Robert Motherwell and the curator Joan Banach in 1984. A Tug of War Over Robert Motherwell
New York Times
According to a lawsuit filed on Wednesday by Ms. Banach in State Supreme Court in Manhattan against the Dedalus Foundation — formerly known as the Motherwell Foundation — she was fired from the organization, where she was a board member and held various positions, because of authentication disputes about the artist’s work.
But according to a lawsuit the foundation filed on Wednesday in Federal District Court for the Southern District against Ms. Banach, she abused her access to Motherwell’s studio, stealing his work, some of which she sold for her own benefit in a breach of fiduciary duty.....
Motherwell, who died in 1991 at 76, explored literary and philosophical concerns through work that ranged from brooding abstract paintings to elegantly playful collages. His long and prolific career earned him a permanent Motherwell Gallery at the Bavarian State Museum of Modern Art in Munich, established in 1982, and the National Medal of Arts at the White House, awarded in 1989.
Ms. Banach was hired by Motherwell in 1981 “to care for, consign and otherwise manage his artwork,” her lawsuit says. Over the next decade she worked closely with him at his studio in Greenwich, Conn., .....
....In addition, the foundation accuses Ms. Banach of taking Motherwell’s work, including his Metropolitan Museum of Art sketchbook, home without authorization.
“She was observed surreptitiously returning these materials to Dedalus,” the foundation says in its suit.
The complaint adds that Ms. Banach, despite her role in cataloging the artworks, was “caught secretly trying to sell undocumented, unrecorded Motherwell works that have no studio inventory numbers and for which Dedalus has no records.”.....
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