Phillips Sues Wealthy Scion for Failure to Come Through on Pollock Purchase
International auction house Phillips has filed suit against film producer David Mimran alleging that he failed to pony up the $14.5 million he had promised to pay for a Jackson Pollock canvas. Mimran, the son of billionaire sugar magnate Jean-Claude Mimran, had offered to serve as a third-party guarantor for an untitled ca. 1948 white-on-black drip painting by Pollock ahead of an auction of modern and contemporary art that Phillips was hosting in New York this past November, meaning he would buy the canvas at a set price if it failed to meet its reserve. The work, which appeared in a 1998 retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, did not receive any bids, leaving Mimran on the hook.
According to the New York Post, which broke the story, Mimran missed two payment deadlines, one in March and another in June, at which time he requested, through his lawyers, an additional sixty days to make good on his promise. Shortly afterward, he claimed he could not meet the new deadline. Phillips filed its complaint with the Supreme Court of New York earlier this month.
Speaking to Artnet News about the pending suit, Mimran said Phillips had approached him as a guarantor about two weeks before the sale and that he had been “a little reluctant” owing to cash-flow issues but decided to back the work anyway because “I love the painting and will buy it just a little late which happens often in this market and most auction houses had to deal with this.”
“It’s astonishing that Mimran believes he can bid like a billionaire and then hide behind the claim that he’s broke,” said Luke Nikas, an attorney for Phillips, in a statement. “If Mimran didn’t have a dollar to his name to pay for the artwork, as he claims, then he shouldn’t have raised a paddle.”
