IF THAD MUMFORD WAS UNABLE TO PAY HIS STORAGE BILL, WHY DIDN’T HE GET THOSE BASQUIATS OUT OF STORAGE AND SELL THEM FOR SOME CASH?
Partial ownership of the artworks now lies with one of Los Angeles’s most prominent trial lawyers, Pierce O’Donnell, famed for successful litigation against a veritable who’s who of the city’s glitterati, from the actor Brad Pitt (on behalf of his ex-wife Angelina Jolie) to the former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling.
“I treated these paintings as a client,” the lawyer explained. “I believe I could win this case nine and a half out of ten times with a jury. I’m not bragging. I’m just saying the evidence is compelling.” He cited the various reports done on the paintings, and, like De Groft, the Mumford-penned and Basquiat-signed poem that definitively sealed his case. “That poem is so revealing, and Basquiat’s initials are on it,” he continued. “It’s autobiographical and you can’t make up this stuff, you just can’t.”
Pierce O’Donnell; February 16, 2022 New York Times
Well, that’s interesting.
One of Angelina’s divorce lawyers owns a partial stake in these unauthenticated Basquiats, and he says he can prove they’re authentic because he’s such a good lawyer!
As the circus known as the Orlando Museum of Art’s “Heroes & Monsters: Jean-Michel Basquiat, The Thaddeus Mumford, Jr. Venice Collection” prepares to pull up stakes early (departing a year before the June 2023 end of its originally-scheduled run), I have learned that Los Angeles attorney Pierce O’Donnell recently conducted a caustic, and at times acrimonious, exchange with a reporter researching the Mumford Collection’s “origin story”.
In this excerpt from O’Donnell’s exchanges with the reporter, the attorney outlines his argument:
“Two owners of The Thaddeus Mumford, Jr. Basquiat Venice Collection (Lee Mangan and William Force) met with Mumford twice in 2012 after they purchased his paintings from Michael Barzman, the auctioneer who bought them in May 2012 from the Los Angeles storage company (Ortiz Bros. Moving & Storage) that had seized them from Mumford’s storage unit for nonpayment of his monthly fees for several years. Mumford related that in 1982, Jean-Michel Basquiat and he became friends. Basquiat needed money for partying. Mumford agreed to pay him $5,000 in cash, and Basquiat delivered 25 paintings. Mumford decided to put them in a storage locker that he had already rented for keeping his Hollywood and New York Yankees memorabilia. Mumford told them he had forgotten about the locker. Mumford authorized the storage company to furnish the owners with the documents concerning his default on his storage locker payments.
On February 11, 2013, Mumford left two voice messages on the same day for Taryn Burns, a friend of one of the owners. In the first recording, Mumford recalled that while he was working as a writer on M*A*S*H and had money, he purchased the Basquiat paintings that came out of his storage locker. He also said that they were not his style of painting, but his friends convinced him that they would be valuable one day. In a second message, he verified his earlier message that the paintings that came out of his locker were his.”
(Note: in her “Declaration”, available at this link, Burns acknowledged the actual voice messages “are no longer available”.)
“On February 18, 2013, Barzman signed a notarized statement attesting to the fact that he had purchased the contents of Mumford’s storage unit (№2125) on May 12, 2012. He attached photos of Mumford’s television awards and his New York Yankees memorabilia reflecting his service as the first African-American bat boy. Barzman also attached copies of most of the paintings.”
“In 2017, the year before he died, Mumford spoke about the collection of paintings, confirming that he purchased them from Basquiat, placed them in his storage locker, and never retrieved them. That spring, Mumford had a telephone call with Talin Maltepe, a respected Toronto art gallery owner who was considering representing the paintings’ owners. As part of her due diligence, she spoke with Mumford.”
Now, that’s news!
O’Donnell continues:
“In her sworn declaration, Maltepe relates that Mumford told her that Basquiat and he:
“attended parties and night clubs together, and the two bonded because of
their status as successful Black artists. Mumford commissioned a painting
from Basquiat for $5,000 and paid in cash. Mumford told me that, in those
days, $5,000 was little to him and he was happy to help his friend raise
money. Mumford had expected to receive a single large canvas. Instead,
Basquiat delivered a whole bunch of works on cardboard. Mumford said that
he did not care for the paintings and did not want to frame or display them in
his home. On the other hand, he did not want to offend his friend, so he
accepted the paintings graciously and then decided to store them. He sounded
upset that he lost those paintings and that really convinced me that the
paintings were authentic since he had nothing to gain.”
(Note: although O’Donnell repeatedly refers to Maltepe’s document as a “sworn declaration”, it does not include the legally required “penalty of perjury” language specified in applicable state and federal laws.)
In her February 25, 2022 “Declaration of Talin Maltepe”, the Toronto native asserts that over “the last 35 years, I have represented and advised owners of un-catalogued, unauthenticated works of fine art attributed to various artists, including Basquiat.”
Maltepe continues:
“In my work as an art advisor and gallerist, I also developed a close relationship with Diego Cortez, who sadly passed away last year. Diego had discovered Basquiat and was instrumental in launching Basquiat’s career. After Basquiat died, Diego advised Basquiat’s father, Gerard, and assisted in setting up the Basquiat Estate’s authentication committee. Diego had served as a founding member of the committee.
I have asked Diego Cortez to review a number of works purported to be by Basquiat. When he agreed to review works, Diego was very careful to require payment in advance without any promise as to what his findings might be. In most cases, he determined that he could not attribute the works to Basquiat. I am aware of only three occasions when he certified the authenticity of un-catalogued works. The Mumford Collection is one of those three collections.”
However, Maltepe conveniently neglects to mention the “three occasions” include 2017’s “Mumford Collection: Borgia Trust Archive” (catalogue cover shown below), exclusively revealed in my April 4, 2022 post. In 2017, the year before she died, Torie Geisler purportedly had a trove of 25 paintings she’d purchased from a storage locker previously owned by Thaddeus Mumford.
Geisler enlisted the assistance of Talin Maltepe and Jason Halter to sell her “Mumford” paintings.
The Geisler/Borgia Trust Archive’s “LA ‘82” catalogue cover even used the same painting the Orlando Museum of Art is now using to promote its “Heroes & Monsters” exhibit.
The two remaining “occasions” were the “Smith Archives”, exclusively revealed in an April 22, 2022 post, and Jason Halter’s “Gray Matter Archives”.
The “Smith Archives” were purportedly “comprised of 95 works by the late Jean-Michel Basquiat, and comes from a collection of about 200 works that were collected and owned by the late Rupert Jasen Smith, master print maker and art director of Andy Warhol’s Factory, and friend of Jean-Michel.”
“The contents of a shipping container that was known to belong to Rupert Jasen Smith were liquidated in a forced sale in 2011. The container contents were known to have been the lost portion of Smith’s estate, long forgotten in an aircraft hangar in New Jersey, since 1989.”
Halter’s “Gray Matter Archives” include “Open 24 Hours”, a painting Maltepe has marketed as an authentic “Basquiat” for nearly six years.
More on this as it develops.
