Six Brillo boxes in the Andy Warhol collection at a Swedish museum are fakes made in 1990, three years after the famed pop artist died, the museum said Friday.
Warhol created the original Brillo boxes, replicas of Brillo soap pad cartons, as part of a 1964 exhibition displaying artwork resembling supermarket products.
The Moderna Museet in Stockholm said it had investigated the authenticity of its six wooden Brillo boxes, donated by its former head, Pontus Hulten, in 1995, after a Swedish newspaper claimed they were all copies.
In a letter to the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board in New York, museum director Lars Nittve confirmed the claims.Â
"These boxes are not authorized by the artist and should be removed from the official list of Andy Warhol Brillo boxes," Nittve wrote in the letter.
The Swedish tabloid Expressen reported in June that Hulten — the head of the Modern Museum in Stockholm in the 1960s and of the Centre Pompidou in Paris in the 1970s and 1980s — had Swedish carpenters build 105 copies of the Warhol Brillo box for an exhibition in Russia in 1990.
Expressen claimed that Hulten, who died last year, then sold a number of the copies with certificates falsely stating they were made for a Warhol exhibition in Stockholm in 1968.
The report prompted the museum to launch an internal investigation, examining its six Brillo boxes as well as four others belonging to private collectors.
All six of the museum's boxes and one of those held by private collectors "should be seen as copies/exhibition material," the museum said.
The museum said in a statement that the boxes would "most likely be deregistered from the collection and catalogued as archive material" unless the Warhol board reaches another conclusion.
Related
More Art & Design Headlines »
- Bangladesh cancels Paris exhibit after statues stolen
- Bangladesh has cancelled a cultural exhibition in Paris after centuries-old artifacts were stolen en route to France.
- No insurance on stolen Picasso, Portinari Brazilian museum reveals
- Brazil's premiere modern art museum has revealed that it had no insurance on paintings by Pablo Picasso and one of Brazil's best known artists, Candido Portinari, that were stolen Thursday.
- Precious da Vinci papers infested with mould
- The Codex Atlanticus, the largest collection of drawings and writings by Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci, is riddled with mould, according to Italian authorities.
- Joan Miro painting sold for record $16.6M
- A painting by Spanish artist Joan Miro has fetched $16.6 million US at an auction in Paris, breaking the record for a work by the artist.
- Quebec City museum gets $37.5 million from Ottawa
- Ottawa has come up with $37.5 million for Quebec City's Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec.
More Arts Headlines »
- Canadian jazz great Oscar Peterson dies
- The jazz odyssey is over for Oscar Peterson: the Canadian known globally as one of the most spectacularly talented musicians ever to play jazz piano has died at age 82.
- Tributes pour in for 'giant in music' Peterson
- Tributes are pouring in for Canadian jazz musician Oscar Peterson, who died Sunday at age 82.
- Broadway, Hollywood choreographer Michael Kidd dies
- American choreographer Michael Kidd, who created dance for the stage musical Finian's Rainbow and the movie Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, has died.
- German avant-garde composer Hans Otte dies
- German avant-garde composer and pianist Hans Otte has died, his former employer Radio Bremen said Wednesday. He was 81.
- Bangladesh cancels Paris exhibit after statues stolen
- Bangladesh has cancelled a cultural exhibition in Paris after centuries-old artifacts were stolen en route to France.
Arts Features
Blog Watch
Most Blogged about CBC.ca Articles