Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
FBI investigates Basquiat paintings in OMA exhibit
The FBI’s Art Crime Team is investigating the authenticity of 25 paintings that the Orlando Museum of Art in Florida says were created by Jean-Michel Basquiat and are on exhibit there, according to a federal subpoena and several people with knowledge about the situation.
The paintings in the “Heroes & Monsters: Jean-Michel Basquiat” exhibition were said by the museum and their owners to have been recovered from a Los Angeles storage unit in 2012. The works were largely unseen before the show’s February opening. An article in The New York Times raised questions about their authenticity, reporting that a designer who had previously worked for Federal Express had identified the FedEx typeface on a piece of cardboard Basquiat was said to have painted on as one that was not designed until 1994 — six years after the artist’s death.
The paintings’ owners and the museum’s director and CEO, Aaron De Groft, say the paintings are genuine Basquiats, citing statements from art world experts commissioned by the owners. The paintings are set to leave the museum June 30 for public exhibitions in Italy.
FBI special agents have interviewed people in the art and design worlds, focusing on the paintings in the exhibition and on their primary owners, who have previously said in interviews that they were trying to sell the works. Those questioned include De Groft, according to two employees of the museum who were granted anonymity because they said De Groft has warned the staff that anyone talking to the media would be fired.
De Groft did not respond to requests for comment on any FBI questioning or on his instructions to the staff at OMA, as the museum is known.
In a subpoena to OMA dated July 27, 2021, the FBI demanded “any and all” communications between the museum’s employees and the owners of the artworks “purported to be by artist Jean-Michel Basquiat,” including correspondence with experts regarding the artwork. The subpoena, which has been reviewed by the Times, shows that the FBI has also demanded the museum’s board of trustee records concerning the paintings.
The FBI declined to comment on the investigation or its status. If authentic, the Basquiat paintings would be worth about $100 million, according to Putnam Fine Art and Antique Appraisals, which assessed them for the owners.