[MSN] Provenance Still Unclear, Possible Pollocks Have Been Sold.

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April 3, 2007
Provenance Still Unclear, Possible Pollocks Have Been Sold 
By RANDY KENNEDY
An announcement two years ago of the discovery of a trove of small drip
paintings thought to be the work of Jackson Pollock set off an uproar in the
world of art scholarship that has yet to die down. The paintings have been
scrutinized by connoisseurs, been subjected to computerized pattern tests,
undergone chemical analysis at Harvard and elsewhere, and deeply divided a
group of once-united Pollock experts.

Now questions about their authenticity may begin reverberating in the art
market too. The man who found the paintings, Alex Matter - the son of
Herbert and Mercedes Matter, close friends of Pollock - has quietly sold
some of them, though he had generally maintained in interviews that he was
not interested in profiting from their discovery. 

He has never publicly disclosed selling any of the works - 32 in all,
including some ephemera and works on paper. Twenty-five paintings are
scheduled to appear on Sept. 1 at an exhibition at the McMullen Museum of
Art at Boston College and will be the subject of an exhibition catalog
featuring new scholarship by Ellen G. Landau, one of the world's leading
Pollock experts. She has said she believes the works are genuine, though
recent scientific tests have begun to suggest that they are not.

Information about the sales came to light recently through the
Pollock-Krasner Foundation, which guards the legacies of the artist and of
his wife, the painter Lee Krasner. The foundation's chairman, Charles
Bergman, was told by the SoHo gallery owner Ronald Feldman at a lunch in
January 2006 that he had bought an unspecified number of the paintings
outright and owned some jointly with Mr. Matter, according to the
foundation's lawyer, Ronald Spencer. Mr. Spencer added that the foundation
believes other paintings may have been sold to two other collectors or
dealers.

Through a receptionist at his gallery, Mr. Feldman declined to comment about
the paintings. It is unclear how much he paid for them; it is also unclear
if he still owns any of them or whether he has sold any to collectors. Mr.
Matter, who is recuperating from surgery, referred questions about the
paintings to his lawyer, Jeremy Epstein, who said he was aware only that Mr.
Feldman had been serving as an adviser to Mr. Matter.

"I don't know what his financial interest is," Mr. Epstein said of Mr.
Feldman.

The foundation gave The New York Times a letter Mr. Bergman received shortly
after the 2006 lunch, in which Mr. Feldman referred to the "rapidly mounting
evidence and ever growing consensus that the paintings found by Alex Matter
are indeed works by Jackson Pollock." 

In the letter Mr. Feldman went on to express concern that the foundation
might be acting in a "prejudicial manner" toward the works. He wrote that a
"controversial cloud" hung over the paintings, but that the foundation could
"help Alex Matter 'correct the record' by publicly reaffirming that the
foundation is simply awaiting the outcome of a consensus which is currently
being formed by the experts."

In a letter of response Mr. Bergman disagreed strongly with Mr. Feldman,
writing that the foundation, based on evidence it had seen up to that point,
found "good reasons for profound doubts about these works." And for that
reason, he explained in his letter, the foundation had decided not to give
copyright permission to Mr. Matter or Mr. Feldman to use any images of
authentic Pollock works to accompany an exhibition or catalog of the newly
discovered paintings.

The foundation, which was formed in 1985 primarily to give grants to
artists, has become deeply involved over the last several months in trying
to determine for itself whether Mr. Matter's paintings are authentic. It is
a question that foundation officials said they believed was important
because of the sheer number of works involved.

An analysis by Harvard's art museums of three of the paintings, conducted
with Mr. Matter's permission and released in January, found that some
pigments used in the paintings were not patented or commercially available
until long after Pollock died in 1956. Mr. Matter and Dr. Landau have
questioned the conclusions of the study.

Recently the foundation learned that Mr. Matter had commissioned a forensic
scientist, James Martin, in Williamstown, Mass., to conduct an extensive
chemical analysis of many more of the paintings. But Mr. Martin has yet to
release the results of the study, completed last fall. In a February article
about the paintings in The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Mr. Martin said he had
decided not to release the results after being threatened with legal action
by Mr. Matter's lawyer, Mr. Epstein.

The foundation said it believed that Mr. Feldman was also involved in
seeking to prevent the release of the report. This, it said, is what
motivated it to release his letter to Mr. Bergman and to speak publicly for
the first time about Mr. Feldman's statements that he owned some of the
paintings.

Mr. Martin, reached yesterday, declined to comment about his study. Mr.
Epstein denied that he had ever threatened Mr. Martin with legal action but
did say that he had told Mr. Martin he was not authorized to release the
report because Mr. Matter did not feel that it was complete.

http://www.nytimes.com/