Quinn Emanuel Filed A Complaint To Save An Artist's Life... Sadly, It Came Too Late

Star art world litigator Luke Nikas filed suit to protect an elderly artist. Now the fight is over Indiana's legacy.

Most of us don’t know the name Robert Indiana. Yet, the artist looms in every American’s subconscious like the proverbial splinter in their mind. Robert Indiana was an artist, the man behind the “Love” image that famously appears throughout the country. He also produced a wealth of art beyond that image — so much so that the Whitney put on a show of his works in 2013 titled “Robert Indiana: Beyond Love.”

Robert Indiana died last week. Quinn Emanuel partner Luke Nikas is litigating over his legacy.

Nikas, who lateraled to Quinn from Boies Schiller in December, filed this lawsuit on behalf of Indiana’s long-time patrons a week ago Friday. They hoped to win a case freeing Indiana from opportunists they claim sheltered the artist from outsiders and used his name to produce forgeries and approve licenses to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. After Nikas filed the complaint, the defendants branded the charges as preposterous and proclaimed that Indiana was in fine health and “quite sharp.”

They admitted he was already dead days later.

The story that the complaint tells — while tragically incomplete, written as it was before knowing of Indiana’s passing — paints a sad picture of the end of an artist’s life. Indiana, as the complaint explains, fell out of the art world after producing one of the most iconic images of the latter half of the 20th century, until Morgan Art Foundation Limited and its advisor, Simon Salama-Caro, reached out to Indiana in the 1990s with a plan to bring him back into the mainstream.

Indiana’s work enjoyed a renaissance after that, culminating in the Whitney exhibit. Unfortunately, the complaint alleges, Indiana’s reclusive lifestyle and his rediscovered success drew outsiders eager to capitalize on his renewed fame.

The complaint says:

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But Robert Indiana’s health has deteriorated. He can no longer create art or manage his financial affairs. And this decline has enabled something sinister to occur. On May 7, 2016, Indiana signed a power of attorney appointing Jamie L. Thomas, who is a fisherman from Maine with no art expertise that Indiana had employed to run errands and do work around the house. He was not a friend or acquaintance of Morgan Art Foundation, Salama-Caro, or others who have helped revive and protect Indiana’s financial well-being and reputation for the past two decades. Instead, Thomas has deliberately isolated Indiana from Morgan Art Foundation, the Salama-Caro family, and Indiana’s other long-time friends and supporters. He controls and intercepts Indiana’s emails and telephone calls. He refuses to permit visitors to Indiana’s home. He writes aggressive and threatening emails from Indiana’s email account—including an email sent to Marc Salama-Caro shortly after Marc visited Indiana at Indiana’s request, telling Marc to “FUCK OFF” and to never return to Vinalhaven.

According to the complaint, this fisherman worked with another art company to produce forgeries and collect on unauthorized licenses while Indiana’s health declined. Tragically, the complaint came too late, but the fight to protect Indiana’s legacy going forward will go on.

The complaint paints a picture that is both disturbing and all too familiar. We’re not long separated from the surprise publication of Harper Lee’s “Go Set A Watchman,” a work that got literary world observers talking about elder abuse. The official inquiry in that case turned up no evidence of abuse, but many still wonder if Lee would have dropped off her “Atticus Finch Is Now A Racist” manuscript without encouragement from people who stood to benefit from the old woman’s estate.

Those are the concerns that brought Morgan Art to Luke Nikas for help.

Nikas, who despite his youth is recognized as an international leader in the world of art litigation, is a poster child for the argument that no one can predict how their legal career will shape up. A star at Boies Schiller, Nikas started representing the Warhol Foundation in a 2014 matter involving the theft of an Elizabeth Taylor portrait by a former Warhol bodyguard. Nikas never set out to be an art world attorney, but sometimes fate opens doors. His representation of the Warhol Foundation continued, including the high-profile case over a Prince photograph turned portrait. His Warhol work led to representing Ann Freedman in the matter of a forged Rothko and the Tisch family over a stolen Picasso. The next thing Nikas knew, he was the sort of guy who helps found an arbitration tribunal in The Hague dedicated to resolving art disputes at a fraction of the cost.

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How does something like this happen? Nikas told me that what the art world fundamentally needs are generalists. There’s a good deal of litigation and a good deal of transactional work — but what the players in this world want are top-notch attorneys willing to represent them more than someone who took three art law classes in law school.

One of the earliest lessons a lawyer learns is that they can control what they don’t do, but not necessarily what they will do. Few people walk into law with a passion for bankruptcy… they’re just litigators hoping to get court time faster and then four years later realize they’re experts in the Code. Early in my career, I had the good fortune to work with Peter Herbert, a former SDNY prosecutor who never sought out the life of an entertainment lawyer, but found himself taking a sleigh ride through New Jersey with Bruce Springsteen at 2 in the morning because he’d happened to win a precedent-setting entertainment case while working as a general commercial litigator… and it begat a career. Just like becoming an entertainment lawyer, the key to being a good art lawyer has a lot more to do with being “good” than coming into it with a mastery of art history.

Nikas is following a similar path. As a partner with Boies Schiller, Nikas relished his career as a high-stakes commercial litigator. But when his work with prominent art world figures kept leading to more “one-off” cases, he realized he had a unique book of business that didn’t match Boies Schiller’s fundamental business plan built around core, institutional clients. Quinn Emanuel, on the other hand, affords partners more freedom to pursue their passions. It’s the same quality that attracted Alex Spiro too. The firm culture at Quinn Emanuel is custom-built for young hotshots seeking some extra breathing room to pursue niche practices.

What kept drawing Luke Nikas to his art practice, and to litigation generally, is the opportunity to tell stories. With the Robert Indiana complaint, Nikas provides a sad and compelling story of an elderly artist’s final days and one that he’s eager to flesh out through discovery. His adversaries have already set up an interesting deposition by telling the media that Indiana was in fine health and then immediately revealing that he’d died.

Perhaps the most tragic question Nikas will have to ask is if Indiana really died only last week?


HeadshotJoe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.