ORLANDO, Fla. – A Los Angeles auctioneer agreed to plead guilty in a criminal case involving an FBI raid at the Orlando Museum of Art during June of last year, according to the Department of Justice.
The museum told News 6 that the Heroes and Monsters exhibit, featuring 25 paintings by famed Neo-expressionist artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, came under the possession of the FBI as agents investigated the authenticity of the works.
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The museum was the first to display pieces said to have been found in an old storage locker years after Basquiat’s fatal drug overdose in 1988.
According to a search warrant, federal art crimes investigators had been looking into the 25 paintings since shortly after their discovery in 2012.
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The artwork was purportedly made in 1982, but experts have pointed out that the cardboard used in at least one of the pieces included FedEx typeface that wasn’t used until 1994 — about six years after Basquiat died, according to the warrant.
In addition, television writer Thad Mumford, the owner of the storage locker where the art was eventually found, told investigators that he had never owned any Basquiat art and that the pieces were not in the unit the last time he had visited. Mumford died in 2018.
Former Orlando Museum of Art Director Aaron De Groft repeatedly insisted that the art was legitimate, though he was later removed from his position, museum officials announced.
Court documents now show that 45-year-old auctioneer Michael Barzman of North Hollywood admitted to prosecutors that he helped create between 20 and 30 fake artworks before marketing them as though they were authentic works by Basquiat.
According to prosecutors, Barzman had worked with another man — identified only as “J.F.” — who had taken the lead in making the fake works. Each piece had been created in no more than 30 minutes, with some made in as little as five minutes, court records say.
Investigators explained that Barzman made up the story about the paintings having been found in a storage unit, and he created false documents to help support the claim.
Barzman told investigators that he’d sold the works to several other buyers, though they eventually ended up on display at the Orlando Museum of Art, court documents reveal.
Of the 25 paintings involved in the Heroes and Monsters exhibit, “most of the featured works had, in fact, been created by defendant and J.F.,” prosecutors wrote.
The plea agreement says that Barzman bought the contents of Mumford’s storage unit and “used the acquisition of Mumford’s stored items to create a false provenance for the fraudulent paintings.”
According to court records, Barzman admitted to lying to investigators in October 2022, for which he faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
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