The New York Times-20080127-With Donated Painting- Aquarium Enters Art World Controversy

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With Donated Painting, Aquarium Enters Art World Controversy

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FIVE years ago, Alex Matter of Newtown began going through the contents at a storage facility in Wainscott, N.Y., rented by his late parents, Herbert and Mercedes. Inside, he found a collection of 32 small paintings wrapped in brown paper. On the outside of the wrapper, his father had written that the paintings were experimental works from the 1940s by Jackson Pollock.

Since then the art world has debated whether the restored paintings are the work of Mr. Pollock, who was a close friend of Mr. Matter's parents before he died in 1956. While a single Pollock painting has sold for as much as $140 million, a controversy of whether they are authentic makes the prices of these paintings much harder to estimate.

Now, the Mystic Aquarium and Institute for Exploration is about to find out just how much they are worth since Mr. Matter, a filmmaker, has decided to donate at least one of the works, a painting known as Untitled No. 12, to the aquarium.

The aquarium plans to sell the two-sided, 13 1/2 by 8 1/2 inch painting and use the proceeds to help finance the next phase of its development, which it plans to announce later this winter. If the sale is successful, Mr. Matter said he will donate more of the paintings to the aquarium. He picked No. 12 because its gray and black on blue background resembles an underwater scene.

It's inspiring because Alex is giving it to us with no strings attached because of his passion for the oceans and his interest in the research we're doing, said Stephen M. Coan, president of the aquarium.

The gift was the idea of Peter Glankoff, the aquarium's senior vice president and a longtime friend of Mr. Matter. When the two were on a vacation in Italy last fall and discussing the controversy, Mr. Glankoff suggested that Mr. Matter might want to give one to the aquarium. Without hesitation, Mr. Matter agreed. I had not thought of donating them to anyone at that point because no one had come to me, Mr. Matter said. But when Peter asked, it just made sense to me.

Mr. Matter said the donation to the aquarium makes sense because he is impressed by the research done by its scientists and the deep ocean exploration of Robert Ballard, who discovered the Titanic and whose headquarters is at the aquarium.

Mr. Matter, who is producing a film about the perils facing the earth, said research about global warming and its effect on the oceans are of great interest to him.

The painting is now part of an exhibition that examines the relationship between Mr. Pollock and Herbert Matter, a photographer, which is on display at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse. Mr. Coan said the aquarium is making inquiries in the art world to see how much the painting is worth. He said it is also talking to local museums about possibly displaying the painting until it is sold.

Mr. Matter sold four of the paintings in 2004 to help finance the restoration of the others, research their authenticity and pay legal fees. He declined to say how much he sold them for. He said the one he is giving the aquarium could be worth from $1 million to $5 million, but said it was difficult to place a value on it until the paintings are definitively determined to be Pollocks or a buyer decides to take a chance that they will be in the future. Representatives for Sotheby's and the Metropolitan Museum of Art declined to speculate on the value of the painting because of their organizations' policies of not commenting on the value of works not under their control.

In 2005, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation raised questions about the paintings' authenticity after consulting a veteran art dealer and scholar.

Regarding the Matter paintings, we continue to have serious doubts about their authenticity, said Kerrie Buitrago, the executive vice president of the foundation, which has distributed more than $40 million to working artists since 1984. We have no comment on the gift of a painting to the Mystic Aquarium.

Mr. Matter said there is no doubt the paintings were done by Mr. Pollock, considering the relationship between his parents and the artist, the paintings' resemblance to Mr. Pollock's other works and the discovery of a fingerprint on one of the paintings that has many of the characteristics of one found on a paint can in Mr. Pollock's Long Island studio. Other experts have said the splatters and swirls in some of the paintings appear to have been done by more than one person, and that some of the paints used were not commercially available during Mr. Pollock's time even though he was known to experiment with new materials.

Despite the questions, the aquarium remains optimistic about the worth of the painting.

They're not making any more of these, Mr. Glankoff said.

[Illustration]PHOTO: FOCUS: Untitled No. 12 is one of 32 works Alex Matter found among his parents' belongings. Whether the works were done by Jackson Pollock has been a subject of debate. (PHOTOGRAPH BY WENDY CARLSON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)