Harlequin Head, Landscape with Horses: Five notable art forgeries from around the world
In June 2011, news of a massive art fraud by a German group of forgers came to light.
By ET Bureau |
Agencies
Picasso’s ‘Harlequin Head’
Recently, Picasso’s ‘Harlequin Head’ was believed to have been stashed away in a Romanian forest. However, the work was reportedly that of forger Geert Jan Jansen. A look at other most notable art forgeries.
Comedy of errors In June 2011, news of a massive art fraud by a German group of forgers came to light. This news affected a number of collectors including comedian Steve Martin who had bought Heinrich Campendonk’s ‘Landscape with Horses’ for about $850,000 in 2004. It turned out to be a fake. It was only after he sold the painting in 2006 at a loss of over $200,000 that the painting’s falsity was revealed. The German forgers, led by Wolfgang Beltracchi and his accomplice Otto Schulte-Kellinghaus, are accused of selling over 44 forged artworks over 10 years. In 2010, Beltracchi was arrested and spent three years in prison.
Under the hat In 2010, a West Hollywood antiques dealer, Tatiana Khan, was arrested for selling a phony Picasso for $2 million. Prosecutors alleged that Khan paid an art restorer $1,000 to duplicate ‘The Woman in the Blue Hat’, which is a 1902 pastel of Picasso. The FBI stepped in after the buyer had the work examined and learnt that it was a fake. Khan eventually agreed to plead guilty to federal fraud charges. The Woman in the Blue Hat Abstract form In 2009, New York’s Knoedler Gallery’s chairman Ann Freedman resigned after a pair of collectors were sold a fake Mark Rothko for $8.3 million. Upon investigation, it was revealed that under Freedman’s reign from 1994 to 2011, the gallery sold numerous fakes of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Robert Motherwell. The fakes were made by forger Pei-Shen Qian in his garage in Queens and were sold to the gallery by Glafira Rosales. In 2011, the gallery closed permanently. Rosales pleaded guilty on many charges and Quian avoided prosecution by fleeing to China. A painting sold by Knoedler as a Mark Rothko that turned out to be fake
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A master forger It has been called the biggest art scandal of the century. In 2016, a number of forgeries in the Old Master style of paintings were uncovered. The collective value of money spent on the fakes is reportedly $255 million. At the centre of the scandal is French dealer Giuliano Ruffini. The bulk of the paintings, which are reportedly fakes of the work of Frans Hals, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Orazio Gentileschi, and other artists, are from the late French civil engineer André Borie’s collection. Sotheby’s refunded $10 million to the buyer of a Frans Hals painting.
Scribbles, Scratches And Other Abstract Pieces Of Art That Made Millions
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Who says a scribble or a scratch is worthless? Check out these abstracts which sold for a fortune thanks to their minimalistic allure.
Who says a scribble or a scratch is worthless? Check out these abstracts which sold for a fortune thanks to their minimalistic allure.
Cost: $70.5 million
What seems like chalk scribbles on a slate is actually an oil-based house paint and crayon artwork on canvas by Edwin Parker ‘Cy’ Twombly Jr, which fetched a record price for the artist in Christie’s 2014 sale. Part of Twombly’s ‘blackboard’ paintings, the 1970 artwork is inspired by his stint in Pentagon as a cryptologist. What’s interesting is the way he produced this artwork. He sat on the shoulders of a friend, who kept on walking along the length of the canvas, enabling Twombly to create fluid lines. The painting’s then owner, Audrey Irmas, a philanthropist, parted with the painting to raise funds for her foundation for social justice. Interestingly, Irmas bought the painting for $3.85 million in 1990.
(Image: www.christies.com)
Cost: $70.5 million
What seems like chalk scribbles on a slate is actually an oil-based house paint and crayon artwork on canvas by Edwin Parker ‘Cy’ Twombly Jr, which fetched a record price for the..
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Cost: $1.65 million
Once part of the Robert and Jean Shoenberg collection, this 1961 artwork came into the market at Christie’s 2008 sale. Kelly was a camouflage artist during his stint in the army in the 1940s. He was a part of the unit known as ‘the Ghost army’ comprising artists and designers who painted objects that would misdirect enemy soldiers.
(Image: www.christies.com)
Cost: $1.65 million
Once part of the Robert and Jean Shoenberg collection, this 1961 artwork came into the market at Christie’s 2008 sale. Kelly was a camouflage artist during his stint in the army ..
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Cost: $86.88 million (including buyer’s premium)
The vibrant orange, red and yellow coloured rectangles was part of art collector David Pincus’s estate and was brought to the market by Christie’s in 2012 where its sale set the record for post war/ contemporary art at the time. Rothko’s 1961 work was in Pincus’s possession for four-and-a-half decades. The final bid was double the highest estimate of the artwork.
(Image: www.markrothko.org)
Cost: $86.88 million (including buyer’s premium)
The vibrant orange, red and yellow coloured rectangles was part of art collector David Pincus’s estate and was brought to the market by Christie’s i..
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Cost: $16.2 million
The 24 sharp vertical tears on a crimson, water-painted seven- foot wide canvas was contested for about a minute and 30 seconds during Sotheby’s 2015 auction. Yet, the painting was sold below the low presale estimate of $15 million. Turns out, Fontana was inspired to paint this artwork watching Red Desert, a 1964 movie created by Michelangelo Antonioni, which won the Golden Lion in that year’s Venice Film Festival. In fact, the inscription on the back of the painting, in Italian, reads, “I returned yesterday from Venice, I saw Antonioni’s film!!!”
(Image: www.sothebys.com)
Cost: $16.2 million
The 24 sharp vertical tears on a crimson, water-painted seven- foot wide canvas was contested for about a minute and 30 seconds during Sotheby’s 2015 auction. Yet, the painting ..
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Cost: $84.16 million
Newman’s 1961 stark black palette on a pale canvas was part of Christie’s post-war and contemporary evening sale auction in 2014. Newman started dabbling in abstract expression while he was mourning the death of his younger brother George. About the painter’s black fixation, art expert Thomas Hess recalled Newman saying, “When an artist wants to change, when he wants to invent, he goes to black as it is a way of clearing the table-of getting to new ideas.” The painting is in the possession of a private collector now. Its previous owner had the painting for nearly 40 years.
(Image: www.christies.com)
Cost: $84.16 million
Newman’s 1961 stark black palette on a pale canvas was part of Christie’s post-war and contemporary evening sale auction in 2014. Newman started dabbling in abstract expression..
Real confusion In 2016, Korean minimalist painter Lee Ufan deemed 13 of his alleged forged paintings to be the real deal, despite a South Korean art dealer’s confession to forging them. “An artist can recognise his own piece at a glance,” Ufan said, after authenticating the alleged fakes. The police issued a statement saying that while they respected the artist’s opinion, the paintings were still under investigation as the claims of authenticity were in conflict with forensic evidence. A painter who confessed to forging 40 paintings of Ufan was arrested in November that year. Lee Ufan, ‘From Point’ (1974)
