When art galleries ratify forgeries
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Patricia Cohen has uncovered the art-world scandal of the year: it seems as though Knoedler, the 164-year-old Upper East Side institution, closed abruptly on Wednesday in large part to protect itself against a $17 million lawsuit from Pierre Lagrange. Lagrange spent that sum on a Pollock which he then discovered contained two paints which had not been manufactured until after Pollock died. And now it seems that Knoedler regularly sold AbEx paintings procured by Glafira Rosales with the vaguest of provenance:
Neither Ms. Freedman nor Mr. Weissman can identify with precision the collector whom Ms. Rosales has said she represents. They acknowledged that they did not know of any paperwork that documented the provenance of those works. They have said they only know what Ms. Rosales has told them: that the works were bought by a unnamed collector in the 1950s directly from the artists.
In a letter written to Ms. Freedman in 2007, Ms. Rosales said the secret collector acquired the works on the advice of David Herbert, an art dealer who died in 1995. When the collector died, they were inherited by the owner’s son, whom she described as “a close family friend” who lives in Mexico and Switzerland and insists on remaining anonymous.
This “close family friend”, over the years, seems to have been able to come up with seven Diebenkorns, on top of dozens more works by the likes of Motherwell, Pollock, Rothko, Franz Kline, Clyfford Still and Willem de Kooning.
Given that these works had basically zero documented provenance, they were to a first approximation unsellable. Until — and this is key — they found their way to Knoedler, whose reputation was rock-solid.
Current and former Knoedler employees, including the above-mentioned Ann Freedman and Julian Weissman, would accept paintings from Rosales and sell them while quietly whispering all manner of unverifiable assertions about where they came from. This court document is quite a fun read: in the case of one Motherwell, it seems, Weissman first said that it belonged to Shaikha Paula al-Sabah, a princess in the Kuwaiti royal family, and then changed his tune:
By letter dated November 23, 2010, Weissman’s lawyer writes to Killala and reveals that the owner of the work when he had it consigned to him by Glafira Rosales was purportedly John Gerzso, the son of Mexican painter Gunther Gerzso. This is an entirely new twist in the story. Up until now, the owner was supposedly a rich Mexican closet homosexual very close to David Herbert whose family was in the sugar business.
The point here is that the art market, like the stock market, runs on a combination of trust and storytelling ability. The most expensive artists are nearly always those who can be credibly placed into central slot in the history of art; one of the main reasons that Abstract Expressionists in general are so expensive is because they have spent decades as the very heart of MoMA’s collection, which presented them as the pinnacle of 20th Century art, the artists standing on the shoulders of people like Picasso.
When gallerists sell paintings, they tell stories not only about the work, but also about the story behind the work, conjuring up romantic notions of dealings between Robert Motherwell and Mexican sugar magnates, brokered by “man named Alfonso Ossorio”. So long as the institution selling the work is trustworthy, potential buyers tend to take such stories at face value — and, of course, they have a vested financial interest in those stories being true, the minute they actually buy the piece.
Which is why it’s easy to see how Freedman personally owns a “Motherwell”, a “Pollock”, and a “Rothko”, all of which came from Rosales — like all the best salespeople, she probably truly believed what she was saying.
But Freedman would also have found it much harder to sell all those Motherwells if she hadn’t had the full institutional credibility of Knoedler behind her. That’s how galleries can be such lucrative businesses to be in: once you’re established, you can literally add hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to the value of a painting, just by hanging it on your wall. A fake Motherwell in a garage in Switzerland is worthless; in an Upper East Side gallery, it’s priceless.
Until the forgery is uncovered, of course.
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“Knoedler, the 164-year-old Upper East Side institution, closed abruptly on Wednesday in large part to protect itself against a $17 million lawsuit from Pierre Lagrange.”
Just curious: how does closing the gallery protect it? Or you actually mean it protects the people behind it and their personal fortunes? Or it allowed the principals to pull out all the funds?
The problem with most art produced after WWII is that often it by definition does not have a long provenance, since it is not very old.
After all, isn’t it entirely plausible that early in their career, before they became famous and their work valuable, an artist might give some works to a friend or relative, where they might sit in an attic/basement/private collection until the collector’s death?
When you are talking about works produced in the 50′s and 60′s, it’s entirely plausible that they may never have been seen by the public until the first time they are sold, which means that they, for entirely rational and logical reasons, have no provenance.
Sounds like a job for the ratings agencies.
In the case of Freedman isn’t it just as likely, possibly more likely, that she bought her painting (and for how much?) precisely so she could sell more of the fake paintings ?
“I myself have bought 3 paintings” is a pretty good sales pitch also.
It is probably wiser to buy expensive paintings from Sotheby’s or Christie’s who won’t go “out of business” suddenly and who have more reason to be very careful about claims of provenance.
It is unlikely and frankly highly doubtful 17 paintings of the caliber sold would have no provenance; no history, etc. Even the most private Collectors are usually able to provide documentation/substantiation that can be verified.
The $17 million Jackson Pollock sold by Knoedler was not only unknown to Pollock experts, but also not included in the Catalogue Raisonne. Further, Knoedler had tried to sell the painting unsuccessfully for at least seven years before it was sold to Pierre Lagrange.
Since we now know the paint used did not exist during Pollock’s lifetime, its posthumous creation explains why there is an absence of Museum exhibitions, Gallery labels and Invoice records – there weren’t any.
Savvy Art Buyers would have required additional due diligence before buying a $17 million Pollock painting with zero history as well as a group of Motherwell Paintings, also mysteriously never shown and without credible history.
It is disturbing the Daedalus Foundation was so misled by Julian Weisman, so much so that the majority of its multi-million dollar revenue is now earmarked to hefty Foundation salaries & legal fees..
Art Dealers only have one Reputation and clearly the FBI Investigation will cause permanent damage while also providing a wake-up call to anyone who wants to buys a major Post War and or Contemporary Artwork with thin/no provenance.
Welcome to the unregulated free market Mr. Lagrange.
My understanding of one of the basic tenets is that people will not do irrational things that could cause their own demise. However, it seems that we are seeing a distinct pattern over the past decade where individuals and organizations appear to be very willing to create fraudulent (if not legally, certainly morally)things for sale, such as forged paintings, MBSs, CDSs etc. that cannot possibly work out in the long run for them.
So, just another example of people finding a sucker to buy something that has little value in order to achieve a short-term gain while risking their reputation, frfeedom, and future earnings
Methinks ErnieD and JKLFA are a little too harsh on these buyers. After all, Knoedler spents years trying to sell them–eventually someone came along who didn’t ask all the right questions.
But I think some artists would not be too distraught if the bubble for celebrity art were pricked. Art is, necessarily, commercial. But should it be commercial to the tune of $17million? At this point, you are buying a relic, like Elvis’s handkerchief, not a piece of art that is supposed to be admired.
The real value of the work is not its aesthetic qualities, but that it was made by one of the great artists of the 20th century. It forms a direct link to the artist. People are buying the story, not just the painting. And there’s nothing wrong with that, even if $17mill seems like a hefty price tag.
@MKCurious:
The typical person who spends $200k on a house pays for a home inspection, a title search, and a survey before buying the house regardless of the representations of the seller and realtor. They will usually do this even if they are not getting a mortgage.
Why would you not do the same for a $17 million painting?
I do agree that many artists would not be distraught if the art price bubble was pricked. After all, the high prices are usually reserved for the works by dead artists. Many artists don’t see the financial rewards that later generations of their art buyers eventually see.
ErnieD, the artistry is in the act of creation itself. An art market that is focused on dead works by dead artists stifles the new. This goes beyond the financial implications.
As MKCurious notes, plutocrats are attracted to art because it allows them to vicariously share in the greatness of others. They buy the story, the experience, the connection. Yet ironically this has nothing to do with the creation — the art — itself.