MANHATTAN (CN) - A dealer of Edgar Degas bronzes claims in court that the founder of a hunger charity absconded with works meant to be raffled off to benefit Haitian earthquake victims.
The Degas Sculpture Project Ltd., a New Jersey-based fine art dealer, sued Global Village Champions Foundation, a Florida-based charity doing business as Mentch Investments, its founder Yank Barry and its president James Shelly, in Federal Court.
Barry says he was lead singer for The Kingsmen, the band behind the hit song "Louie, Louie," from 1968 to 1970, according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
Now the president of VitaPro, a purveyor of soy-based meat alternatives, he told the Herald-Tribune that his anti-hunger initiatives earned him back-to-back nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize, in 2012 and 2013.
The 18-page federal complaint abbreviates the plaintiff corporation as DSP and defendant foundation as GVCF.
It savages Global Village and its officers.
"Defendant GVCF is, ostensibly, a nonprofit charitable foundation with the stated admirable purpose of eradicating world hunger," the complaint states. "In the circumstances described herein, however, GVCF is in actuality an instrumentality of fraud utilized for the personal benefit of its founder, directors and officers."
In the complaint, DSP describes at length how it acquired the Degas works.
"As a result of DSP's multi-year research of an apparently 'new' bronze edition of Edgar Degas' famed sculpture, La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans ('The Little Dancer, Age Fourteen'), plaintiff, through its principals, discovered and purchased certain rights to a set of seventy-five previously unknown plaster casts made from Degas' original wax sculptures," the complaint states.
"In conjunction with the Valsuani Foundry in Chevreuse, France, plaintiff then arranged to have sets of bronze sculptures cast from these plasters for purposes of exhibition and carefully limited sale.
"These bronzes, master works of art, are commonly referred to as the 'Valsuani Edition.'
"The historic and cultural significance of bringing the Degas plasters to light and the commercial value of arranging for the bronze editions to be cast from the plasters cannot be overestimated.
"To protect the integrity, historical significance, public accessibility and commercial aspects of the discovery, plaintiff carefully restricted the timing, content and dissemination of information related to the Valsuani Edition bronzes and, similarly, set stringent conditions for sale of the same to any prospective purchaser.
"By way of example only, plaintiff restricted the private sale of Valsuani Edition bronzes to collectors who would commit to donate the sets to reputable museums, to exhibit them or, minimally, hold them from resale for a period of years."
Barry told Courthouse News in a telephone interview that art publications have questioned the authenticity of DSP's bronzes.
The Art Newspaper covered the controversy in a series of articles dating back to a March 9, 2010 story, " The silence of the Degas scholars ."
Two years after that story, the Art Newspaper reported that the scholars, silent no more, had announced a boycott against the Degas bronzes.
ARTnews reported on the issue in a June feature, " The Degas Debate: Analyzing the Controversial Plasters ."
Barry acknowledged that the press has not always been kind to him, either.