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Orlando Museum of Art parted ways with CEO amid investigation into artwork

29.06.2022

ORLANDO, Fla. - The Orlando Museum of Art has parted ways with its CEO in the days after the FBI raided the Florida museum and seized more than two dozen paintings attributed to artist Jean-Michel Basquiat that are the subject of an investigation into possible wire fraud and conspiracy.

The museum board of trustees is extremely concerned about the exhibition of 25 paintings whose authenticity has been challenged, as well as an inappropriate email former CEO and director Aaron De Groft sent to an academic art expert when she asked not to be used in promoting the works, Cynthia Brumback, the museum's chair said Tuesday night.

Brumback said that we have launched an official process to address these matters, because they are inconsistent with the values of the institution, our business standards, and our standards of conduct.

The statement didn't say if De Groft resigned or was fired, and a museum spokeswoman didn't respond immediately to an emailed question about that on Wednesday.

In an email to the unnamed art expert, De Groft told her employer that she was paid $60,000 to write a report about the pieces, when she said she no longer wanted to be associated with the works, and would consider it defamatory if the museum continued to use her name, according to a search warrant released Friday.

You want us to put out there that you got $60 grand to write this? Stop being holier than thou. In the email that was quoted in the search warrant, De Groft said that they did not me or anyone else. I'm quiet now. This is my best advice. Federal art crimes investigators have been looking into the 25 paintings since they discovered them in 2012, according to the search warrant. After the Orlando exhibit opened in February, the controversy gained more attention.

Basquiat, who lived and worked in New York City, found success as part of the Neo-expressionism movement in the 1980s. The Orlando Museum of Art was the first institution to display pieces that were found in an old Los Angeles storage locker years after Basquiat died from a drug overdose at age 27.

There were questions about the authenticity of the artworks that emerged almost immediately after their discovery. The art was purportedly made in 1982, but experts have pointed out that the cardboard used in at least one of the pieces included FedEx typeface that wasn't used until 1994, about six years after Basquiat died, according to the search warrant. TV writer Thad Mumford, the owner of the storage locker where the art was found, told investigators he had never owned any Basquiat art and that the pieces were not in the unit the last time he had visited. Mumford died in 2018.

De Groft has repeatedly insisted that the art was legitimate.

Prior to coming to Orlando, De Groft was director of the Muscarelle Museum of Art at the College of William Mary in Williamsburg, Va. and deputy director of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida.