McWarhol Foundation V Joe Public

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In November it was announced that two separate but related lawsuits filed by private collectors Joe Simon and Susan Shaer (see Artlaw AM294 and 334) against the all-powerful Andy Warhol Foundation and its subsidiary the Art Authentication Board had been abandoned. Both collectors own an Andy Warhol Self-Portrait from a limited edition of a dozen silkscreens dating from 1964-65. The series was made from an acetate that Warhol gave to Richard Ekstract for a party to celebrate the artist's first video. After the party, Ekstract gave away prints from the edition to some of the guests. In a recent letter to the New York Review of Books in response to a letter from the Foundation's director, Ekstract wrote: 'The Warhol silk-screen self-portraits resulted from a collaboration I undertook with Warhol (who personally gave me the silk-screen separations with instructions for printing), which in turn resulted in the first documented public showing of video art by a recognized artist.' Simon, who …