Who stole Louis Sloan's paintings when he died?

PROMINENT Philadelphia landscape artist Louis B. Sloan, 75, had been dead only a few hours when relatives began pilfering his paintings from his Olney home.

The painter had told his artist friends that he wanted his major works to go to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

But nieces and nephews and others instead created a chaotic scene in Sloan's bedroom, witnesses told the Daily News, as they grabbed art work and his belongings.

"The paintings were thrown all over the bed and floor," said niece Lakia "KiKi" Smith, who was taught art by her uncle. "They were rubbing against each other, rubbing the paint off."

Some of the plunderers "were throwing everything in trash bags," added niece Madeline Sloan Haines.

They grabbed art and other memorabilia from every room, even the bathroom and basement studio of the two-story stone rowhouse on D Street near Ashdale that Louis Sloan and his sister, Barbara Sloan, bought in 1994.

Jim Sloan, 63, a brother of the artist, said that he tried to stop the art grab, telling the others, "Let's just bury our brother before dividing his work."

For Sloan's Dec. 14 memorial tribute, David R. Brigham, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, said "We wanted to do everything to honor Lou and not profit from his passing."

"Because of the friction [in the family,] we did not borrow any work from the estate [for the exhibit] and did not sell the catalog. We wanted to do something in Lou's memory and created a scholarship in his name.

"He was extremely well-respected," he added. "His work was joyous and celebratory of nature, God and spirituality."

At the tribute, curator Lewis Tanner Moore called Louis Sloan a "quiet giant of American Art."

But the aftermath of the artist's passing has been anything but quiet - with family infighting, intrigue and a court fight over his estate.

This is the saga of what happened to Sloan's estate after the beloved, kind and gentle landscape painter died Oct. 15, 2008, of a heart attack, shortly before he and a companion were to paint outdoors.

It is a tale of greed and contempt versus honor and legacy, in a dispute that has divided relatives into rancorous factions in Orphans Court.

" 'This is about the money,' " Jim Sloan said that a niece told him. " 'Before we give [the paintings] up, we'll burn them.' "

"I'm not going to let anybody steal in my brother's name," Jim Sloan said he vowed to his nieces and nephews.

What Louis Sloan considered his final masterwork - a landscape painting 36-by-80-inches - was declared stolen by an Orphans Court Judge John W. Herron this month.

The painting, titled "Spirit," was last exhibited in 2008 at the Sande Webster Gallery, where it was listed for $20,000 before the artist's death.

Also missing from Sloan's home are more than 200 landscape paintings, including studies about 4-by-7 inches as well as large works up to 80-inches long, self-portraits, scores of sketchbooks, Italian master drawings, a Japanese silk-screen, brushes, oil paints, palettes and personal belongings.

And, in the ultimate insult to the artist's legacy, his will is missing and believed to be stolen.

Without a will or an inventory of the missing artwork, five attorneys representing three family factions and the estate are battling it out in Orphans Court, 17 months after the artist's death.

Sloan was the fifth of 13 children - nine of whom are still living.

Attorney James Orman initiated the court case on behalf of Jim Sloan, four other heirs and the children of three deceased heirs.

Orman said that his clients believe that each sibling was to get a painting or two, and the major artwork was to go to PAFA - where Sloan taught and mentored students for 35 years - as the artist's legacy.

Sloan's close friend and painter Peter Botto also said that the late artist wanted his work to go to PAFA.

In fact, Sloan asked prominent artist and longtime friend Elizabeth Osbourne to promise that she would give "Frost Valley in the Catskills," a 54-by-70-inch painting that she had bought, to PAFA. She did so in 2001.

Attorney Martin Katz represents four heirs: the artist's disabled sister, Barbara Sloan, and three brothers. The faction is headed by Barbara's son, Bruce Sloan, but all but one of Barbara's other eight children are involved in the dispute.

Katz said that Bruce Sloan wanted to create a foundation in his uncle's name and lend the work for exhibits, "but the other side wasn't interested, they want to cash in."

"We believe that anything hanging in the house or on the walls belonged to Barbara," Katz said.

A third group, three children of a deceased female heir, is represented by attorney Jerome R. Balka.

In Orphans Court, Bruce Sloan, a physician's assistant, testified that he returned artwork in December 2008 that he had taken from his uncle's home immediately after his death.

The judge ordered attorneys to retrieve all the art remaining in Louis Sloan's home, but only 75 small studies and a 16-by-20-inch painting were found.

"This is awful," said Sloan's estate administrator, Alan Sanders. "We can't find the assets."

At an April 5 hearing, Judge Herron ruled that testimony failed to prove that Bruce Sloan and wife, Lisa, possessed any artwork, including "Spirit." The couple testified that they had never seen the painting.

Herron said that he ruled that the painting had been stolen because it "renders the painting worthless on the market, the least I can do in the interest of justice."

The judge did not address allegations by witnesses who accused three other nephews of taking paintings.

"What's missing is speculation," said estate attorney Martin I. Kleinman. "A lot of testimony is not specific. None of [the paintings] have names or prices."

This week, Kleinman petitioned the court for the return of the artist's self-portrait from his brother Carl David Sloan.

For at least 20 years, the self-portrait hung by the stairwell of the artist's home in Olney. Carl admitted that he took it after his brother's death, according to testimony, claiming that he paid for it years ago.

"I can't imagine an estate more disturbed than this one," said the judge.

Niece Lakiha "Kiki" Smith told the Daily News that on the day of Sloan's death, as arguments among his relatives broke out, she yelled at her mother, Barbara Sloan, a double amputee in a hospital bed in the living room: "Mom, you gotta stop this!"

"It's all mine!" her mother replied.

Smith said that she pleaded with her brother Bruce Sloan to let her wrap the paintings in acid-free paper and stack them vertically with no direct sunlight.

" 'Let me just inventory everything,' " she said she asked. "He flatly refused me."

"This was a desecration of a fine man's work," she added. "It left me truly heartbroken."

For years, Louis Sloan served as Barbara's primary caregiver. From his second-floor bedroom, he listened to a monitor to "make sure she wasn't choking or wetting the bed," said Jim Sloan. "Then he'd clean her up, strip the bed and put her back."

"He catered to her every little whim," said a niece. "He was getting tired of it."

This week, Bruce Sloan, his hands in latex gloves, was caring for his mother in Olney. He declined to talk about the foundation he proposed, the will or missing artwork.

"The truth will come out," he said.

Smith said that her uncle, months before his death, had an attorney draw up his will, which he tucked in a packet with information about his burial plot and put in the buffet in the dining room.

Smith said that she witnessed her brother Bruce and his best friend, Karla Waites, take "all of Louie's paperwork from the buffet, the basement and his drawers in his room."

Waites could not be reached for comment.

Haines, another niece, said outside of court that the day after Sloan's death, "Bruce and [wife] Lisa had spread out the artist's paperwork on the dining room table and were reading it."

Asked about allegations that Bruce Sloan took the will, Katz said, "From knowing Bruce and talking to him, I couldn't fathom that he would take the will."

After Sloan's funeral, his brother Jim said that he showed up at the Olney home where Barbara's children were talking about the artwork and whether to put it into a foundation in their uncle's name, lend out paintings and try to raise money for the foundation.

Jim Sloan said in an interview that his nephew Michael Sloan asked to talk to him upstairs, and that Michael told him: "We wanted to cut you in."

"I tried to tell them you can't do that," as they were not direct heirs and had no legal right to do so, said Jim Sloan.

"If I have anything to do with this, PAFA is not going to get the paintings," he said that the nephew later told him.

"Why should we give the white man anything?" one of Jim Sloan's brothers told him, he later recounted. Sloan and all of the relatives involved in the court case are African-American.

Jim Sloan now believes that "they had been plotting this a long time before Lou died."

Meanwhile, the artist's brothers have been monitoring the Internet for the sale of missing, or stolen, paintings.

"If anybody tries to sell these paintings and go to a reputable dealer, they are going to have to prove the lineage or ownership," Kleinman said.

In a second inventory of the artist's house on Mar. 17, attorneys found only a commissioned bust of Louis Sloan, which he had brought home in order to make a marble base for it, relatives said.

Kleinman turned over 75 paintings to Alderfer Auction & Appraisal, in Hatboro, Montgomery County, which plans to auction about 10 paintings on June 11.

"I just hate this, how they're tramping on [my uncle's] legacy," said niece Karen Sloan El.