One of the major lawsuits in the Knoedler scandal was settled last month. The hedge-fund manager Pierre Lagrange (right) originally filed a federal complaint against the now-defunct Knoedler Gallery and its former director Ann Freedman in December over an allegedly fake $17m painting by Jackson Pollock. The three parties filed to dismiss the case in federal court last month. Details of the settlement remain confidential.
Several other suits, however, remain unresolved. Knoedler sold more than two dozen paintings from the collection of the previously little-known Long Island art dealer Glafira Rosales, who is now under federal investigation.
A new case was filed last month against Julian Weissman, a former associate director at Knoedler. He is accused of selling a fake Robert Motherwell painting to Sheikha Paula Al-Sabah of Kuwait in 2004 for $350,000. The sheikha is seeking $3m in damages for fraud.
Knoedler Gallery and Freedman are two of the defendants in a suit filed in March by the chairman of Tom Ford International, Domenico De Sole, and his wife, who claim they were sold a fake Mark Rothko painting for $8.3m in 2004. The couple is seeking at least $25m in damages for fraud and racketeering.
In a separate case, the Wall Street financier John Howard claims that the gallery, Freedman, Rosales and others conspired to sell him a fake Willem de Kooning painting for $4m. He is seeking $3.5m plus treble damages for fraud and racketeering.
Originally appeared in The Art Newspaper as 'Knoedler saga rumbles on'
