ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Aaron DeGroft, the former head of the Orlando Museum of Art who left the institution under a cloud in 2022 after he was charged by the FBI with more than two dozen counts of art fraud The raid was conducted as part of an investigation. Jean-Michel Basquet Paintingsis dead. He was 59 years old.
DeGroft died last weekend after a brief illness. The Neptune SocietyA cremation service provider said without providing further details. Orlando Sentinel Also reported that his wife, Catherine Leigh DeGroft, had submitted an obituary to the news outlet.
“We are saddened to hear of the passing of Aaron DeGroft. Our thoughts are with his family at this time of loss,” the museum said in an emailed statement.
De Grooft became executive director of the Orlando Museum of Art in 2021 after art museum administration jobs in Jacksonville, Sarasota, and Williamsburg, Virginia.
DeGroft negotiated the holding of the Orlando Museum of Art. Be the first institution. More than two dozen works of art are said to have been found in an old storage locker decades after Basquiat’s 1988 death from a drug overdose at the age of 27. Basquiat, who lived and worked in New York City, achieved success in the 1980s. The Neo-Expressionist Movement
Questions about the authenticity of the artworks arose almost immediately after their discovery in 2012. The artwork was allegedly created in 1982, but experts have pointed out that the cardboard used in at least one of the pieces includes a FedEx typeface that was not used until 1994. The raid comes nearly six years after Basquiat’s death, according to a federal warrant for the museum
Additionally, the owner of the storage locker where the art was found, TV writer Thad Mumford, told investigators that he had never owned any Basquiat art and that the last time he checked it, the pieces were missing. were not in the unit. Mumford died in 2018.
At the time of his museum exhibition, de Groft Insisted again and again That Basquiat art was legitimate.
An FBI search warrant said DeGroft sent an email to an academic art expert when she asked that her name not be used in advertising the works because she did not want to be associated with the exhibit. In the email, deGroft emphasized this. “shut up” And he threatened to tell his employer that he had been paid $60,000 to write a report about the pieces.
“You took the money. Stop being holier-than-thou. You didn’t do it, me or anyone else,” DeGroft said in an email listed in the search warrant. “Now my best advice is to keep quiet. This is real and legit. You know it. You’re threatening the wrong people. Do your education and stay in your restricted lane.
The FBI seized the paintings during a museum raid in 2022.
In 2023, former Los Angeles auctioneer Michael Barzman agreed to plead guilty to federal charges of making false statements to the FBI, admitting that he and an associate had created fake artwork and that paintings was wrongly attributed to Baskett.
Museum sued de Groft, Claiming fraud, breach of contract and conspiracy. Former Executive Director Confronted the museum. Said he was being scapegoated for breach of contract and wrongful termination. The Orlando Museum of Art’s board chairman and outside attorneys signed off on the exhibit, DeGroft said in court papers, even after the FBI subpoenaed the museum’s records on the exhibit in July 2021. Even after
DeGroft’s attorney, Robert Parks, did not immediately respond to an email and phone call seeking comment Wednesday. The Orlando Museum of Art said in an emailed statement that it would not be appropriate to discuss the future of the litigation at this time.
De Groft is survived by his wife and two children.
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