The Honolulu Museum of Art is suing a San Francisco art collector it is paying $80,000 per year for the rest of his life — $890,000 so far — for five pieces of Southeast Asian art.

Museum officials, the lawsuit says, have been unable to get documentation from the collector that the sculptures in bronze, sandstone and wood were legally acquired before coming to them.

Formerly the Honolulu Academy of Arts, the museum agreed in 2004 to pay the art collector for the five pieces, valued at $1.275 million, according to the lawsuit filed in state court last month. The $890,000 in payments was taken from interest gained in an annuity fund.

The museum stopped making payments to Joel Alexander Greene in June. The lawsuit doesn’t give an age for Greene, or specify his life expectancy when the museum acquired the art. Based on a decades-old news report, Greene is about 80 years old.

Greene, the suit says, said he would provide the museum a written warranty of authenticity and indemnification, and that he had good title and valid export and import documentation for each piece.

“We’re not questioning the authenticity,” said Honolulu Museum of Art Director Stephan Jost, who said he has been unable to reach Greene.

But the museum is suing in an effort to recover the money it has paid so far, saying Greene has refused to prove the sculptures were legally exported from their country of origin and legally imported into the United States.

The museum says the five pieces date from the third to 13th centuries and portray Buddhist and Hindu figures.

In April the museum cooperated with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and handed over seven rare artifacts that investigators say were looted from temples in India — part of an ongoing international investigation that led to the 2011 arrest of New York art dealer Subhash Kapoor. The arts academy acquired the artifacts between 1991 and 2003.

As a result, the Honolulu museum began its own investigation into whether it had clear title to certain pieces.

The museum discovered that Greene had never provided the warranty or other documentation promised for the five sculptures. Previously, in 2003, Greene provided satisfactory documentation when he sold the academy a rare 11th-century Cambodian sculpture.

According to the lawsuit, Greene has failed to provide the documentation for the five sculptures despite museum officials’ repeated requests. Museum officials say the artwork is worthless to them because they believe Greene did not have clear title to them or proof that the sculptures were legally removed from their countries of origin.

In addition to the five sculptures in question, Greene loaned the museum 37 objects, which would become gifts to the museum upon his death. Jost said the museum wants to have clear title or detailed histories for those objects as well.

“According to our rules, even if he were to pass away, we wouldn’t be able to accept them because we now only accept things with good title,” Jost said.

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser could not reach Greene for comment.