A few years ago artist John Chamberlain and former Warhol assistant Gerard Malanga were battling it out, both claiming they owned a work of art called 315 Johns (a series of images of Chamberlain). The former had just sold the piece, as a Warhol original, for $5 million; he had it in his possession because (Malanga claims) it was being stored at his apartment. Now the NY Times reports that the case is finally going to trial.
Malanga's lawsuit against Chamberlain contends that Chamberlain sold the 1967 silk-screen painting when it didn't belong to him, and that it isn't even a real Warhol anyway! The Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board ruled that it was genuine in 2000, however.
Malanga is asking for more than $250,000 in damages, or the return of the canvas—which he says he and two friends created themselves after he left the Factory in 1971, as an homage to Warhol. He claims the artist never even knew it existed. Back in 2008 the Supreme Court of the State of New York declared that the Warhol board's decision that it was genuine wasn't binding in court.