[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-166897057.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tA Keith Haring drawing deemed authentic by a Superior Court judge but lacking sufficient provenance records to sell at Christie\u2019s and Sotheby\u2019s was the subject of a trial in Connecticut. The gallery that sold it ended up proving victorious.<\/p>\n
\n\tAs reported by Greenwich Time<\/em>, Nevada businessman Vernon\u00a0Hartung bought the drawing of flying saucers from Martin Lawrence Galleries for $165,000 in 2018. But when he inquired about selling it at Christie\u2019s and Sotheby\u2019s, the two auction houses said the artwork\u2019s documented history \u201cdid not meet their requirements for selling a Haring drawing as an authentic work,\u201d according to trial records.<\/p>\n \n\tMartin Lawrence Galleries then attempted to sell the work for Hartung, but he deemed potential prices ranging from $20,000 to $30,000 too low and sued the gallery for breach of contract and other claims related to the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act.<\/p>\n \n\tIn a written decision in May, Judge Robert L. Genuario described the drawing \u201cby a preponderance of the evidence, to be authentic,\u201d citing a 2002 letter from Richard\u00a0Hambleton, a friend of Haring\u2019s known for collecting the artist\u2019s fleeting subway works. But when its credentials did not pass similar muster on the market, Hartung \u201cargued the gallery effectively sold him something that could not be authenticated to standards required by top auction houses.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAfter he could not prove that the drawing was inauthentic and the gallery had violated its warranty, however, Hartung lost his case and was found responsible for the defendant\u2019s attorney\u2019s fees related to the suit. \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/keith-haring-drawing-lawsuit-1234796342\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-166897057.jpg?w=1024″] A Keith Haring drawing deemed authentic by a Superior Court judge but lacking sufficient provenance records to sell at Christie\u2019s and Sotheby\u2019s was the subject of a trial in Connecticut. The gallery that sold it ended up proving victorious. As reported by Greenwich Time, Nevada businessman Vernon\u00a0Hartung bought the drawing of flying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2122369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2122369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122369\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2122369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2122369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2122369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}