The New York Post has some details on the battle between galleries over ceramics by nonagenarian Chinese artist Chu Teh-Chun:
Enrico Navarra yesterday slapped the prestigious Midtown Marlborough Gallery with a suit charging it mounted a “smear campaign” against his business.
Navarra claims Marlborough is behind a “plot” to deny the authenticity of more than 1,200 ceramic plates designed by famed Chinese artist Chu Teh-Chun and financed by Navarra and his Parisian business.
Chu signed off on the last of 24 different designs in 2004, with minimum sale prices set at 1,300 to 1,400 euros, court papers say.
The plates “were a great artistic and commercial success,” Navarra says — “until Marlborough entered the picture.”
After the gallery mounted a show of Chu’s paintings in 2006, it commissioned its own series of ceramics from the Paris-based artist: 57 hand-painted vases “that Marlborough planned to market for close to $200,000 each.”
But Navarra says his plates “were a barrier to Marlborough’s . . . commercial ambitions,” because while “the market for such works is global, it is too small to absorb the supply.”
Gallery Dishes the Dirt (NY Post)
