley’s arrest, but he is back in Britain and even ran in the London Marathon a fortnight ago.
Last night, Mr Morley – who made headlines in 2007 when he received a two-year suspended jail sentence after an elderly couple were killed when he crashed his Porsche 911 during a rally in Macedonia – refused to say if he would hand himself in. He denied the accusations and said he was just ‘trying to move forward with a quiet life’.
The riddle began on May 2 last year, at the Opera Gallery in Aspen in the Rocky Mountains.
Video footage shows a blackclad character slipping into the upmarket boutique and wedging a wooden block in the door to stop it closing. In his dark glasses and wearing a single black glove, he marches up to the painting – Untitled 2004, by US artist Christopher Wool – pulls out a razor and twice slashes at it.
Events took a bizarre turn when gallery worker Caroline Harris told police she believed she recognised the mystery slasher as Mr Morley.
The British businessman owns the painting with his father via an art investment company the pair run together. The painting was on sale at the gallery for $2.95million (£2.16million).
When police contacted Mr Morley by phone, he said he had not been in the US in May last year, according to the arrest warrant. But officers say they discovered Mr Morley, of Central London, had flown from Heathrow to Minneapolis-St Paul airport the day before the vandalism. He then allegedly flew to Denver, Colorado, under the name ‘Nikola Marley’. He rented a car and paid for a night at a hotel in Denver using a credit card belonging to his interior designer wife, Aleksandra Penkova.
According to the police statement, he then emailed the gallery, saying the video of the slashing actually appeared to show ‘an accident rather than malicious damage’, adding: ‘We kindly suggest that Opera… issue a press release that the incident was in fact an accident.’
His father also contacted the gallery’s director, urging ‘let’s be creative’. Mr Morley Snr wrote: ‘Since we are not wishing to make an insurance claim there is no reason why the recollection of the incident should not be eliminated as quickly as possible from staff and public… we turn the negative message of mad slasher guy, police, insurance wrangling etc into a positive attitude.’
He suggested trying to ‘remove and block anyone else watching’ the video footage and then repairing the artwork and putting it up for sale for $3.5 million ‘on the basis it is “famous”.’
Colorado police concluded there was ‘probable cause’ to believe Nicholas Morley ‘committed the crime of criminal mischief’. Last night Mr Morley referred the Mail to his Denverbased lawyer Ryan Kalamaya, who said the warrant was valid only in America and there were no extradition proceedings.
His brother Oliver, 47, told The Times he had not spoken to his brother or father for several years, adding: ‘I do not interact with them. Just family issues. I am not happy with their conduct.’
Mr Morley said via his lawyer: ‘Regarding the painting, I did not cause the damage.’