At least one person is not at all happy about the Warhol Foundation’s decision to dissolve its authentication board: dealer and collector Jose Mugrabi. “I have to sit down,” Mugrabi told the Wall Street Journal’s Kelly Crow when she informed him of the decision yesterday. “They have an obligation to finish their job.”
There’s a reason he’s feeling so faint. Mugrabi has a lot to lose if the market for Warhols goes off the rails: he owns at least 800 of them. Furthermore, according to the Journal, the collector has an astonishing 100 potential Warhols currently before the board. That number accounts for more than half the board’s remaining caseload of 175 possible Warhols. They better get to work! After all, they guaranteed to complete their backlog of authentications before shutting down. Whether Mugrabi will like the results remains to be seen, though. [WSJ]
Tags: Collectors, Jose Mugrabi, Warhol Foundation
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I’d sad when one reads something like this. It’s easy to be duped. Collectors are in their way innocents often don’t know which artists and works of are rae authentic or authentically worth the prices they pay. Hyped up artists like Warhol seem alluring when the work is medicore at best. (Wealthy) collectors would be better off establishing friendship with artists (who would know better and might be perhaps better advisors) when they the collectors go about making their acquisitions. If you collect what you love, what difference does it make? Whether or not it’s authentic work created by the artist but, “blue chip artists,” are not all that in the final analysis, often not worth the high prices that are paid. Aunthentic works by Pablo Picasso, Van Gogh and the like, now, those paintings are genuine.