Salvador Dalí

Park West Gallery, which has been accused of selling fake Salvador Dalí prints aboard cruise ships in a $100 million class-action suit, has added another lawsuit to its roster. Fine Art Registry, a firm investigating the allegations, filed papers on Aug. 26 charging that Bernard Ewell, an appraiser contracted by Michigan-based Park West, has been involved in a conspiracy to defame and interfere with its researchers.

The new lawsuit claims that Ewell, a self-described Dalí expert, attacked and defamed on his blog the work of Robert and Nicolas Descharnes of the Descharnes Archives in Paris, as well as Frank Hunter, director of the Salvador Dalí Archives, who had declared that works Ewell had authenticated were fakes. Sotheby’s and Christie’s use the Descharneses to verify the authenticity of Dalí works they plan to auction.

Late last year Fine Art Registry began collecting complaints from consumers that art they had purchased from Park West aboard cruise ships were forgeries, leading to the recent wave of litigation. Park West maintains that all of the pieces it sold are genuine and properly documented.

The New York Times reported late last month that works by Dalí, one of the 20th century’s most copied artists, remain particularly difficult to authenticate, in part because of the “infighting among self-proclaimed experts, who seem to delight in undercutting one another’s opinions.” Not helping matters, Dalí would also apparently sign blank pieces of paper in exchange for cash.