following the death of clarke's friend francis bacon in 1992, in 1998 the english high court severed all ties between bacon's former gallery, marlborough fine art, and his estate, and clarke was appointed sole executor of the estate of francis bacon by the high court, on behalf of bacon's heir john edwards. clarke transferred representation of francis bacon to the tony shafrazi gallery in new york, where a major show was mounted of 17 previously unseen bacon paintings recovered from his studio. a court case was brought against marlborough, "professor brian clarke (executor of the will of francis bacon) v marlborough fine art (london)", alleging that the gallery had underpaid bacon for his work, asserted undue influence over him, and failed to account for up to 33 of his paintings, but following john edwards' diagnosis with lung cancer in 2002 the litigation was settled out of court, with each side paying its own costs. during the legal process an undisclosed number of bacon's paintings were recovered from marlborough, and "vast quantities of correspondence and documents relating to the life of the artist were handed over by the gallery".