Millionaire’s “Room Of Fakes”

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

Millionaire’s “Room Of Fakes”

CKcprlntcd from "Newsweek by arrangement)

A Texas oil millionaire, Mr Algur H. Meadows, is a selfmade man who was a waiter, a dock guard, even a stunt man, before be struck it rich and acquired such badges of success as a big art collection. Last week the Art Dealers' Assoctetion of America claimed that 43 of the 98 works, hanging in Meadowi** suburban Dallas villa are forgeries. And Southern Methodist University started to investigate 36 old master paintings, including Goyas and El Grecos,, that Meadows had given it in 1962. After the Wyear-old magnate had got in touch with a Dallas dealer, Mr Donald S. Vogel, early in the year to sell some of his paintings, Mr Vogel notified his colleagues in the Art Dealers’ Association that he thought some of Meadows’s printings might be fake*. A New York dealer, Mr Klaus Peris, president of the association, visited, with other members, Meadows’s home in February. “As we walked into the house,” recalls Mr Peris, “I ran smack

into a fake Vlaminck landscape in the vestibule. I was appalled and said to Mr Meadows, *Do you want to know the truth?* and he said •Yea.’ I spared no feelings and I told him the truth.” Final Estimate Mr Peris's final estimate of frauds in Meadows’s collection includes 15 Dufys, nine Derains, seven Modiglianis, five Vlamincks, two Bonnards, a Picasso, a Marquet, a Chagall, a Degas and a Cassatt Meadows bought most of them in the last four years from a French dealer, who, some sources say, doesn’t even have a licence to run a gallery. Mr Meadows insisted be bad certificates of authentication from “the wife or daughter of the deceased pointers” and "ait expects in France the same ones used hw ffigffilMtMMl oy r«rw ovuiw, • and all the Important art galleries in the world." How does Mr Peris know the pictures are frauds? "You can see,” he said, “that the colours haven’t been on the canvas for 60 years, the alleged age of many of the paintings." And he added, The first look at a work of art has to give you the emotional response of truth or fake. It is the summing up of all the knowledge you’ve acquired.” “I don’t buy the judgment of this group alone,” says Mr Meadows. “And this should not have been publicised—-

■ what it’s probably done is to [ let the crooks get away. I sent , a wire to the dealers in France I and I’ve received no answer. II don’t know where they are.” In September, a New York appraiser bad valued the collection at 81,362,750 for insurf ance purposes. Mr Meadows i said he had not paid more than 8500,000 for the works. ’ But, said Mr Peris, “The Via- [ minck in the entrance, were . it real, would alone be worth t from >lOO,OOO to 8200,000.” i . Investigations i Meanwhile, the U.S. Atl torney’s office is investigating - fake Pollocks and Klines, the r California Attorney General I is probi tag bogus Impressionist i nataMßK end Mr Thomas I Hoving st the Metropolitan » Museum announced that this t fan he will start a programme in the detection of fakes. t What will Mr Meadows do i if the disputed paintings are » indeed fakes? “I’m going to i build a room in my house I called Hoorn of Fakes Bought i by Mr Sap',” he said. “Oh, , well," he added, “this would ! have been really bad if it had - happened to someone who r couldn't afford it AU my life f Fve been successful because s I’ve had confidence in other people’s word, just as they’ve t bad confidence in mine. To r lose some of this confidence 1 in people is worse than losing - the money.”