$21 Million Art Damages

An art expert was unfairly sued after he concluded that his own grandfather had created a Western-theme painting bearing the name of a better-known artist, a jury ruled. Jurors Monday awarded Steve Seltzer nearly $21.4 million in damages in the dispute over the watercolor "Lassoing a Longhorn," supposedly signed by the painter C.M. Russell in 1913. It is owned by Steve Morton, an heir to the Morton Salt fortune. Seltzer, who had been hired as an expert to examine the painting, said the watercolor was really the work of his grandfather, O.C. Seltzer, with a forged Russell signature. As a Russell, the painting is worth $800,000; as a work by O.C. Seltzer, only about $80,000, according to court testimony. For the full story - click the title Irish Art