Who owns LOVE? That has been the burning question at the heart of an acrimonious legal dispute over the rights to Robert Indiana’s works, first filed by the Morgan Art Foundation in May 2018, a day before the artist died.
Now, Michael McKenzie, the founder of the New York-based publishing firm American Image Art and defendant in that case, has filed fresh counterclaims accusing the Morgan of “one of the most massive art frauds in history”.
In a letter sent to judge Analisa Torres on 23 April, McKenzie claims that LOVE has been in the public domain since it was created in 1964 and that the Morgan has since “fraudulently affixed” copyright to more than 1,000 sculptures with a “total retail value believed to be well above $100m”. A further one million items “representing at least $50m in retail sales” are also alleged to have been fraudulently licensed, McKenzie says.
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