04 February 2016
Art, Artists and Fakes
Telling the difference, and whether or not it matters.
by Lynda Goetz
Like many people, I enjoy art and art exhibitions but have no training in the field at all. I try to refrain, when going round a gallery, from making the sort of remarks that show one up to be uninformed, ignorant or judgemental. Equally I find myself irritated by those who pass pretentious comment, frequently designed to be overheard, to let others know how educated and knowledgeable they are. Most of us are able to recognise genius when we see it, irrespective of our own training, and likewise to respect good draftsmanship or to marvel at wonderful imagination or vision. Like most people, I know what I like, or would like if I could possibly afford it, to have hanging on my walls or to simply admire in a museum. As we know, art, like much else, is a matter of personal taste. There is nevertheless generally, a collective agreement about the ‘greats’, those who have risen above their contemporaries to achieve lasting fame and recognition which extends, or will extend, beyond their own time and generation. What though of those who, talented as they clearly are, choose to imitate the art of others with the intent to deceive?
From January 2014 to September 2015 more than 60 works of art went on tour in the United States for an exhibition with the title ‘The Intent to Deceive: Fakes and Forgeries in the Art World’. This was an exhibition which juxtaposed some of the original art works of artists such as Picasso, Modigliani and Matisse, alongside the work of the world’s most accomplished forgeries, to test perceptions of authenticity. However, the ultimate question proposed within this exhibition was ‘whether the uncovering of a picture’s unpalatable history actually makes it less of a work of art’. A court in New York is currently examining yet another case which is riveting the art world, with apparently around $25 million (£17.4 million) at stake. A Chinese immigrant, Pei Shen Qian, forged artworks by modern masters such as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. One of these was sold to the chairman of Sotheby’s board, a man who one might have expected to know his originals from his fakes. Domenico de Sole, an Italian businessman and former chief executive of Gucci, is quoted as saying “I got a fake painting for $8.3 million and they don’t want to give my money back to me”. His wife Eleonore apparently told jurors in Manhattan that she “went into a shaking frenzy” when she first learnt of suspicions regarding the painting, supposedly by Mark Rothko. Another quote from Sr de Sole was, “I thought it was beautiful”. So was it, and is it still?
Did he think it was beautiful, or was it beautiful only because he thought it was worth $8.3 million and an investment? It is hard to feel massive sympathy for a couple in this position, but what if it had been purchased by a museum? Would our attitude be different then, or would it be considered that with all the expertise available to them it was inexcusable that they were duped? Is it the case that the discovery of a fake changes our relationship with a painting, and if so in what way and why? Many admirers and collectors of modern forgers consider that they own great art, even though those paintings are forgeries. In this country, Tom Keating, who died in 1984 at the age of 66, was a forger who gained not only notoriety, but a following of those who started collecting his forgeries during his lifetime. The ex-heavyweight boxer Henry Cooper was amongst Keating’s fans and his paintings, including his known forgeries, are increasingly valuable collectibles. Keating started making forgeries after his own career failed to take off, but he was also a man with a mission. He believed the gallery system to be inherently flawed and dominated by American “avant-garde fashion, with critics and dealers often conniving to line their own pockets at the expense both of naïve collectors and impoverished artists”. Keating wanted to fool the experts and destabilise the system. He left clues in his paintings to alert art restorers and conservators.
Another famous British forger was Eric Hebborn, who like Keating was more than a little contemptuous of the ‘experts’. Hebborn trained at the Royal Academy of Arts, but unable to break into the art world with his own paintings, turned increasingly to restoration and then forgery. He never sold to amateur collectors, but justified selling to experts and dealers, who he considered should have been able to discern the authentic from the fake.
In the case currently being heard in New York, De Sole, the chairman of Sotheby’s board, is fighting Anna Freedman, the owner and director of Knoedler & Company, a gallery which closed in 2011, after more than a century in business, following the uncovering of an $80 million-dollar forgery ring. This is the first case connected to the gallery to come to trial. Ms Freedman’s lawyers are claiming that she too was a victim of the fraud perpetrated by Qian and his agent Glafira Rosales, a Long Island art dealer who is awaiting sentencing for her role in selling Qian’s paintings. She apparently sold or consigned 40 fakes to the gallery. Interestingly, it was apparently around 40 fakes, produced by Elmyr de Hory and sold by his dealer, Legros, to a Texan oil millionaire, which in 1967 set off the scandal which unmasked de Hory, called in Clifford Irving’s 1969 biography ‘The Greatest Art Forger of our Time’. However, much of that life story turned out to be something of an illusion as well. International Arts and Artists, the organisation responsible for the ‘Intent to Deceive’ exhibition concludes not only that the art of forgery intrigues, but that often the stories and drama behind the forged works are as fascinating as the images on the canvases. Pei-Shen Qian has now fled to China. We might have to wait a while before we find out the stories that lie behind his canvases.
