Robert Indiana’s Estate: Generosity, Acrimony and Questions
ROCKLAND, Maine — The man who took care of Robert Indiana in the last years of his life told a probate court hearing Wednesday that he was paid roughly $250,000 a year to tend to the aging artist, whose estate and legacy are now the subject of acrimony and lawsuits.
Posted — UpdatedROCKLAND, Maine — The man who took care of Robert Indiana in the last years of his life told a probate court hearing Wednesday that he was paid roughly $250,000 a year to tend to the aging artist, whose estate and legacy are now the subject of acrimony and lawsuits.
Under questioning by Margaret Minister, a lawyer representing the estate, the caretaker, Jamie L. Thomas, said he had been earning $1,000 a week in 2013 when he started taking care of Indiana, who lived alone on Vinalhaven, an island off the coast here, until his death in May at 89.
By 2016, Thomas said, Indiana had elevated his salary to $5,000 a week for round-the-clock work that included bringing the artist meals, taking care of his dog and getting him to bed. He was also granted Indiana’s power of attorney, a post that typically entails a full range of additional responsibilities.
Thomas went on to describe Indiana as a generous employer. He said that the artist had given him at least 118 pieces of art since 2010.
“You’ve got to remember,” he said, “that he paid another person $400,000 for absolutely nothing.”
Under additional questioning, Thomas said that over the last two years he had withdrawn $615,000 from Indiana’s accounts at the artist’s request. He did not elaborate on what Indiana had used the cash for, other than to say that the artist gave him $35,000 to buy a car.
James Brannan, the lawyer who is the executor of Indiana’s estate, said he was surprised by the large cash withdrawals. Brannan said when he visited Vinalhaven soon after Indiana’s death, Thomas’ wife, Yvonne, handed him a gym bag filled with $189,000 in cash. “This is yours,” she told him, “It belongs to the estate.”
Brannan said he is not sure whether the money he received from Yvonne Thomas is part of the $615,000 that was withdrawn.
John Frumer, the lawyer representing Jamie Thomas, would not comment on the return of cash to the estate. Asked to comment on the size of Thomas’ compensation, Frumer said the hearing paints an incomplete picture.
“There’s much more to the story than it appears,” Frumer said. “Because it’s a limited proceeding, not all of the facts came out, and they will in time.”
Brannan had requested the hearing in Knox County Probate Court here to help clear up multiple questions that have swirled about Indiana’s finances in recent months. Judge Carol R. Emery presided over the hearing.
He said he wanted to clarify whether any money is owed to the estate by various parties, get a solid inventory of the whereabouts of all the artworks Indiana left behind and address accusations, contained in a separate lawsuit, that Thomas and a New York art publisher had made unauthorized works under Indiana’s name in recent years.
Those accusations were contained in a lawsuit, filed just a day before Indiana’s death, by Morgan Art Foundation, an international dealer that claims the rights to many of Indiana’s works, including the famous LOVE image.
The suit claims that the New York publisher, Michael McKenzie, and Thomas deliberately isolated the artist from friends and business associates so they could sell inauthentic artwork attributed to Indiana.
McKenzie, who collaborated with Indiana on a number of projects, including the HOPE sculpture used by Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, testified at the hearing, and later said outside that all the work he had produced had been authorized by the artist.
“I don’t have anything to hide,” he said. “I’m a hardworking guy who built it up from the ground.”
During the hearing, McKenzie testified that he had returned to the estate all the Indiana artworks that might belong to it.
“I had five people on this, 40 hours a week, for a month,” said McKenzie, who reported that he had returned more than 60 works to the estate since Indiana’s death.
Brannan has said that he wants a full accounting of whether the Morgan company owes the estate money for royalty payments due on Indiana items it sold.
In the hearing, Simon Salama-Caro, who has worked with Morgan as an agent and adviser, said the company had paid all it owed through 2016, and will soon be providing an accounting for the year 2017.
The accusations have caught the attention of law enforcement authorities. The FBI sent an agent to Vinalhaven in May to review the accusations surrounding Indiana. The Maine attorney general’s office has said it is monitoring the probate proceedings because Indiana’s will left the assets of his estate to a charitable organization, a nonprofit corporation known as the Star of Hope Foundation.
The foundation is named after Indiana’s Victorian mansion — a dilapidated, former Odd Fellows lodge known as the Star of Hope — and its mission is to turn the building into a museum of Indiana’s works. The nonprofit has two board members, Brannan, and Thomas, and the will designated Thomas as its director.
Brannan has said he also plans to recruit other board members.
Over the summer, an appraiser hired by Brannan estimated the value of art contained in Indiana’s home at approximately $50 million. The art was put into storage for safekeeping, because of the house’s condition.
Its clapboards are rotting and a blue tarp is draped over a leaky roof. In August, the sidewalk was cordoned off to protect passers-by from falling debris after glass spilled from broken windows. The windows have since been boarded up. A memorial service tentatively scheduled for Indiana’s birthday, Sept. 13, has been postponed, partly out of concern that it would have been overshadowed by the legal wrangling. Indiana’s friends are now planning a small private ceremony at Rockland’s Farnsworth Art Museum in May, to coincide with the anniversary of his death, with a concurrent public celebration of the artist and his works.
Michael Komanecky, chief curator of the Farnsworth Art Museum, was at the hearing to learn more about the artist’s estate. Komanecky said he is interested in developing a Robert Indiana Center at the Farnsworth, and hopes to help with the museum on Vinalhaven. “The Farnsworth remains committed to supporting Robert Indiana’s wishes for the Star of Hope and the collection he has there,” he said.
Indiana’s LOVE sculpture, with the letters stacked two-on-two and the tilted “O,” became one of the best-known images of the 20th century and brought him fame. But he left the New York art world behind in 1978 for Vinalhaven, more than an hour by ferry from the mainland, where for decades, the cantankerous and reclusive artist lived and worked, surrounded by a crew of studio assistants and workers.
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