Insurance companies are refusing to pay a $19.7 million claim for paintings attributed to Jean-Michel Basquiat that were seized by the FBI from the Orlando Museum of Art in 2022. The paintings are believed to be forgeries, and former Los Angeles auctioneer Michael Barzman admitted that he and an accomplice made the counterfeit Basquiats. The owners of the paintings argue they purchased and loaned them in good faith and that they were insured as part of the loan agreement.
They filed a claim with Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and Great American Insurance Company, asserting that the paintings’ authenticity had nothing to do with whether they were covered by insurance. However, the insurers are asking a court to block the claim, stating that counterfeit works have no value. “Defendants do not have any valid claim to proceeds from this ‘loss’ since there is no loss to begin with,” the insurance companies said in court papers.
The owners are seeking to have the case moved to a federal court since the parties involved reside in different states.
Insurers dispute claim over seized forgeries
The insurers maintain that the case should stay in state court, where another related case between the Orlando Museum of Art and its former director, Aaron De Groft, is being heard.
De Groft was crucial in bringing the Basquiat exhibition to the museum and was fired shortly after the FBI raid. The insurers allege that the owners made “intentional or negligent misrepresentations,” claiming the works were authentic when they purportedly knew or should have known otherwise. A U.S. District Judge has ordered the insurers, the museum, and the owners to select a mediator and set a mediation date within the next 14 days.
The controversial exhibition closed abruptly in June 2022 after the FBI seized 25 works amid authenticity doubts, leading to several leadership changes at the museum. In 2023, Michael Barzman admitted in court papers that he and an unnamed forger had fabricated the Basquiat works in 2012. He also admitted to concocting a false provenance story, claiming the works had been discovered in a storage locker previously rented to screenwriter Thad Mumford, who allegedly bought them from Basquiat in 1982.