Two sisters of the late, New York City-based modern artist, Jean-Michel Basquiat, filed a $1 million lawsuit against Christie’s in Manhattan’s Federal District Court on Tuesday, March 4. Basquiat’s siblings claim that the auction house tried to sell possible fakes and falsely suggested that a number of the works had been authenticated by the estate.
The works in question are being offered by Alexis Adler, Basquiat’s former girlfriend and roommate, and include poems written on scrap paper, painted clothing, a sketchbook, prints, and collages. The suit states that six of the more than three dozen items being offered were authenticated by the estate in 2007, but one was rejected because the committee did not consider it a work of art. The other objects were never submitted for the authentication committee’s approval. The lawsuit states that despite bypassing the committee, Christie’s included a notice in the auction catalog that the works being offered had been copyrighted by the estate. Basquiat’s sisters are seeking a court order barring the auction house from using the estate’s name in the sale.
The Basquiat auction, which is being held online and at the auction house, began on Monday, March 2 and will run through Monday, March 17.
Basquiat, who rose to fame in the 1980s, died of a drug overdose in 1988. His graffiti-inspired Neo-expressionist and Primitivist paintings remain highly influential in the realm of contemporary art.
