Ousted Orlando Museum of Art (OMA) director Aaron De Groft has countersued the institution, alleging he was made into a scapegoat after the FBI infamously seized 25 Jean-Michel Basquiat paintings it believed to be forgeries from a high-profile exhibition. De Groft’s Basquiat countersuit still maintains that the works are the real deal.
“I am ready to talk and going to war to get my good name back, my professional standing, and personal and professional exoneration,” De Groft wrote in an email to me, sharing his counterclaim.
In a subsequent phone call, De Groft was steadfast in his belief in the paintings’ authenticity, and denied the museum’s allegations that he had any ulterior financial motives in bringing the suspect works to Orlando.
That De Groft still has faith that these are Basquiats is surprising. A Los Angeles auctioneer named Michael Barzman has confessed to forging the paintings rather than buying them at an auction of an abandoned storage locker.
The original owner of said storage locker was the late Hollywood screenwriter Thad Mumford, who purportedly met Basquiat while the artist was in Los Angeles in 1982 for a Gagosian show. But Mumford signed an FBI affidavit stating that “at no time in the 1980s or at any other time did I meet with Jean-Michel Basquiat, and at no time did I acquire or purchase any paintings by him.”
Nevertheless, De Groft’s countersuit—he is representing himself pro se—insists that he “was given no opportunity to present all the...
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