Lawsuit challenges ruling that sculpture is too broken to still be a ‘Calder’

The delicate sculpture, now at the center of a new legal feud, is described in court documents as a “glass and wire mobile” made of “a number of intentionally broken pieces of colored glass” with ” wire figures and connection and suspension wires. .”

It is part of a series of kinetic sculptures created by Alexander Calder several decades ago. No one disputes that it was once the work of the artist.

But in a federal lawsuit filed this month in Manhattan, Richard Brodie, an art collector, claims his ability to sell the work was undermined by the Calder Foundation, which the suit says falsely claims that the The work is now too broken to still be considered a work of art. Calder.

Mr. Brodie, who serves on the board of directors of the Detroit Institute of Arts in his hometown, claims in court documents that the artwork is not broken at all. The lawsuit does not name the work, but describes it as being valued at more than $8 million and says it was once owned by Henri Matisse’s son Pierre, who purchased it directly from Calder.

Mr. Brodie’s lawyers say in the complaint that the foundation’s president, Alexander S.C. Rower, actively worked to block a potential sale by claiming the cellphone had been damaged, which scared away potential buyers.

“This case concerns a fraudulent scheme by Rower and the Foundation to destroy the market value of a multi-million dollar work of art owned by Plaintiff,” Mr. Brodie’s lawyers say in legal documents.