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July 08, 1993 - Warblers and Orioles Liven Up the GardenJudge Orders Fingerprints In Father vs. Daughter Case By Joan Ullman A Manhattan judge last week granted a motion by Springs sculptor Philip Pavia, 79, to have his longtime friend and neighbor, renowned 89- year -old painter Willem de Kooning, finger- printed to determine U 38 bronze sculp- tures cast by Mr. Pavia are authentic de Koonings, or were created by his daughter, Lisa, as she reportedly claims. Manhattan State Supreme Court Judge Karla Moskowitz ruled that Mr. de Kooning will be fingerprinted at his Woodbine Drive home in Springs the week of July 26. Mr. de Kooning, who has been de- clared legally incompetent, cannot speak for himself to resolve the dispute. But Mr. Pavia says Mr. de Kooning's fingerprints are all over the originals. The unprecedented decision leaves Mr. Pavia —whose publication "It" of 50 years ago hailed the authenticity of the Abstract Expressionist art movement that he and Mr. de Kooning pioneered — to pursue his pioneering litigation, which his attorney, Gayle P. Elston, says is the first civil case to use finger- prints to identify an artwork's creator. At the July I hearing, de Kooning es- tate attorneys objected to the novel pro- cedure on grounds of its invasiveness, its questionable evidentiary use, and Mr. Pavia's lack of expertise in similar cases. But Judge Moskowitz cut short this and other objections by Paul, Weiss, Rif- kind, Wharton & Garrison attorney Da- vid Schnorrenberg, saying "We have a very narrow issue (before us) today. Fingerprints, that's it! " She also lauded Mr. Pavia's artistic expertise. "He's a sufficient enough expert in the art field. In the area of art and sculpture, right? And a tenured professor (of sculpture)," she said. The judge did not accept into evidence Mr. Pavia's photographic closeups of the fingerprint - smudged abstract clay models. But she seemed to agree with Mr. Pavia that fingerprints on the dis- puted bronzes are at least as clear as, say, the handwriting on the proverbial wall. "I don't want somebody to tell me that what appears on the sculptures are insufficient to be called fingerprints," Judge Moskowitz said. During the 25- minute hearing, Judge Moskowitz went a long way toward vin- dicating Mr. Pavia's reputation, which he claims —and which other artists agree has been damaged by the case. Following the hearing, a lawyer for Elaine de Kooning's estate, another de- fendant, said his client takes no position on the disputed sculptures. "I just want to get (the fingerprinting) done as quickly and as expeditiously as possi- ble in the interest of my client," said at- torney Howard Spierer of Manhattan's Weil Gotshal and Manges law firm. Suggesting Mr. Pavia's victory was a hollow one, Mr. Schnorrenberg reiter- ated that Mr. Pavia "had no expert to say these (prints) have any evidentiary worth." And he said he plans to argue this issue when the parties return to court October 21. But Mr. Pavia and his wife, painter Natalie Edgar, left the courtroom beaming at the long hoped -for ruling. Mr. Pavia's lawyer, Gale Elston also greeted the judge's decision with jubi- lance. "Thev've accused a fine, upright artist of palming off counterfeit works, and the judge knows it's not fair," she said. Left unresolved, however, are rami- fications of Judge Moskowitz's bomb- shell revelation about a letter she has received from Suffolk County Supreme Court Justice Daniel Luciano, who pre- sides over conservatorship committees and guardians. Reportedly, the judge has called for a conference about the payment of legal fees incurred by de Kooning estate lawyers during the three-year suit. The letter was whisked from sight before lawyers could study its contents, and Paul, Weiss attorneys later could not be reached for comment. But Gale Elston says this "extremely unusual" letter suggests that the law firm finds it more profitable to prolong its litigation at the expense of its own client, rather than settle. - The dispute over the sculptures' au- thenticity arose after Mr. de Kooning's wife Elaine, who had given the clays to Mr. Pavia to cast, died before paying him, leaving Mr. Pavia with no written proof of his alleged $400,000 to $500,000 commission. Mr. Pavia filed his $3 mil- lion suit to authenticate or to retain ow- nership of the sculptures after a letter from Lisa de Kooning's lawyer caused Christie's to cancel a $30,000 auction sale of one of the bronzes. Following last week's hearing, law- yers in the dispute agreed that two full sets of fingerprints will be taken from Mr. de Kooning by an agreed-on expert, while a witness for each side looks on. Mr. Pavia, Lisa de Kooning, Mr. East- man and Amagansett ceramicist Cathy Fisher, a former de Kooning assistant who is named as a material witness, are to be deposed in August, either in East Hampton or New York. Meanwhile as summer moves into high gear, and Mr. Pavia's lawsuit into low, Lee Hall's controversial new unau- thorized biography of the de Koonings, Portrait of a Marriage, has raised new questions about the authenticity of all of Mr. de Kooning's recent work, when drink and Alzheimer's reportedly took an increasingly heavy toll on his mental capacities. One quote from the book could be particularly devastating to Mr. Pavia's litigation: "Aren't these ter- rific? And aren't they like some of Bill's sculpture? I mean, look at the outlines and the masses," Elaine de Kooning al- legedly said of some of Lisa's abstract "clay monsters." But Ms. Hall, who says she wrote the book as a tribute, but depicts the de Koonings as a pair of fame and money- hungry schemers who connived their way to the pinnacle of wealth and fame through booze and sex, is widely ac- cused of trashing the de Koonings, tri- vializing their talent acid misquoting her sources. So Miss Hall is currently deemed the least authentic of all de Kooning experts by a broad segment of the art world. Also deemed untrue are recent rum- ors that Mr. de Kooning is in a nursing home. "I heard he was, but the person who told me now says he's still in his studio," said "the other Elaine," Bridgehamp- ton gallery owner, Elaine Benson. Yet to be authenticated are other rumors that Mr. de Kooning is perhaps still pro- ducing paintings that could sell for a million or more. Don't be left hanging! Let us keep you in touch with all that's happening on the East End. SUBSCRIBE TODAY Fill in the coupon below and send it with a check to: Southampton Town Newspapers Drawer 1207 Southampton, N.Y. 11969 Please send me The Southampton Press ❑ $26 in Suffolk County ❑ $32 Out -of- County If in- county subscription is changed to out -of- county subscription, expiration date will be reduced by two months. Name Address Town zip L_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ J Clip and Return with Payment Focus on Nature Warblers and Orioles Liven Up the Garden led the cowbird by an ingenious tactic. When she found the cowbird's egg in her nest, she merely rebuilt over the old nest and started laying again. She did this five times before the cowbird finally gave up. I know the cowbird I saw to- day was probably up to no good, and I wondered about the other birds nesting nearby. From our patio, I watched a Balti- more oriole build its nest in one of our hickory trees. I've reported this in other years and the nest is always in the same locale. Knowing that this bird spends its winter in the tropics and then makes its way north to my backyard each year makes it sort of special to me. Barbara cut up some knitting yarn and hung it out by the birdbath for them to use as nesting material. Sure enough, with my binoculars I can see it woven into their characteristic bag -like hanging nest. By now I'm sure the female oriole is sitting tight, for I see the colorful orange- and -black male chasing any in- truder out of the treetops. I sure hope he chased that cowbird away. I'd check it out if it were lower, but orioles usu- ally build 30 to 40 feet up and it's a bit high for me right now. As I write, the deer flies are trying to give me a hard time, but my bug spray foils them and they just boil around keeping their distance. Deer flies are By Paul Sloulenburgh I'm sitting in the garden after a long time away from its charm and subtle beauty, and how sweet it is. Not fully op- erational as yet as I recover from back surgery, I must sit around while others do my bidding. Beside me, under an old pine tree in the garden, there is a spot where king devil daisies have escaped the lawn mower and their wild vigor gives them something special that makes me wonder why we don't invite more of these wayside wanderers into our garden. Over in back there are 30 acres of yellow king devil that have taken over a fallow farm field. The song sparrow sings from the hed- gerow in back that I have let grow wild. Somewhere on the ground, I am sure, its mate sits on her grass -lined nest await- ing the moment there is movement in the eggs, signaling that hatching time is near. I see a cowbird fly up from the pasture and wonder if the song sparrow's nest has been visited by her, for it is her clever trick to lay her eggs in other birds' nests that give the cow- bird her bad name. The cowbird was originally from the great prairie country out west. It fol- lowed the buffalo along and took advant- age of its grazing. As land was cleared and our forests cut up into easy access, the cowbird moved east. In some places, its nasty habit of laying eggs in other birds' nests nearly did in some species. A perfect ex- ample is the Kirtland's warbler that nests only in a small area in the state of Michigan. So disastrous were the ef- fects of the cowbird's habit there that the warbler was on the verge of extinc- tion until some concerned birders mounted a campaign against the cow- birds. The caretakers tracked down every Kirtland warbler's nest and took out the unwanted cowbird's egg. The population bounced back and there is now hope for the species. The real problem is not only that the bird lays its egg in someone else's nest, but when it hatches it becomes most ag- gressive and therefore grows the larg- est of the young in the nest and gets the lion's share of the food. Most often the natural young are pushed out of the nest or merely smothered by the huge baby cowbird. The odd part about this whole operation is that the parent bird, whether it be a song sparrow, redstart or Kirtland's warbler doesn't seem to know the difference and just keeps on feeding the first and biggest mouth in the nest. A few birds seem to resent the cowbird's egg - laying in their nest and li- terally toss them out, but these are the exceptions. One yellow warbler outwit- L31 sort of dumb. They fly around your head and arms and finally light; when you us- ually take a swat at them and miss, they'll be right back the next moment for you to surely finish the job. They don't have the quick getaway of the house fly. You can tell them by their dark color and house-fly size. They land with their wings out and you'll see some dark markings on them. I looked at the cows when I got home and they were really being bothered by the deer Dies. Swarming around their faces and necks, the flies were just fil- ling up on the cows' blood, I'm sure. These are females and must have blood before they lay their eggs. The cows' swinging tails, I'm afraid, couldn't reach that far and therefore the head and neck suffered. You can tell when the cows have had enough though, for they head for the barn lickety -split. Inside the barn they get relief. Like the notorious horsefly, these deer flies make an incision and then drink the blood. Sounds pretty gruesome, but I can assure you few ever get that far on us as they are easily de- tected and eliminated. It is so good to be home and enjoying our great outdoors. Summer is the time of the year that makes the East End come into its own. There are few pla- ces that can equal it. STERN'S EXTRA ticketed price MISSES & JUNIORS FAMOUS MAKER SWIMSUITS 1 and 2 pc. styles. Does not in- clude Preview 1994 swimwear. 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