Word: rothkos
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...plaintiffs-Rothko's daughter Kate, 23, and son Christopher, 10, together with the New York state attorney general-brought suit in the fall of 1971. They claimed that the artist's three executors have conspired with Marlborough to "waste the assets" of the estate through "self-dealing." They also allege that some of Marlborough's consignment sales were not bona fide but rather a way of shunting the paintings through other companies at a low first price, so that the estate's share of the sales would stay...
...example, two Rothko paintings were sold to the Liechtenstein firm of Galleria Bernini (two of whose directors also sit on the boards of four Marlborough shells). The Galleria paid $140,000 for them, of which the estate received $84,000. But Mrs. Paul Mellon wanted those very Rothkos so ardently, Lloyd testified, that Marlborough bought them back from Galleria Bernini for a whopping $420,000 and then resold them to her for that amount. "Since the price was so high," Lloyd said with benign altruism, "I didn't want to profit from it." Yet if the sale...
Endless Speculation. The plaintiffs' next assertions were yet more startling. Rothko's much-traveled paintings went almost immediately back to Europe, this time by costly air freight. Ross thinks it significant that they were rushed back directly after the injunction against sales went into action on June 23. By June 29, Ross claimed, 19 of Marinotti's 20 Rothkos, among others, were in a warehouse in Zurich where, if they had not yet been sold, they would have been out of U.S. jurisdiction. In Ross's view, this haste suggests an intent to de fraud...
...funny thing happened, however, to 14 of Marinotti's paintings. They were included in a Rothko retrospective that toured Europe, finishing on May 8 at the Musee d'Art Moderne in Paris. But when the show closed, the Rothkos were shipped back to Marlborough in New York, rather than to their alleged owner Marinotti in Europe...
Till it reconvenes, the Rothko trial will furnish the art world with endless speculation. But in the meantime two things seemed certain: the trial will drag on for months after the defense opens in August, and when all the legal costs are paid, there could be precious little left for either Rothko's children or the artists he wanted to help...