Signed Pollock collage a point of contention in ex-senator’s divorce

Kasser’s brother claims he owns the artwork, which he lent to sister

The contentious political divorce of the former state Sen. Alex Kasser is a little dicier with news that the multiple millions of dollars of marital property at stake in the split includes a signed, 1943 collage by the abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock.

The former Democratic Senator from Greenwich made her divorce from Wall Street banker Seth Bergstein political news in June by announcing she was resigning from the General Assembly because the strain of the breakup made it impossible to live in Greenwich. A year earlier, she revealed she is gay and had fallen in love with a legislative staffer.

The issue of the untitled Pollock as a potential point of contention in the divorce was revealed in a federal lawsuit by Kasser’s brother, Matthew Mochary. Mochary claims that the collage is his, that he lent it to his sister and her husband and that Bergstein now refuses to give it back. Bergstein disputes the claim.

The suit says Mochary’s parents bought the 16 x 21 inch mixed media collage — valued at $175,000 — from Sotheby’s in 1978. It says his mother, Mary Veronica Kasser Mochary, gave him the art in 1996 when he completed business school.

In 2016, the suit says Mochary “lent” the collage to his sister “to be displayed” in the

Bergstein’s $6 million Lake Road home in Greenwich with the condition that it be “immediately returned upon request.” Kasser moved out of the home when she filed for divorce two years ago, leaving Bergstein “in sole possession of the collage.”

Bergstein claims the Pollock was not lent, but was a gift to his wife and, as a result, is part of the marital property to be divided by a divorce settlement. In a federal court filing, Bergstein asserts that Mochary’s mother testified in a deposition that she gave the Pollock to her daughter and confirmed the gift on a tax return. What’s more, Bergstein claims his wife has listed the Pollock as personal property on three separate financial affidavits.

The question of who gets the Pollock is not likely to be answered immediately.

Mochary asked for its immediate return in his federal lawsuit. But U.S. District Judge Victor Bolden ruled this week that the question is more appropriate for the state Superior Court where the divorce has been pending for three years. Should the divorce court not decide who gets the art, Bolden said Mochary can resurrect the question in federal court.

First elected to the legislature in 2018, Kasser — then using her former last name of Bergstein — was part of a blue wave of Democrats from Fairfield County. Bolstered by a surge of anti-trump sentiment, she unseated Republican Scott Frantz to become the first Greenwich Democrat elected to the state Senate since 1930. She was reelected in 2020.

Soon after her election she came under fire when she acknowledged she was paying one of her aides out of her own money. She later said she was in a romantic relationship with the staffer. In an op-ed published in the Stamford Advocate last year, Kasser said she came out as gay more than a decade ago.

Kasser’s divorce figured prominently in her short legislative tenure and in her public statements about the proceedings. She was a prominent supporter of a bill passed this year that broadens the definition of domestic violence to include “coercive control.” Her divorce trial is scheduled for later this year.