SALON

Saturday, Mar 16, 2013 9:00 PM UTC

Cy Twombly’s estate embroiled in lawsuit

The late artist's foundation is suing his estate managers for overvaluing his work and stealing more than $300,000

By

Topics: Hyperallergic, Cy Twombly, Art, Painting, lawsuits, Legal issues,

Cy Twombly's estate embroiled in lawsuitCy Twombly, Untitled VIII [Bacchus], 2005 (Credit: Flickr Creative Commons/stëve (Steve Parkinson))
This article originally appeared on Hyperallergic.

Hyperallergic

Artists’ estates have their jobs cut out for them. The organizations have to manage artists’ legacies, watching out for forgeries, validating works, and preserving their reputations while organizing the physical detritus artists inevitably leave behind — collections, unfinished works, studios, and homes. As the New York Times reports, painter Cy Twombly’s estate has run into some financial troubles as its board members have been accused of misappropriating funds.

Two people who run the Cy Twombly Foundation are the targets of a lawsuit filed on Wednesday claiming that they took “more than $300,000 in unauthorized fees” for services rendered to the foundation. Those accused include art-world lawyer Ralph E. Lerner and Thomas H. Saliba; the two were accused by the Twombly Foundation president Nicola Del Roscio and vide president Julie Sylvester. Lerner and Saliba are administrators of Twombly’s trust, which includes paintings, drawings, and millions of dollars in cash.

Lerner and Saliva valued the artwork in Twombly’s trust at over $1 billion, an obviously inflated number, considering the cache included unfinished drawings and even a piece that Twombly had declared to be a fake (that one was valued at $350,000 alone). Lerner and Saliba hired an appraiser who didn’t physically inspect Twombly’s archive and worked only from a list provided by the board members.

The overvaluation “could destabilize the market for Twombly work by sowing confusion about its true value,” according to the Times. But Saliba is also accused of funneling over $300,000 from the foundation to his investment company, Saliba Managed Funds, in fees that the other board members did not approve. His company, strangely enough, is not registered as an official investment firm.

The conflict brings to the forefront the difficulties faced by boards controlling the legacies of modern artists whose works are escalating astronomically in value. As the financial reward for fraud becomes greater, the crime becomes more tempting.

More Kyle Chayka.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 1 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

Salon is proud to feature content from Hyperallergic, a forum for serious, playful and radical thinking about art in the world today.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Who is "Company Doe"? Corporations accused of wrongdoing win battle to keep identities secret
34 points35 points | comment
vote
"Slave descendants seek equal rights from Cherokee Nation": long, detailed narrative of legal and historical complications in red-white-black relations
32 points33 points | 1 comment
vote
Who is "Company Doe"? Corporations accused of wrongdoing win battle to keep identities secret
4 points5 points | comment
vote
Experts: Fox News spying scandal a game-changer - I think that crackdown is ideologically driven and I think it’s hard to come to a different conclusion given the vigor with which this justice department has gone after people. So I think it is about a method of control that is badly misplaced.
3 points4 points | 6 comments
vote
So apparently the American government can weaponize the weather...
4 points5 points | 2 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations