Designer Victor Alfaro is trying to put the brakes on Roland Auctions’ plans for a sale of photographs that were taken by and given to him by Bruce Weber.
Looking to shelve the May 31 scheduled auction, Alfaro said his attorney would be sending a cease-and-desist letter to the Glen Cove, N.Y.-based auction house Wednesday because “this is stolen property.”
The Miami-based designer said he was notified a few months ago by the storage facility in Newark, N.J., that he was using that there had been a flood. “They said they had to open the units to see what the damage was, which was very bizarre,” Alfaro said, adding that he was told the items had to be moved out. “We got rid of a lot of wet clothes and other stuff. But what was taken out and by who? I don’t even know.”
After starting his career in fashion, Alfaro has shifted his focus into interiors for hotels and private residences. His portfolio includes designing five venues for the Gansevoort Hotel Group.
The salvageable items from that unit were later moved to a Bronx, N.Y., storage facility and one of his assistants went with the moving company. While the items in the Newark facility had been there for seven years, Alfaro said he didn’t even know what was there, but certain furniture that he thought should be there was not. “I don’t know how this happened. It could have been the employees from the storage unit. There are all these graft-y people all over, or maybe [it was] the people, who transported it,” Alfaro said.
Weber declined to comment through a spokesperson.
The designer said that “never in a million years” would he have expected there to be any interest in Christmas cards that were sent to him and other personal items. He also noted that some of the items in the Roland Auction sale were not correctly identified, including a portrait of him that was attributed to Weber but was shot by Francesco Scavullo. Another personal photograph was taken by Karl Lagerfeld, not Bruce Weber, Alfaro said.
This Victor Alfaro portrait was not taken by Bruce Weber, according to Alfaro.
Photo Courtesy Roland Auctions
Bill Roland, co-owner of Roland Auctions, said that according to the consignor, who he knows and believes, he won the contents of the storage unit through an online auction and later drove to the New Jersey storage unit. “He has all of the receipts, the documentation that is necessary and videotape that he took when he opened the storage unit. He thought it hadn’t been opened in years, because there was five inches of dust over the padlocks. When he got inside, there were a lot of boxes with Victor Alfaro’s name and a barcode. When he purchased the contents, the paperwork had ‘formerly belonging to Victor Alfaro,’” the spokesperson said.
Earlier Wednesday the Roland Auctions spokesperson said the photographs and other personal items had been found in an abandoned storage unit that belonged to Alfaro in New Jersey earlier this year. A Long Island, N.Y.-based collector, whose identity is not being shared publicly, is behind the sale, the spokesperson said. Some of the images from the sale’s nearly 50 lots had been posted and remained online as of Wednesday afternoon.
Images from the boxed set “The Twins From Madrid.”
Photos by Bruce Weber Courtesy Roland Auctions
There were multiple black-and-white photos of bare-chested men including several nude ones of twin brothers Juan and Cesar Hortoneda. There was also a silver gelatin print of Naomi Campbell with a cell phone clasped to her ear that was taken for a 1995 issue of Vogue Italia that has a presale estimate between $1,200 and $2,000. Another print of a vintage Abercrombie & Fitch ad of a male model wearing briefs showing off his biceps in a muscleman shirt has a presale estimate of $100.
Roland Auctions was amending the online descriptions of some of the images, including references to shoots in Montauk and Little Bear Ranch. A press release from the company that had been sent to WWD Monday referred to “private ranches” or “secluded outdoor settings described in lawsuits” without any substantiation. In 2021, Weber and six male models settled their legal battles over alleged sexual misconduct out of court.
