You would think they would know better! How is it that with all the “experts”,
technology and advanced techniques, there is still art fraud?
Take, for example, the recent case of the art dealer,
Glafira Rosales, who almost got away with it (if it wasn’t for those meddling
investigators?) Roslaes knowing sold
copies of art by famous painters knowing they were fake.
The more interesting part of this case is not that the
experts are not that good, or that she was clever, or that Modernist masers can
be copied, but that it was one man who forged the paintings. (So instead of becoming successful on his
own, painting original works and finding a dealer-oh, he already did that- to
promote his works, he cheated.
So, to recap, a Chinese immigrant, painting out of garage in
queens, paints copies, which sold for millions, of which he received
thousands.
It is unclear how Rosales got caught, but the moral of the
story is don’t cheat? Don’t get caught with
a fake? Don’t paint a fake? Pick a different era to fake? Oh, you know it is to
be hones because the bad guy always gets caught.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/17/arts/design/art-dealer-admits-role-in-selling-fake-works.html?_r=0
Love this! There was a big article on forgery and authentication in... The New Yorker, I think... maybe two years ago? Search this name ... Peter Paul Biro... a very interesting story for you.
ReplyDeleteWhat really interests me about this story is the man who forged the paintings himself. One has to wonder why he accepted only a few thousand dollars when his employers were earning (if you can even call it "earning") millions. Why would that be? Was he misinformed as to the worth of the paintings that he was forging? That seems the only logical reason; any other reason would beg the question of why he never spoke up. There's also the fact that this has been going on since the eighties; it's amazing that, in three decades, nobody noticed that these paintings were forged until now. One would think that somebody in the last thirty years would have brought one of the forged paintings to an expert. You're absolutely right, Austin - it's amazing that art fraud is still out there.
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