Perelman Opens New Front in War with Gagosian, Wants Access to Gagosian-Mugrabi Transactions

 

Ron Perelman’s not done with Larry Gagosian. He’s launched a new line of inquiry with the dealer over a Twombly he tried to buy in 2011 that Gagosian said was for sale for $8m, then claimed had been taken off the market by a buyer only to become available again a few months later for nearly 50% more. Perelman says Gagosian was using Jose Mugrabi as a buyer of convenience. Now he’s suing to see all of the dealings between Gagosian and Mugrabi over the last four and a half years, according to the New York Post:

Perelman wants to see how other deals with the Mugrabis went down — and whether the Twombly sale was “manufactured to enable [Gagosian] to extract an unwarranted premium for the painting,” he says in court papers.

His subpoena demands that Gagosian and the Mugrabis hand over information about all of their transactions from January 2010 to today.

But they’ve balked at the inquiry, insisting it has nothing to do with the Twombly painting at the heart of the lawsuit. They claim the subpoena is an attempt to “harass” them.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Saliann Scarpulla, who is overseeing the case, has acknowledged that Gagosian “has enormous power to influence, and even set, the markets for the artists he represents because of his . . . access to the largest private collections in the world.”

Perelman wants the judge to order the Mugrabis to uphold the subpoenas.

Perelman subpoenas gallerist as lawsuit rages on  (New York Post)