“Fake” Said Picasso

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31584, 23 January 1968, Page 6

“Fake” Said Picasso

Aa English artist who could not sell his own paintings pleaded guilty today to having signed the names

Picasso or Marc Chagall to them and unloading the fakes on the inflated market for top modern art The guilty plea to six counts of a 97-count indictment was entered by David Stein, the 32-year-old owner of the now defunct Galerie Trianon on Park Avenue, with a branch in Palm Beach. Stein, free on SUS7SOO (5NZ6696) bail for sentencing on March 15, told reporters that he was sorry for what he had done, but that he had been under financial pressure. Testimony by Picasso and Chagall pinned the label of fakes to Stein’s paintings, which had fooled some of the leading American experts. The 86-year-old Picasso scrawled “faux” (fake) across photographs of 12 paintings bearing his alleged signature when they were sent to him in Vallauris, France, for inspection by New York District Attorney, Frank S. Hogan. Chagall inspected the suspected forgeries when he visited New York in September, 1966 and said they were fhkes. Stein, who faces a prison term of 33 years and a fine of SUSISOO, also admitted in his plea that another of his paintings, represented as an original executed by Henri

Matisse was sold to Fanny de Margoulis, owner of the Niveaw Gallery for SUSSOOO. Prices for authenticated Matisse paintings range upward from SUSIOO,O6O. Stein was Indicted in May, 1967, at the height of the sensation touched off by charges by the Art Dealer’s Association of America that a Texas oil millionaire, Algur H. Meadows had been sold over SUSI million worth of fakes. —From N.Z.PA.