Texas Superlative Even In Art Swindles

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31380, 27 May 1967, Page 5

Texas Superlative Even In Art Swindles

(By <

CHRISTOPHER TUGENDHAT

to the “rinandalWmes", London)

CRepHnted by ammstmealj

Texas has always prided itself on the scale of its activities ; everything has to be the largest of its kind, and usually it succeeds.

This week Texas became the scene of one of the most notable art swindles in modern times when an unfortunate oil millionaire, Mr Algur Meadows, was told that most of his sl.4m collection of impressionists and post-impressionists were fakes or forgeries.

This revelation came when five experts arrived in Dallas for a Picasso exhibition, and Mr Meadows invited them to look at his collection.

When they left he must have wished they had stayed in their galleries. According to an official statement by the Art Dealers’ Association of America they had found that: “Of the 58 works in the collection reviewed by our members, 44 are not by the artists to whom they are attributed. Eleven are or may be by such artists. Three are probably by established artists though not by the artists to whom they are attributed. List Of Fakes The roll call of misrepresentations would make even a sale at Sotheby's or Christie’s something out of the ordinary if the real things were put on sale. They included 15 fake Dufys, nine fake Derains, seven fake Modiglianis, five fake Vlamincks, two fake Bonnards, and various other paintings attributed to such notables as Chagall, Degas and Picasso.

If Mr Meadows was an isolated case there would be a temptation to write off his experience as yet another Texan superlative. But the debunking of his collection is merely the' latest of a long line of similar revelations during the last few years. The first to attract the attention of British newspaper readers occurred in 1962 when • notable French forger called Pierre Schecroun was found guilty in Paris of forging a wide variety of major modern artists, including Picasso, Miro, Brague and Leger. Experts Misled Since then stories of experts falling victim to young men turning out supposedly major works from little workshops in Montmarte have become commonplace in French newspapers. Sometimes they *re alleged to have worked on their own account, and on other occasions it has been suggested that there is a mysterious “Monsieur X" running a ring. To the outsider the whole thing seems almost as incredible as the machinations of James Bond’s implacable opponents, SMEBSH. But to insiders of the art world it is “merely a ease of the newspapers tumbling to something that has been going on for years.” The head of Sotheby's impressionist department, Mr Michel Strauss, says that “every day about one third of the pictures that come to me are fakes.” He believes that the proportion is about the same in the other departments. Sometimes he can spot fakes immediately, but on others the task can be more difficult •

In Good Faith . This does not mean that Sotheby's or any other reputable auction bouse or gallery spends most of its time dealing with would-be swindlers. Many of the forgeries and fakes are brought in by owners acting in perfectly good faith who have always believed claims put forward on behalf of the article. This often means- that they take a lot of convincing, and the firm

keeps a room filled with impressive examples of the forgery to show them when its judgment is challenged.

Moreover, private owners are by no means the only people to be taken in by the forgers. If some of the world’s leading collections were subject to the same sort of intense examination as the Meadows collection they would probably find themselves left with a number of blank spaces on their walls where some of their most prised possessions had previously been hanging. Russia Suffers Among the sufferers might be the Soviet Union’s world famous Hermitage and Pushkin collections. In 1965 the Russians allowed 102 of their French masterpieces to be put on show at the Louvre. Among the 20,000 people a week who went to look at them was the London art dealer Mr Daniel Wildenstein, who then wrote a letter to “Le Figaro” arguing that 15 of the paintings were "incontestably aprocryphal.” In the polite language of the art world this means “false.” He described a Watteau as being of “flea market quality,” and of a portrait of Ingres by David he said: “It is not by David and does not represent Ingres.” Even the Italians have been caught out about their own artists. In Rome in 1958 it was found that a supposedly major work by Amedeo Modigliani, for which the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna had paid a high price, was false. As dealers like to point out, forgery is not a_modern phenomenon, but is as old as art itself. The Romans used to make their own Greek statues, and from the 16th century until the end of the 19th century it was part of every student’s training to copy the works of old masters. Nor is the mass production of forgeries particularly new. Within 18 months of Whistler’s death a factory was established in Chicago to turn out his works, and there are innumerable other examples. Artists Guilty Occasionally distinguished painters themselves have been known to encourage misrepresentation. This was certainly the case with Corot, who was at one time surrounded by an admiring circle of pupils. Every so often he would add a few brush strokes to one of their paintings and put his signature on the bottom so that it eould be sold to enable the pupil to receive enough money to continue with his own painting. Other artists (for reasons best known to themselves) have caused trouble to collectors by disowning their pictures in later years. However, notwithstanding the numerous historical examples of forgery there is no doubt that the business has grown rapidly in the last 20 years or so. Paintings are no longer exchanged by heads of state, but art has become a matter of high finance. Rich men all over the world have realised that the most effective way to overcome the combined effects of inflation and high taxation is to invest in works of art. At the same time there has been an everincreasing volume of orders from United States and other galleries. Old Masters Hand In spite of the successes of the Dutch forger Hans Van Meergeren, who produced works purporting to be by the

17th-century Vermeer, relatively little attention is devoted to old masters. It is too difficult to reproduce “the 300-year-old effect now that we have these modern detection gadgets,” as one expert put it After all, Van Meergeren was caught Hie main emphasis has therefore been on contemporary artists and money to be made in this field is potentially large. A watercolour of Andre Derain’s Fauve period, for instance, would probably have fetched about £BOl5 years ago. Today it could easily change hands for £lOOO. The other great advantage of modern paintings from the forger’s point of view is that they are relatively easy to reproduce. The Derain might be just a sheet of white paper with a sketchy view of a bridge or some other object in primary colours. Whistler’s technique of simply throwing paint on to a canvas and then working It with a brush makes him another good subject for misrepresentation. For an expert even Picasso raises few difficulties. Buyers Don’t Look The forger’s task is made easier by the fact that many of the biggest buyers are the least discriminating. They look on art primarily as a status symbol or an investment medium and are not concerned with looking at the pictures they buy. Consequently they are interested only in the name of the painter, and are willing to buy the right kind of pictures in much the same way as they might tell their stockbroker

tojgurehase a parcel of shares. voKM wortd afe hM dtefgnedtt piuihlp isfsgiisifis di—Wsmti l*iii lic eye a great deal of business is done in a surprisingly casual fashion. Dealers travel all over the world looking for whit they want and just drop fate; ■gUfleries) to* London, Paris, New York, or witesever else they may health their credentials loOkrightand they can talk wife assurance about their sub ject and about what is going on in their home city they can expect a welcome. Casual Sales Naturally the visitor wfll look at his host’s pictures and it would not be unusual for him to carry something of his own on his journey. Thus a sale involving large sums can take place over drinks, and “if one is feeling tired or offform mistakes can happen,” as one dealer put it The only way to guard against being taken in is to be totally expert In the appropriate subject A man who really knows a modern artist can' tell his brushwork in much the same way as another person recognises handwriting. In case of doubt he should have a pretty good idea of where the artist’s known paintings are. Even this is not an infallible protection. In the case of drawings a forger can trace from the original and detection is extremely difficult. With the granting of statehood to Alaska, Texas is no longer the largest state in the United States. And it will be surprising if Mr Meadows’s collection holds its pride of place among swindles indefinitely.