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[NEWS] German Socialite Pleads Guilty to Theft in Fraudulent Sale of Kusama Sculpture
July 9, 2021
Yayoi Kusama, Pumpkin 2014. Photo: David Zwirner/Steve Travarca.
German socialite and art dealer Angela Gulbenkian pleaded
guilty in a London court of defrauding a buyer out of $1.4 million in relation to the supposed sale
of Yayoi Kusama’s 2012 Yellow Pumpkin. Mathieu Ticolat, a Hong Kong–based art
advisor, paid Gulbenkian for the fiberglass work in 2017 but never received it.
Gulbenkian claimed that insurance issues were preventing her from shipping the
work, and threatened to cut off communication with Ticolat completely if he
continued to “bother” her in regard to its whereabouts.
The case was to be heard in London in February 2020, but
Gulbenkian failed to appear; tracked down in Lisbon four months later, she was
extradited back to the UK. The heiress is said to have given $304,000 of the
money extracted from Ticolat to her mother; a recovery effort of these funds is
currently pending in Munich court. Gulbenkian additionally pleaded guilty to
defrauding her masseuse, Jacqui Ball, of $69,000. Ball had supplied the amount
in 2019 with the expectation that Gulbenkian would invest the money on her
behalf. Sentencing in regard to both malfeasances is scheduled for July 28.
Separate charges are still pending in relation to a
separate case involving a 2019 sale by Gulbenkian of Andy Warhol’s Queen
Elizabeth II to London art dealer James Ashcroft. Ashcroft ponied up $151,000
for the 1985 print only to discover, after the real owner demanded the return
of the work—which Ashcroft had already resold—that Gulbenkian had not been
authorized to sell the piece in the first place.
Gulbenkian, born Angela Maria Ischwang, is married to the
great-grand-nephew of the late Armenian oil magnate and art collector Calouste
Gulbenkian, founder of the renowned Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Since the
abovementioned charges were leveled, the organization has distanced itself from
the Munich-born grifter, saying she “does not have any relation whatsoever with
the foundation.”
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