Court finds Peter Brant really does own Warhol’s Red Elvis

The Superior Court in Connecticut decided last month that the billionaire publisher and art collector Peter Brant was the true owner of Warhol’s Red Elvis. The decision ends a dispute that started in 2000 when Mr Brant bought the 1962 multi-image silkscreen from Swedish dealer Anders Malmberg, through the New York dealer Stellan Holm. Evidence given at the trial showed that Mr Malmberg had obtained the work by telling the painting’s former owner, Ms Kerstin Lindholm, that it would be loaned to an exhibition at a museum in Copenhagen. Instead he sold the painting to Mr Brant through Mr Holm. Ms Lindholm then took Malmberg to court in Sweden, and he was fined and sent to prison. Ms Lindholm also took Mr Brant to court in the US in an attempt to get the painting back. However the judge rejected her plea, saying that Mr Brant had bought the work in good faith.