Collector Says He Will Donate Johns Works to MoMA as promised

The art collector Donald L. Bryant Jr. is dismissing recent accusations that he is trying to go back on a pledge he made to the Museum of Modern Art and the artist Jasper Johns that he would donate three important paintings by Mr. Johns to the museum.

Mr. Bryant was accused of back pedaling on the deal to donate the triptych titled “Tantric Detail I,” “Tantric Detail II,” and “Tantric Detail III” in a lawsuit filed last week by the billionaire Henry Kravis and his wife Marie-Josée in Manhattan Supreme Court.

The paintings are co-owned by Mr. Kravis and in the art world’s version of a time-share, they have been shuttling back and forth between the Kravis and Bryant apartments. In their suit, the Kravises accused Mr. Bryant of trying to replace their existing contractual arrangement with one that “disregards, dishonors ad repudiates the pledge” to gift the art to MoMA.

But Mr. Bryant, through a spokesman, denied the charge, saying: “I have always planned to give my half of the paintings to MoMA. I have never said nor do I have any intention of reneging on my agreement with the artist to do so.”

Mr. Kravis and Mr. Bryant agreed to jointly buy the works in 2008, with the intention of eventually donating the paintings to the museum. They each paid half the purchase price. At the time, Mr. Bryant and Mrs. Kravis were on the museum’s board.

Their agreement also they said they would take turns every year exhibiting the canvases in their homes, according to court papers.

The yearly switch went smoothly until 2 1/2 weeks ago when the Kravises said they learned from an art delivery service that Mr. Bryant had canceled the scheduled Jan. 14th delivery. They accused Mr. Bryant of holding the works “hostage,” so as to renegotiate an agreement and abandon the gift to MoMA.

Acco! rding to the court papers, Mr. Bryant asked to move the delivery date from January 1 to “after February 1” and impose a penalty for late delivery. The proposed new agreement made no mention of the donation to MoMA, Mr. Kravis said in his suit.

Informed of Mr. Bryant’s response, Gregory Joseph, Mr. Kravis’s lawyer, asked “Then why not acknowledge the existing agreement”

“We intend to pursue the litigation that confirms the existing agreement and documents MoMA’s rights,” Mr. Joseph said.