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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Squabble Over Archipenko’s ‘Turning Torso’

      PROVIDENCE, R.I. (CN) - Anthony Quinn's estate claims an art dealer couldn't back up its guarantee that it could sell the Alexander Archipenko sculpture "Turning Torso" for $350,000. The estate says it turned down other offers while the Provenance Group was trying, and failing, to sell the piece.

The estate of Quinn, who died in 2001, says it hired the New York City-based Provenance Group to arrange the sale of the sculpture for a minimum of $350,000, and that the contract had a "Third Party Guarantee: Provided by Provenance Group for the grand total of $350,000."

The Quinn estate also sued Skate's Art Market Research, owned and operated by co-defendant Sergey Skaterschikov, Index Atlas Group - all of them of the same Broadway address as Provenance Group - and Michael Moriarty.

The estate claims the Provenance Group agreed to find a buyer for the Archipenko piece and close the sale by July 1. But it failed to sell at an auction at (nonparty) Christie's, and "The Anthony Quinn Trust forewent other substantial buyers who were willing to pay $350,000 for the Archipenko sculpture," according to the complaint.

The estate claims that "Moriarty and Skaterschikov did not have any intention of providing for nor could they provide the $350,000 third party guarantee."

The estate seeks damages for fraud and breach of contract.

It is represented in Superior Court by Michael Kelly.

Alexander Archipenko (1887-1964) was a Ukrainian-born artist associated with the Cubist movement. He opened moved Paris and then New York, and became an American citizen in 1929. He died in New York 1964.

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