NEW YORK— A nasty court battle between Robert Motherwell's Dedalus Foundation and a longtime employee who had worked closely with the late Abstract Expressionist painter continues to rumble through the courts, throwing a kink in efforts to complete the artist's comprehensive catalogue raisonné. Since the pair of lawsuits were filed last March in New York State, the Art Newspaper reports, court delays have caused little progress to be made in resolving the antagonists' heated claims, which include accusations of theft, self dealing, and scholarly incompetence.

The legal fight was precipitated when Joan Banach, a foundation employee who was Motherwell's personal curator and cataloguer in the 10 years before his death in 1991, filed a lawsuit to contest her dismissal from her $108,309-per-year position by foundation director Jack Flam. In her complaint, Banach, the author of the catalogue of Motherwell's drawings and a member of the team charged with composing his definitive catalogue raisonné, stated that the late artist had signed a document naming her a "lifetime employee" of the foundation before his death, and that Flam — "a man with overstated expertise in Motherwell’s work,” according to the complaint — had waged “a malicious campaign” to oust her following disagreements over attributions of the artist's work.

In its countersuit, the foundation accused Banach of “deceptive, self-interested and fraudulent” practices, including having “misappropriated at least 10 Motherwell works," selling $93,200 worth of art without alerting the board, and "secretly" consigning drawings to Christie's. (Without knowing that Banach had consigned the work, Flam had declared the drawings to be inauthentic, but he reversed his judgment when he learned their origin.) The foundation's suit demands $5 million in damages, the return of all Motherwell artworks, and the return of roughly $325,000 in salary and benefits given over two and a half years. Banach, 61, denies the allegations, and says the artworks in question were given to her by Motherwell. “The court process can be a lengthy one, but we are eager to get to trial and vindicate our client’s rights before a jury,” said Lee Bantle, one of Banach’s attorneys.

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