ORLANDO, Fla. — Former trustees of Orlando Museum of Art say they were kept in the dark about the FBI’s interest in the now infamous exhibition of purported Basquiat artworks — and that museum leadership ignored their plea to make that clear to the public.
Furthermore, they say when they called a meeting to discuss board chair Cynthia Brumback’s handling of the situation, they were “terminated” through a previously unenforced rule on term limits.
Ted Brown, an attorney with Holland & Knight and longtime board member, was one of five trustees dismissed from the board via email because they had served more than the nine-year maximum stipulated in the bylaws.
He and other trustees — including retired Judge Winifred Sharp, who refers to the scandal as the “Basquiat fiasco” — were dismayed by a column Brumback wrote that was published in the Orlando Sentinel. It addressed the fallout from the FBI’s seizure in June of works attributed by the former museum director to acclaimed contemporary artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, saying the museum was embarrassed and asking the community to “stand by us.”
Subsequent to the seizure of the works, which were said to have been discovered in a storage locker years after the artist’s death, it emerged the FBI had subpoenaed the museum months before the exhibit’s February opening as part of a long-running probe of the art’s authenticity. The FBI’s sworn statement later produced testimony disputing the art’s origin story as well as noting the presence of a Fed Ex logo, created after the artist’s death, on the cardboard backing of one work.
In Brumback’s column, she repeatedly used the word “us,” as if all trustees were privy to the FBI’s subpoena.
“At that time, our then-director repeatedly assured us — through the presentation of documentary evidence — that highly qualified art experts had vetted the authenticity of the pieces in the ‘Heroes and Monsters’ exhibition,” she wrote. “Our director presented us with several authentication reports, specifically one from Diego Cortez, the now-deceased man widely credited with ‘discovering’ Basquiat and who served on Basquiat’s estate’s official authentication committee. Based on this and the other reports, our director reassured us that everything was in order.”
But Brown and other trustees say there was no “us” in one critical aspect of the situation: They were never informed the museum had been served the subpoena.
“She did not share the information about that subpoena with anyone on the board” — with one exception — he told the Sentinel.
Others connected to the museum confirmed his statement, as did multiple emails among trustees and staff that were reviewed by the Sentinel.
“We begged and begged and begged her to come clean on that,” Sharp told the Sentinel. “It was solely her decision not to tell us.”
The one exception was a trustee who oversaw finances. He was informed only after questioning why thousands of dollars were being spent on unexpected legal fees — but sworn to secrecy, despite there being no law that prevents discussion of complying with a subpoena.
“I believe you need to own up to what actually happened and that is you had the subpoena, you organized the response to the subpoena but you did not inform the board about the subpoena but made the decision to handle this on your own,” Brown wrote in an email to Brumback. “As such the board had no information about the matter at a point in time that a different outcome could have occurred. By the time the board knew, the show was on.”
Museum leaders, public-relations staff and the PR firm hired to handle the crisis have not responded to questions from an Orlando Sentinel news reporter for more than a month.
Brumback’s term as chair expired in June at the conclusion of the museum’s fiscal year; she was replaced at a meeting last week by Mark Elliott, a lawyer with KPMG International in Orlando. Also last week, interim director Luder Whitlock — previously praised by Brumback for his “steady command” — resigned after only six weeks on the job.
Brown and others said as soon as board members became aware of the facts — “by reading them in the newspapers” — they took action.
“When the board got information, we did act decisively and quickly,” said Brown, noting that he made the motion to fire director Aaron De Groft.
“The trustees are the trustees, they are the stewards,” Brown said. “There are questions I would have asked if I had known I needed to.”
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