AND A LEGAL DEVIL SHALL LEAD THEM: Will The “Venice Collection” Send Pierce O’Donnell To Legal Hell…Or Austin, Texas?
“Those are attractive prices, no one gets hung up on authenticity since they will not hold the painting for long term, and the tax benefit is sweet.”
After reviewing the extensive documentation I’ve compiled, Pierce O’Donnell appears to be the ringleader of the Orlando Museum’s “Heroes & Monsters” fake Basquiat scandal.
How can I say that?
Easy — O’Donnell’s already dug a pit and filled it with his words.
Here’s a sample, taken verbatim from the exhibit’s official catalogue:
The Orlando Museum had touted its “Jackson Pollock and the Comstock Pollock: Newly Discovered, First Time Exhibited”, without revealing it was owned by O’Donnell.
The quid-pro-quo exhibition of the painting, originally titled “Pink Spring”, appears to have been shelved.
Here’s another O’Donnell gem, working that shovel in his attempt to downplay his white male privilege — which didn’t work.
Instead, O’Donnell filled the pit with “poignant” commentary about Thaddeus Mumford in an attempt to validate the crap origin story he used on behalf of the criminals he effectively was representing.
(And “gaslight” is one word, Pierce.)
Then O’Donnell uses the words of another crusty, old white man: 85-year-old art critic, Anthony Haden-Guest, in defending Toronto “art dealer” Talin Maltepe’s “close friendship” with convicted Basquiat forger, Alfredo Martinez.
Referring to the “Randall Smith Collection”, O’Donnell stated that “Maltepe told me that Martinez did not paint the works, and no one has ever opined that they are fakes.”
In these exclusive photos (below), posted by Randall Scott Smith to a public social media account, you see Talin Maltepe in the upper-right photo. Maltepe is flanked by art world hanger-on, Noah Beck, and Anthony Haden-Guest.
It appears Guest was paid to show up and offer his opinion, which is reproduced below.
Oh, look! There’s Gene Seidman in the upper-left photo along with Guest.
And scroll down and look below…there’s New York City art world hanger-on (and cuff link aficionado) Seidman with O’Donnell and Maltepe at the Orlando Museum of Art!
Wow…who knew.
Here they are: New York City art world hanger-on (and cuff link aficionado) Seidman schmoozing with O’Donnell and Maltepe in Orlando.
And finally, my favorite “Florida Man”, convicted felon David Damante (shown below, in the back room of Pierce O’Donnell’s favorite Las Vegas “art gallery” Art Encounter).
In my Medium debut on February 17, 2022, I broke the news that Lumsden (Lu) Quan, a Pierce O’Donnell client, played a pivotal role in a scheme launched by David Damante in 2017 to auction a “lost Basquiat” painting for millions.
The spluttering, blustery involvement of Los Angeles attorney, Pierce O’Donnell, in defense of the Orlando Basquiat scam prompted me to reveal what former Vice President Al Gore might call “an inconvenient truth”: O’Donnell had indeed crossed paths during 2017–2018 with Damante (and Quan) in Las Vegas at “Art Encounter”.
During the same time frame (2017) Scott Ferguson, Executive Director of Art Encounter, provided both O’Donnell and Damante with appraisal documentation asserting their “works of art were indeed created in 1982” and had “all the attributes of original works by artist, Jean Michel Basquiat.”
In my opinion, that was not an accident — just early evidence of a burgeoning criminal conspiracy.
And, in the final example of what British politician Winston Churchill called “terminological inexactitude”, O’Donnell makes one of his biggest blunders.
He claims he spoke to “the FBI” in May 2018 about David Damante and the fake painting, “Helicopter”.
“I also spoke to his attorney and the FBI. I believe the perpetrator was prosecuted.”
No, Mr. O’Donnell, I don’t believe you “spoke to the FBI”.
If you had, you would have been turning yourself in.
