{"id":196357,"date":"2025-10-13T05:01:21","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T05:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/196357\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T05:01:21","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T05:01:21","slug":"steve-mcqueens-granddaughter-files-lawsuit-over-68m-jackson-pollock-painting-the-art-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/196357\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve McQueen’s granddaughter files lawsuit over $68m Jackson Pollock painting – The Art Newspaper"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Jackson Pollock<\/a> painting valued at $68m is in the middle of a legal dispute between a Los Angeles lawyer and the family of the Hollywood actor Steve McQueen (1930-80).<\/p>\n

The leading man\u2019s granddaughter, Molly McQueen, has filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles against the lawyer Brent Borchert claiming that his parents, Rudolph and Pamela Borchert, were given the painting in an \u201canticipated exchange\u201d for a motorcycle and property in Latigo Canyon. McQueen alleges that \u201cone of the Borcherts crashed the motorcycle and the property never changed title\u201d. The suit seeks to position Molly McQueen as the painting\u2019s legal owner, noting that she is \u201centitled to immediate possession of the painting\u201d.<\/p>\n

According to the suit, Steve McQueen made a \u201cdemand for the return of the Pollock painting within a reasonable time\u201d after the property exchange fell through, but the Borcherts failed to hold up their end of the bargain.<\/p>\n

In an interview with The Mirror<\/a>, Brent Borchert admitted that the exchange agreement \u201crang a vague bell\u201d, emphasising that he did not know if he was \u201ceven born when the deal took place\u201d. \u201cI talked to my mum once and asked, \u2018What\u2019s the deal with the Jackson Pollock painting?\u2019 And she said, \u2018Your father made some sort of deal. I wasn\u2019t there for it.\u2019 It was a quick conversation but I recall that she may have mentioned something about a motorcycle and the house,\u201d Borchert told The Mirror. \u201cIt\u2019s all very hazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Borchert, who was bequeathed the painting along with his sister, Bettina, told The Mirror: \u201cIf they\u2019re willing to be reasonable, and then they can show me something that makes me believe something went on that wasn\u2019t right, I\u2019ll come to an agreement. But if they can\u2019t, then I won\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he remembers his father being friends with Steve McQueen, the 1960s film hero of American counterculture dubbed the \u201cKing of Cool\u201d<\/a> by the press and best known for his roles in The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape. At one time the highest-paid actor in Hollywood, McQueen was an avid motorcycle racer, a skill that manifested both in his movie roles and in his alias “Harvey Mushman”, which he used to participate in races.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were definitely friends and would go for dinner, and while not buddies they were out socially multiple times,\u201d Borchert said of his father and McQueen.<\/p>\n

The screen star died at age 50 in 1980 from mesothelioma, speculated to have been caused by asbestos exposure during his time in the US Marines. Pollock, one of the pioneers of Abstract Expressionism, died in 1956 at the age of 44. In 2016, his 1948 painting Number 17A reportedly sold for $200m in a private sale<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Jackson Pollock painting valued at $68m is in the middle of a legal dispute between a Los…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[85608,6225,6485,6486,1120,96,2332,123,65263,27617,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-196357","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-abstract-expressionism","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-artsanddesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-film","15":"tag-hollywood","16":"tag-jackson-pollock","17":"tag-lawsuits","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}