When I first became tangled up in the issue of Joe Simon and Red Self-Portrait, the Andy Warhol silkscreen he owns, it wasn’t because the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board denied the painting’s authenticity. What provoked me to act was their refusal to reveal the reasoning behind the decision.
The owners of another Red Self-Portrait in Warhol’s series received a letter from a member of the board that read, in its entirety, “It is the opinion of the Authentication Board that the said work is NOT the work of Andy Warhol, but the said work was signed, dedicated, and dated by him.” Call me a stickler for detail, but I genuinely wanted to know how this was possible.
