Police: Man who allegedly slashed $3 million painting is son of owner

A $3 million painting slashed by a knife-wielding man nearly a year ago at an Aspen art gallery was vandalized by the son of the painting’s owner, according to law enforcement sources and court documents.

Nicholas Morley, 40, of England was charged Wednesday with felony criminal mischief in connection with the bizarre incident, and a Pitkin County District Court judge signed a warrant for his arrest the same day.

“He is the person charged with directly damaging this painting,” Aspen prosecutor Don Nottingham said Wednesday night.

Aspen police discovered records and video surveillance showing that Morley flew from London to Denver under an assumed name May 1, the day before the slashing, rented a car at the Denver airport then flew back to London two days after the painting was damaged, according to an arrest warrant affidavit filed Wednesday in Pitkin County District Court.

Morley’s whereabouts are unknown, Nottingham said.

The painting was slashed May 2. A man wearing sunglasses, black jeans, a black jacket, a hat and a full beard entered the Opera Gallery at the base of Aspen Mountain at 4:16 p.m.

He walked directly up to “Untitled 2004,” a massive painting by New York artist Christopher Wool, pulled a knife or other cutting tool from his jacket pocket, slashed the canvas twice, then ran from the gallery, surveillance video shows.

Footage from other cameras in the downtown core caught the man running east past City Market and disappearing into the neighborhoods in Aspen’s east end, police have said.

The painting was the sole item being sold on consignment at the gallery at that time, Opera Gallery owner Gregory Lahmi has said. It was listed for sale at $2.95 million amid other works in the gallery by Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali and Marc Chagall.

The incident prompted Lahmi to recall three phone calls he had received in the weeks prior to the slashing that were variously described as strange, suspicious and bizarre, according to the affidavit.

The first occurred at the beginning of April 2017 when a man called the gallery’s main line and asked if they had any works by Andy Warhol or Christopher Wool. The second took place April 16, 2017, when a man asked questions about the gallery itself, including whether Lahmi was alone, if the Wool painting was being exhibited, how a person would enter the gallery and if the front door was closed, according to the document.

Ten days later, a man called, asked if the Wool painting was still available and said he would be in next week to see it.

Aspen police soon discovered after the incident the painting was owned by Harold Morley, 74, of Barbados, through a trust called Fallowfield Ltd.

Harold Morley told an Aspen police detective days after the incident that few people in the world knew about his connection to the Wool painting. He also said he and his son, Nicholas, owned Fallowfield, a holding company that bought and sold art, the affidavit states.

In a subsequent conversation on May 9, 2017, Harold Morley changed his story and told the detective that Nicholas Morley was not a co-owner of the trust. Instead, he said “that Nicholas just took care of a few contracts for Harold when asked,” including the consignment of the painting.

Harold Morley also said neither he nor his son recognized the suspect in the painting slashing.

On May 5, 2017, Harold Morley sent a letter to the Opera Gallery stating that the painting “can be easily restored” and that he did not plan on filing an insurance claim. Further, he asked the gallery to put out a statement “refuting” an Aspen Times story about the slashing “and stating that it was only a minor incident,” according to the affidavit, which quoted the letter.

The letter also requested that the Opera Gallery staff “play the whole affair down as over enthusiastic reporting,” the affidavit states.

A day later, Harold Morley wrote a text message to the gallery’s manager, asking to “defuse any idea that the painting is destroyed or even devalued,” according to the affidavit. He said he wanted to block or remove online video of the slashing, restore the painting, sell it and “if asked by anyone we laugh it off as actually making the work intrinsically more valuable.”

Morley is charged with criminal mischief between $1,000 and $5,000, which is the lowest-level felony in Colorado criminal law.

The cost to repair the painting was between $1,900 and $2,500, according to the affidavit.