The granddaughter of actor Steve McQueen is suing a South Carolina lawyer for a Jackson Pollock painting valued at $68 million.
Lawyer Brent Borchert told the Mirror that he grew up with the Pollock painting hanging on the walls of his parents’ home. Following the deaths of his late parents Rudolph and Pamela, Borchert and his sister Bettina were bequeathed the Pollock painting, along with the rest of their art collection in Malibu, California. Borchert now lives with his family in South Carolina.
In August, McQueen’s granddaughter, Molly McQueen, filed a lawsuit with the superior court of California in Los Angeles County, claiming that the late legend was the painting’s legal owner.
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In the suit, she alleges that “actor Steve McQueen transferred a Jackson Pollock drip painting to Rudolph and Pamela Borchert, in anticipated exchange for a motorcycle and Latigo Canyon property. However, one of the Borcherts crashed the motorcycle and the property never changed title.”
The suit alleges that when the exchange in property didn’t happen, Steve McQueen “made a demand for return of the Pollock painting within a reasonable time thereafter. However, the Borcherts failed to return the painting to Steve McQueen.” Molly McQueen contends that she is “entitled to immediate possession of the painting.”
Though Borchert admitted to Mirror that this situation “rang a vague bell,” he also said, “I don’t know if I was even born when the deal took place… and it wasn’t something me and my dad ever talked about. But 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. It’s all very hazy.”
“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,” Borchert told the Mirror.
Nicknamed the “King of Cool,” Steve McQueen was an American actor who rose to fame for his roles in such films as The Great Escape (1963), Bullitt (1968), and Papillon (1973). He died in 1980 of a heart attack, by which point he had been battling mesothelioma, a cancer caused by exposure to asbestos.
Pollock was a leading figure in the Abstract Expressionist movement; he remains best known for his drip paintings. His most expensive work is the 1948 painting Number 17A, which fetched $200 million in a private sale in 2016.
Lawyers for Borchert and McQueen did not respond to request for comment.