HERBERT FERBER
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Reis to keep the foundation tax-exempt. Yet Reis, as an accountant,
must have known that a foundation whose purpose was to give
paintings to museums would have been tax-exempt. I also learned
from Reis that Marlborough had been given exclusive sales rights
for eight years by the executors . Was the "needy artist" clause in–
serted as an excuse for selling the paintings by the exclusive agent,
and to divert paintings to the private sector instead of giving or lend–
ing them to museums?
At this point, I retained Stanley Geller as my attorney.
It
now
became known that Reis was an officer of the Marlborough Gallery,
that Stamos had been taken on by Marlborough more or less at the
time of Mark's death, and that the three executors were also self–
appointed trustees of the foundation. These facts raised the question
of a conflict of interest on the part of Reis and Stamos. Robert Gold–
water, art critic and professor of fine arts at New York University
until his death in 1973, was another trustee. (Mark also had wanted
William Rubin, who advised him about foundations, but an embar–
rassed Mark later asked him to drop out because Reis did not want
him.) Goldwater was told, six or seven months after serving as a
trustee, that Mark had changed his mind and had verbally informed
Reis that helping "needy artists" should be the sole purpose of the
foundation. I can only repeat that Goldwater, Mel Rothko, William
Rubin, and I knew of Mark's long-standing wish to have all his work
III
museums.
From the time my former wife and I were finally appointed as
Mel's executors and Kate's guardians in December 1970, until June
1971, we tried to obtain information from the executors of Mark's
estate about their actions and contracts with Marlborough. At a
meeting in June 1971, with Stamos, Levine, and their lawyers, at
which we again asked for information - after many written requests
were ignored - they tried to defend their actions. One contract with
Marlborough for the sale of the one hundred paintings was men–
tioned, but not shown or given to us. With the help of a chart, Frank
E. Karelson, their lawyer, tried to explain their sale at ridiculously
low prices as due to a drop in the stock market on the day of the sale
- as if prices of art fluctuate daily with the market. We were again
promised information by mail. Only after an ultimatum did we re–
ceive copies of two contracts with Marlborough. One was for the one
hundred paintings; the other, which had not even been mentioned at
the meeting, was for the seven hundred remaining paintings con-
