Amid doubts about its authenticity
Orlando Museum: 25 works attributed to Basquiat have been confiscated
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confiscated the business.
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Jean-Michel Basquiat.
From the source
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The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has confiscated 25 works attributed to Jean-Michel Basquiat that were on display in Florida due to doubts about their authenticity, the Orlando Museum of Art said yesterday.
The museum that was exhibiting it complied with a request from the FBI for access to the exhibition "Heroes and Monsters: Jean-Michel Basquiat", and the works are now in the hands of the FBI.
The exhibition was scheduled to end on the 30th of this month.
The works in question, drawn on recovered packages, were not widely known before the exhibition opened last February, according to the New York Times, which revealed the FBI operation.
The newspaper reported that police confiscated the business based on a 41-page sworn statement on "false information regarding the alleged former owner of the business."
The investigation also revealed the existence of "attempts to sell works using forged documents on their source, and bank statements showing possible invitations to invest in unoriginal art."
The two owners, an art dealer and retired man, as well as museum director Aaron de Groft, claim that Basquia (1960-1988) painted it in 1982 and sold it for $5,000 to the late television screenwriter Thad Mumford.
According to them, Mumford kept these works in a storage room and forgot about them for 30 years.
But in the FBI document, art-trafficking agent Elizabeth Rivas explains that she met Mumford in 2014 and learned that he had "never purchased any Basquia works and was unaware of Basquia's work in his storage room."
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