Onetime friends and business partners, powerhouse art dealer Larry Gagosian and billionaire collector Ronald O. Perelman have been involved in a bitter legal battle since September 2012. On January 25, 2013 Gagosian asked a New York judge to dismiss the case, which accuses him of using his high standing in the art world to arrange secret deals and influence art prices; Gagosian claims that the lawsuit is frivolous.
The ongoing clash started last year when Perelman purchased Jeff Koons’ (b. 1955) $4 million Popeye sculpture from Gagosian along with two other works said to be a Cy Twombly (1928-2011) painting and a Richard Serra (b. 1939) sculpture. Perelman paid for Koons’ oversize granite sculpture in full, but decided to cancel the deal when the work took longer than expected to complete. Since the value of Koons’ work is constantly on the rise, Perelman insisted that Gagosian owed him $12 million rather than the $4 million he initially paid for the unfinished work.
In his lawsuit, Perelman claimed that Gagosian had a secret agreement with Koons to redirect most of the profit from Popeye’s resale away from Perelman and towards Koons. The sculpture in question was ultimately sold to an unnamed buyer for $4.5 million and Gagosian gave $4.25 million of that back to Perelman, a fact Gagosian pointed out in court on Friday. Gagosian also claimed that Perelman refused to pay the agreed-upon price for the Twombly and Serra works, insisting that he would compensate for the debt he accumulated by giving Gagosian a number of artworks from his collection that he no longer wanted. Rather than benefitting from the deal as Perelman asserts, Gagosian said that he has lost $1.8 million so far.
While Perelman maintains that Gagosian is dishonest and deceitful in his dealings, Gagosian claims that the lawsuit is simply a way for his former friend to mar his name. Perelman’s side has made subpoenas as the battle continues.
