LA auctioneer to plead guilty to creating fake artwork attributed to Neo-expressionist painter Basquiat

A former Los Angeles auctioneer plans to plead guilty to a cross-country art fraud scheme. The man created fake artwork under the name of Neo-expressionist painter Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Basquiat, a Neo-expressionist painter whose success came during the 1980s, lived and worked in New York before he died in 1988 at age 27 from a drug overdose. The Orlando Museum of Art scandal came in 2022 when a federal raid ended in the seizure of 25 paintings whose authenticity had been in question for a decade. The museum had been the first to display the artwork, and its former director had previously insisted the artwork was legitimate.

Defendant Michael Barzman, 45, was charged Tuesday in federal court in Los Angeles with making false statements to the FBI during an interview last year, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release. He has agreed to plead guilty and faces up to five years in prison.