A legal battle over the authenticity and ownership of “315 Johns,” a multimillion-dollar work of art possibly produced by Andy Warhol, will go forward following a Brooklyn, N.Y., judge’s denial of a summary judgment motion filed by one of the piece’s two ostensible owners.
Plaintiff Gerard Malanga, an artist and former assistant to Warhol, initiated the action in 2005. Malanga claims that in 1971 he and two friends created 320 eight-inch silkscreens of the face of the defendant, the artist John Chamberlain, 315 of which were later incorporated into the disputed artwork. The silkscreens were done in classic Warhol style, though without Warhol’s knowledge, according to the complaint.
