A Roadshow Moment for Bonhams and Christmas for an Owner

Picture Bought for Its Frame in Devon Sells for $78,000 at Bonhams Canadian Art Sale

"The picture was brought to us after it was purchased for its frame at a local Devon auction," said Charles Lanning. Photo: Bonhams.
TORONTO.- A stunning watercolour of Canadian Indian totems sold at Bonhams in Toronto last night (29.11.10)for $78,000 (Canadian dollars), completing a huge roundtrip that took the picture painted in Western Canada to the West Country in England, and then back to Canada.
Charles Lanning, Bonhams Regional Director in Devon, says: “The picture was brought to us after it was purchased for its frame at a local Devon auction. When the buyer took it home he researched the artist and felt it might be more interesting than he had realized. We decided to sell this charming watercolour painted by Walter J Phillips, titled The Hoh-Hok Houseposts at Karlukwees, in our Canadian Art Sale. It was the obvious place to sell as the artist has a reputation in North America. This is just another example of Bonhams international reach. The client is delighted with the result, especially as he only paid a few pounds for something priced to sell for its frame.”
Writing in Wet Paint his unpublished manuscript on watercolour technique, Phillips was taken with the village Karlukwees "...never have I seen a more delectable sketching ground....I regretted leaving the coast, and I long to return." Painted in the late 1920's, while travelling on the Pacific Coast, this watercolour would be translated into the second wood engraving in his 1930 portfolio, An Essay in Woodcuts.
The picture was used on the front cover of the Bonhams catalogue for the Canadian Art Sale.

The Chinese Are Everywhere - Buying Your Stuff And Their Stuff

1. HONG KONG.- Christie's Hong Kong completed its two sales of Classical and Modern Chinese Paintings on Tuesday, November 30th, 2010, tallying the highest total ever for the category with HK$669 million/ US$ 86 million. The morning session of Fine Chinese Classical Paintings kicked off with high sold ratios of 91% by lot and 87% by value and a total of HK$100 million/US$13 million. The momentum continued unabated with the afternoon session of the Modern Chinese Paintings sale which totalled HK$ 568 million/ US$73 million, with 96% sold by lot and 97% sold by value.

2.
HONG KONG (AP).- For newly minted Chinese billionaires looking to spend their money, a natural choice has been art and antiques from their own country, many costing millions of dollars.
Now art dealers and auction houses are trying to pitch them a harder sell: Western masterpieces by artists such as Picasso, whose paintings featured in three autumn shows in Hong Kong.
"They are the next big wave of buyers, and they could affect the market as much as the Japanese did in the '80s," said Jehan Chu, who runs consultancy Vermillion Art Collections.
China's rapidly developing economy has churned out many wealthy businesspeople who have made their fortunes in industries from soft drinks to property development to the Internet. The country is now home to the world's largest number of dollar billionaires, according to the Hurun Rich List 2010, China's version of the Forbes list. China's new rich have been snapping up Asian artwork, antiques and other collectables, pushing up prices to record levels. That was evident in November when an unnamed Chinese buyer paid $83 million at a London auction for a 19th century Qing dynasty vase found in a suburban house. The rising number of wealthy Chinese buyers has also made Hong Kong the world's third largest auction center after New York and London. Chu says a lot of the buying "is largely driven by investment rather than a love or appreciation of art," though that is changing.
In a sign of the hope that Chinese buyers are now turning their attention — and checkbooks — to Western art, Sotheby's displayed 20 works at its Modern Masters exhibition of Impressionist and early 20th century art in Hong Kong last weekend, after holding a preview in Beijing in October. It was the auction house's first show held specifically for the Asian market and featured seven Picassos as well as works by Monet, Renoir, Chagall and Degas, priced from $2 million to $25 million.

Picassos are also on show at Ben Brown Fine Arts and Edouard Malingue Gallery, both opened by European art dealers in the past year in the former British colony to cash in on the growing wealth of Chinese collectors.
Pablo Picasso is widely considered to be the greatest artist of the 20th century and his works consistently fetch record prices. A 1932 painting of his mistress, "Nude, Green Leaves and Bust," sold for $106.5 million in May, setting a world record price for any work of art at auction.
Many in China can now afford his paintings. The Hurun report's researcher, Rupert Hoogewerf, said in October that he knows of at least 189 dollar billionaires in China but the real number may be more like 400 to 500. The report lists 1,363 people with wealth of at least one billion yuan ($150 million). But do they want to buy a Picasso? The artist might seem a bit too challenging for buyers in China, who often prefer more literal and conventionally pretty scenes.
Art dealer Edouard Malingue said some of the Chinese visitors to his gallery's debut show have shown an appreciation for the works, some of which depict sexually charged scenes, including brothels and men peeping at women. "Some of them, I could feel it was very new so they need more time to get used to it," Malingue said. "Others had a much more quick interest. Even for people not familiar with his work, they had a sharp eye for his craftsmanship, they were attracted to pieces that curators would pick."
Malingue said he has sold two of 17 paintings on display at his show, the first for his gallery, which opened in September. Both were bought by European buyers. The show also features 23 sketchbook drawings. After it ends in Hong Kong on Friday, it will travel to Taiwan for a week. Ben Brown, who opened the Hong Kong branch of his London gallery a year ago, has 13 works spanning 70 years of Picasso's career in a show that runs until Jan. 28. He said that while he hopes to sell some paintings to Asian buyers, he also expects purchases to come from wealthy Europeans visiting the city. He would not discuss specific sales.
A Sotheby's spokeswoman said only that "some" paintings from the Modern Masters show have been sold, declining to be more specific. But there is plenty of potential if the results of Christie's sale of Asian contemporary and Chinese 20th century art held last weekend is anything to go by.
Thirty seven lots were sold raising more than $36 million, with most buyers listed as Asian.

3. CHINA.-ArtDaily.org -  After the record-breaking $390 million autumn sales at Sotheby’s Hong Kong last month and China Guardian’s $620 million record sales last week – the overall Chinese art market is becoming very hot once again.
Whilst other art markets are talking about the recovery, the Chinese art market is experiencing a second boom - strongly supported by regional buyers. Auction prices in certain traditional sectors, such as Chinese painting and calligraphy, as well as antique porcelain and ceramics, have been pushed to new heights, and art market analysts are already questioning the sustainability of this surge in prices.

Evidence of the frenzy was seen in early November 2010, when a bidding war between Asian buyers pushed a Qianlong-dynasty vase to a price of $83.2 million, an auction record for Chinese art. The vase was offered through the west London auction house Bainbridges, with a pre-sale estimate of £800,000 to £1.2 million. It made more than 40 times the high estimate, with a hammer price of £43 million.
The action taking place in the more traditional collecting categories of the Chinese art market, is also rubbing off on the Chinese contemporary art market. Christie’s Asian & Chinese 20th Century Art (Evening Sale) held on 27 November 2010 in Hong Kong, achieved a total of $31,060,900 (excluding premium). This was 8% lower than Christie’s ‘white glove’ sale in spring 2010.
In terms of Chinese contemporary art, Christie’s Hong Kong raised a total of $24,140,220 from both the Asian Contemporary art and the Chinese 20th Century art sale. This was at the top end of the pre-sale estimate of $16,773,250 to $24,438,050. The total was 54.4% higher than spring 2010, and the result supports the strong positive trend set out by Sotheby’s Hong Kong last month. The two houses are competing neck and neck, with Christie’s total for contemporary art only 9.1% higher than the equivalent sale for Sotheby’s. In Christie’s Contemporary Asian Sale, Chinese contemporary art accounted for 89.5% of total value, versus 72.1% for Sotheby’s.
The success of the Christie’s sale was underpinned by broad interest in the mid- to high end price segment. In contrast to the contemporary Chinese sale at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in October, where the top 10 lots accounted for more than 72% of the value - the top 10 contemporary lots in Christie’s Hong Kong sales accounted for only 42% of the total. The average auction price for Contemporary Chinese art increased to $182,880, more than double that of spring 2010.
The price segments that saw the strongest interest was works sold for $100,000 and above, with significant interest in the $100,000 to $500,000 price bracket. This price category saw its share increase from 14% to 18%, or in terms of value from $2.19 million in spring 2010 to $4.35 million in the autumn 2010.
Similar to Sotheby’s Hong Kong sale, the demand for Zheng Fanzhi’s works remain very strong, and 4 out of the top 10 prices were achieved by the artist, accounting for 27% of the overall total. The second highest lot in the sale was by artist Mao Xuhui’s ‘92 Paternalism’ (1992), which sold for $1.3 million against a pre-sale estimate of $390,000 to $650,000. Zhang Xiaogang also had a good run, and despite only having one lot from the ‘Bloodline’ series in the top 10 price list, 6 lots sold for a total of $2.6 million with only one painting failing to find a buyer.

4. Boston, Mass.: Antiquesandthearts.com - The normally reserved audience of Chinese dealers burst into applause when one of their own, representing a mainland China buyer, won an album of 25 ink and color paintings at Skinner's two-day sale of Asian works of art December 3–4. The price: a record-breaking $1,227,000.
The paintings of landscapes, flowers and birds by the stars of Twentieth Century Chinese art had come to auction from the collection of Pah-Yuen Wang, for whom the pictures were made. The sale total was around $5.7 million, a record for the auction house.
The ArtTactic Auction Indicator for contemporary Chinese art at Christie’s Hong Kong fell 23.5% from spring 2010, and the current Auction Indicator is now standing at 39, down from 51. The reason for the drop in the Indicator is largely a result of a higher unsold rate, which increased from 18% in spring 2010 to 34% in the recent sale. The equivalent Auction Indicator for Sotheby’s was 43 in October 2010.

5. HONG KONG (REUTERS).- A Hong Kong tycoon paid $16.7 million on Wednesday for a quartet of Chinese cloisonne cranes at a Christie's sale in Hong Kong that also saw strong prices paid for high-end Chinese ceramics amid a white-hot streak in the market.

While parts of Europe have plunged into a debt crisis and the U.S. economy remains stagnant, China's antique-loving millionaires are splashing out on rare Chinese antiques and ceramics, driven by cultural patriotism and potential investment returns.
At Christie's Asian sales in Hong Kong, considered a barometer for the Chinese and Asian art markets in the world's third largest art auction hub after New York and London, demand was again strong for Chinese works from three major Western collections.
The four enamel cranes, part of a trove of Chinese treasures had been cloistered for decades in the late Alfred Morrison's Fonthill estate in the western English county of Wiltshire.
Crafted in the Qing Yongzheng period (1723-1735), the near life-sized birds were sold after brief bidding for HK$129.5 million to Hong Kong tycoon Joseph Lau who has paid high prices for works by Andy Warhol and Paul Gauguin in recent years.
"Many pieces sold above the high estimates because of the provenance and as fresh material to the market," said Robin Markbreiter, the director of Arts of Asia magazine, at the sale.











 

A Forger With No Motive

This article, which is reprinted from the theartnewspaper.com caught my attention because this forger seems to be a bit different than our every day art world crook.. Father Scott and Mark Landis are two of the alias that this forger has used in approaching small museums and donating fraudulent works and not taking a tax donation. There appears to be no other motive other than the charade. Thirty museums have been identified as having received works of art over a period of at least 23 years.

NEW YORK. Museums and universities across the US are being targeted by a suspected art forger who has tried to donate works, complete with auction house records, that the museums now believe to be fakes. In September, a man posing as a Jesuit priest, visited the Hilliard University Art Museum in Lafayette, Louisiana, and tried to donate a work that the museum says was a skillful forgery.

Research into his previous donations at other museums has uncovered a history of what appear to be fraudulent gifts going back 20 years. Last month, Mark Tullos, the director of the Hilliard museum, emailed colleagues about fake donations. The email was circulated on the Museum Security Network and the American Association of Museums Registrar’s Committee listservs. According to Tullos, a man dressed as a Jesuit priest came to the museum wanting “to donate a painting in honour of his late mother. [He had] an elaborate story about his Philadelphia family—their patronage to museums. He brought an American impressionist painting he purported to be by Charles Courtney Curran with what appeared to be proof of provenance.”

Tullos said the man, calling himself Father Arthur Scott, first wrote to him on what appeared to be church letterhead. On Tullos’ invitation, Father Scott paid a visit. “He got out of a red Cadillac dressed like a priest, with the collar and pin,” said Tullos. The museum accepted the painting, issued a receipt, and Father Scott “blessed us in the parking lot” and left, said Tullos.

The director asked museum registrar Joyce Penn to examine the painting. “She said, ‘This doesn’t look right,’ so she went down to the art prep area and took out her blacklight.” The painting glowed suspiciously, so Penn used a microscope to take a closer look and discovered the tell-tale dot matrix pattern of a reproduction, which had been painted over and signed. Tullos admits that the forgery was good enough to fool him. “At first glance, you really could not tell. The hero of this story is our registrar,” he said.

The discovery reminded Penn of a previous incident. She pulled out a file and found a photo of a man who had called himself Mark Landis, who Tullos recognised as Father Scott. This man had also tried to donate a work to the Louisiana State University (LSU) Museum of Art in 2009. As Tullos started to contact museums, more and more cases came to light. His searches led him to Matthew Leininger, who first came across “Landis” in 2007 while working as a registrar at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art and has compiled a dossier of his attempted donations.

Leininger says he became suspicious after the man donated a Louis Valtat watercolour to the museum, which became part of the collection. “He brought five more works to the museum, and we were getting ready to take the new pieces to the museum’s management.” These included a Paul Signac watercolour, a Stanislas Lépine oil on panel, a Marie Laurencin self-portrait, a French academic nude drawing and an Honoré Daumier sketch. As Leininger’s team researched the works, they came across a curiously similar Signac that had been donated to the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) Museum of Art in Georgia around the same time. A press release sent out by the museum announcing the gift also boasted of receiving works by “Milton Avery and Marie Laurencin, as well as a French academy drawing in red chalk,” all donated “by Mark Landis in honour of his father, the late Lt Cmdr Arthur Landis Jr.”

Leininger also used a blacklight to examine the Lepin. “Everywhere where there wasn’t paint it was glowing white,” he said, explaining that anything that wasn’t original oil paint should effloresce under the light, and he remembers the paint smelling “fresh”. Under microscope, pixels denoting a digital reproduction could be seen. He then discovered that the original Signac watercolour was in the collection of the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. The Oklahoma museum rejected the works, including the Valtat, which was “deemed a forgery” and was deaccessioned.

Leininger believes that all the works he came across “look like they were done by the same hand. Of course each will have a slight variation.” The paints used in the watercolours also all appear to be from the same palette, says Leininger.

So far, Leininger has found over 30 US museums that have been approached by a man going by the name “Mark Landis”, or by apparently the same man using the name “Steven Gardiner” (the names used seem unlikely to be his real name). The list also includes institutions such as the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, the St Louis University Museum of Art, the Michael C. Carlos Museum in Atlanta, the San Francisco Art Institute, the American Folk Art Museum in New York, and the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. The earliest donation he found is a Laurencin watercolour, Portrait of a Young Girl, 1935, given to the New Orleans Museum of Art in 1987, but later deemed a forgery. Many of the museums have recently become suspicious of these donations, because no tax deduction forms were asked for—sometimes Landis/Gardiner explained this, saying that he was on disability with heart problems.

Leininger, who is now at the Cincinnati Art Museum (which has not been approached with suspicious donations), says he notified local police, the FBI and the IRS, but as he hasn’t actually committed fraud, “I don’t know what you could get him on. All I can do is let people know.”

Meanwhile, the Hilliard University Art Museum in Louisiana, plans to include the “Curran” in an exhibition exploring authenticity and forgery, entitled “Say It Isn’t Faux!”, set to open in January 2011. But Leininger has more ambitious hopes: “My dream would be to get all these works from all the different museums, host an exhibition in his name and invite him as the guest of honour. Then he’d really have heart problems.”

Priceless by Robert Wittman - A Good Read?

Having met Mr. Wittman in a Philadelphia court room about 8 years ago I really wanted to hate this book and by extension the author. Unfortunately, however, I could not rationalize my bias and found the book informative and entertaining. This does not mean that I don't have some problems with some facts that clearly were not sufficiently checked and some cheap shots that could have been avoided.

I was in that Philadelphia courtroom in, I think, 2002  as a character witness for George Juno. Clearly Juno broke the law and clearly he made some very stupid decisions. History has proven that his partner Russ Pritchard, who has had additional problems with both civil and criminal proccedings - the latter which sent him back to jail in 2009, was the bad guy in this Juno Pritchard partnership. This is a point that Mr. Wittman might have made considering the respect that I believe he has had for George in the past and may have for George now. Juno was an idiot but he is one of the brightest most talented experts I have worked with in my career. George Juno would attest that I have beaten him up enough for his past mistakes. Knowing what I know now I would still testify for him as a character witness.

Undoubtedly, the most disappointing section of the book was Mr. Wittman's comments regarding the Antiques Roadshow. Clearly the implication was that when Juno and Pritchard were caught faking a segment with a Civil War sword, the Roadshow was no longer  perceived as having integrity. In Season Four Roadshow  was seen in almost 20 million homes every Monday night. Now ten years later Antiques Roadshow is still the top rated show on PBS. Having participated on the Roadshow since 1996 I can attest that the crew, staff, and appraisers are professionals that should not be tainted by the selfish moves of a few. In my opinion this was a gratuitous cheap shot. Mr. Wittman elaborated on his own problems with the false charges he had to endure with the death of his partner. Undoubtedly this was a difficult time for Mr. Wittman and his family. While I would agree that the loss of life certainly trumps anything that Juno and Pritchard did, the broad brush used by Mr. Wittman does not mitigate the potential damage that could be done to folks that don't deserve it.

Having said all that I did enjoy the book and would recommend it to anyone. And I would enjoy learning about all that stories that for one reason or another could not be included in the book.

A Pre-Columbian Treasure?

A small, pre-Columbian figurine that came rolled up in T-shirts in an airline passenger's luggage was returned to Mexico, its country of origin, on Tuesday. The 2 1/2-inch artifact, which appears to have a face carved into it, was taken from a U.S. citizen who flew into Oakland International Airport Feb. 10, returning from a trip to Mexico.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer Jaime Gonzalez pulled the passenger aside to check his baggage as he was going through customs.

"I came upon this roll of clothing. The passenger did mention he had some rocks but he only had one (object)," Gonzalez said. "He was a little surprised, especially when I asked him if he had documents for importation."

Officials took the artifact away from the passenger after he failed to provide documentation, claiming he found it in the mountains of Ameca, in the state of Jalisco in western Mexico.

"It did not seem criminal at all," Gonzalez added. "It seemed more innocent than anything that he found it and picked it up."

The passenger did not contest authorities' decision to keep the artifact for further examination and there was no indication that he stole the artifact intentionally, said Richard Vigna, director of field operations for Customs and Border Protection, a division of the Department of Homeland Security.

Professors at UCSF, Stanford University and the University of Colorado Denver and other experts examined photos of the object and confirmed the article to be pre-Columbian - art of Mexico, Central America, South America and the Caribbean before European colonizers arrived in the 15th century.

Experts determined that the artifact's style was consistent with items found in central Jalisco state and believe it could be the foot of a larger piece like an urn or vase.

"In reality, no monetary value can be attached to this object - it is invaluable," said Consul General of Mexico Carlos Felix Corona, during the repatriation ceremony at the Consulate General of Mexico in San Francisco.

Mexico has a large body of pre-Columbian art, Corona said. Often, farmers discover pieces through erosion but many get stolen for intended sale in the United States.

"Local authorities do not have all the resources for surveillance, but it is illegal to take any kind of object that you find there, according to Mexican law," he said. "Not even rocks can be taken from the sites."

Artifacts are occasionally repatriated to Mexico from the United States. Another pre-Columbian piece was found several years ago on a cargo plane, according to Vigna.

"It has happened before, but not very frequently in San Francisco," he said.

The National Institute of Anthropology and History in Mexico will assess the artifact and determine whether it will be placed in a museum.

"This is significant because with this action, we can maintain Mexico's cultural patrimony for present and future generations," he said.

This article was offered by Banderas News which is a website from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. They have quoted Richard Vigna, director of field operations for Customs and Border Protection, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, professors at UCSF, Stanford University and the University of Colorado Denver, and Mexico's Consul General in San Francisco. All experts described this object as Pre-Columbian and worthy of both seizure at the airport and repatriation to Mexico. From what I can see from the photograph of the object, it appears to be a leg fragment from a vessel. Stylistically, this does not appear to me to be from the state of Jalisco. At a length of 2 1/2 inches, even it were authentic and I am not at all convinced, it would be more  no more $30 - $50.

My point in even mentioning this in this forum is to wonder what sort of accountability our enforcement officials have in spending your tax dollars wisely. Most taxpayers have no idea of the value or for that, matter even the issues surrounding Pre-Columbian art and repatriation. The media should not immediately without asking questions score this as a victory for the good guys.