A French legal ruling that ordered Jeff Koons to pay damages to another artist whose work he allegedly plagiarized has been upheld by a Parisian court.
Two years ago, the court found that Koons’ 1988 sculpture “Naked” was copied from a photo by the late Jean-François Bauret, Agence France-Presse reported. Koons, along with Paris’ famed Centre Pompidou (where the work was meant to be displayed from November 2014 to April 2015) has been ordered to pay $22,000 to the artist’s family.
The Koons work was never shown at the museum because it was damaged while being transported — but it did appear in some promo materials and ads.
A lawyer for the Bauret family told the French outlet that the ruling was “a great success for my clients.”
Koons’ “Naked” was created in 1988 as part of his “Banality” series. It depicts two naked kids holding flowers. But the court deemed it was copied from a work by Bauret titled “Enfants,” which was also published as a postcard back in 1975.
The court also ruled that Koons’ studio has to compensate Bauret’s family an additional $4,000 for using a pic of the sculpture on Koons’ website.