Crone: Warhol’s History Distorted by His Estate and Authentication Board

For those of you following the ongoing debate concerning the authentication (or non-authentication) of Warhol works, you may be interested in this letter written to the New York Review of Books by art historian, Rainer Crone. His letter is in response to an article in last October’s NY Review of Books by Richard Dorment.

As a scholar of art and film history, I believe that my close and exclusive cooperation with Warhol gives me the authority and the right to make official and public statements about the authenticity of the artist’s conceptual intentions and his technique of art-making[.] …I was shocked and appalled to learn how the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts (est. 1987) and the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board, Inc. (est. 1995) are operating blatantly for their own self-interested purposes, ignoring by doing so Warhol’s artistic innovations, which are unique in the history of Western art since the Renaissance. … Irritating—how history can be distorted by pure and plain commercial interests!

The entire letter may be accessed here.  Thanks to Jane for sending this along!