A Jackson Pollock painting valued at $68m is in the middle of a legal dispute between a Los Angeles lawyer and the family of the Hollywood actor Steve McQueen (1930-80).
The leading man’s granddaughter, Molly McQueen, has filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles against the lawyer Brent Borchert claiming that his parents, Rudolph and Pamela Borchert, were given the painting in an “anticipated exchange” for a motorcycle and property in Latigo Canyon. McQueen alleges that “one of the Borcherts crashed the motorcycle and the property never changed title”. The suit seeks to position Molly McQueen as the painting’s legal owner, noting that she is “entitled to immediate possession of the painting”.
According to the suit, Steve McQueen made a “demand for the return of the Pollock painting within a reasonable time” after the property exchange fell through, but the Borcherts failed to hold up their end of the bargain.
In an interview with The Mirror, Brent Borchert admitted that the exchange agreement “rang a vague bell”, emphasising that he did not know if he was “even born when the deal took place”. “I I talked to my mum once and asked, ‘What’s the deal with the Jackson Pollock painting?’ And she said, ‘Your father made some sort of deal. I wasn’t there for it.’ It was a quick conversation but I recall that she may have mentioned something about a motorcycle and the house,” Borchert told The Mirror. “It’s all very hazy.”
Borchert, who was bequeathed the painting along with his sister, Bettina, told The Mirror: “If they’re willing to be reasonable, and then they can show me something that makes me believe something went on that wasn’t right, I’ll come to an agreement. But if they can’t, then I won’t.”
He said he remembers his father being friends with Steve McQueen, the 1960s film hero of American counterculture dubbed the “King of Cool” by the press and best known for his roles The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape. At one time the highest-paid actor in Hollywood, McQueen was an avid motorcycle racer, a skill that manifested both in his movie roles and in his alias “Harvey Mushman”, which he used to participate in races.
“They were definitely friends and would go for dinner, and while not buddies they were out socially multiple times,” Borchert said of his father and McQueen.
The screen star died at age 50 in 1980 from mesothelioma, speculated to have been caused by asbestos exposure during his time in the US Marines. Pollock, one of the pioneers of Abstract Expressionism, died in 1956 at the age of 44. In 2016, his 1948 painting Number 17A reportedly sold for $200m in a private sale.
