FBI Investigates Whether These 25 Works by Jean-Micheal Basquiat Are Fake

The late Jean-Michel Basquiat has gone from a celebrated visionary to a sought-after brand. From $85 million sales at auction to the use of his Equals Pi in a Tiffany ad, the commodification of the artist who epitomized downtown NYC cool is inescapable—sometimes to the chagrin of those who knew him during his all-too-brief life. As the artist’s oeuvre is loaded with both cultural cache and commercial value, it was perhaps inevitable that someone would eventually be accused of cashing in on the hype with a series of fakes, which might be what has recently happened. On July 27, 2021, the FBI’s Art Crime Team issued a subpoena to the Orlando Museum of Art (OMA), then in the process of organizing “Heroes & Monsters: Jean-Michel Basquiat,” regarding the potentially dubious authenticity of 25 works the museum intended to display. If the paintings are conclusively deemed legitimate at the end of the ongoing investigation, assessments indicate the pieces would be collectively worth about $100 million.

The owners of the paintings and OMA chief executive Aaron De Groft see the paintings as authentic Basquiats, with experts commissioned by the owners providing statements that vouch for their provenance. As the story goes, Basquiat’s paintings on salvaged cardboard date to the artist’s time working out of a studio at the home of L.A.-based art dealer Larry Gagosian, in 1982. Basquiat sold those paintings to TV writer Thad Mumford for $5,000, who placed them in a storage locker. There, they sat forgotten for 30 years until the repossessed unit was purchased at auction by William Force and Lee Mangin for $15,000, in 2012, several years before Mumford’s death.

Beyond the fact that Gagosian himself “finds the scenario of the story highly unlikely,” The New York Times cites sources ranging from friends of Mumford to independent experts, all with their own reasons to regard the provenance of these works with suspicion. One important piece of evidence is that according to Lindon Leader, an independent brand expert who helped redesign FedEx’s logo and typeface, the backside of at least one of the cardboard paintings features a font not used by the shipping company until 1994—six years after Basquiat’s death. De Groft has since countered that FedEx has used a variety of fonts since the 1980s, though Leader regards this claim as “ridiculous”.

Despite allowing the Basquiat collection to lay untouched and unclaimed for 30 years, The New York Times observes that owner Lee Mangin stated in an interview that Mumford commemorated the acquisition by typing and printing a poem initialled by Basquiat. Described by De Groft as “almost like a receipt [that] refers to the works [and] the inscriptions in the works,” the poem is displayed within the exhibition where it serves as a linchpin of authentication.