Fakes and Forgeries Fall 2015

1. THE HAGUE (AFP).- Forgotten for two decades, a dusty old canvas hidden in a corner of a small Dutch museum has been revealed as a painting by American artist James Whistler. "Thanks to chemical analysis and an examination of its origins, we have concluded that we have an authentic Whistler," museum curator Jan Rudolph de Lorm told AFP. More Information: http://artdaily.com/news/82052/Forgotten-Whistler-found-in-Dutch-museum--Chemical-analysis-authenticates-painting#.ViVjaxCrRPM


2.NEW YORK High-profile art forgery cases are on the increase. Cases such as the Knoedler scandal and the Wolfgang Beltracchi scandal have cost collectors and institutions billions of dollars.
According to some estimates, as many as two in five artworks sold on the market today are fakes. More Information: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/dna-verification-art-forgery-339319


3. NEW YORK An untitled and undated artwork described as a “painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat that has been authenticated as original,” is up for sale next month in Nashville, Tenn.—and could bring upwards of $2 million.It is being sold by Aberdeen, Miss.-based Stevens Auction Company, which has been in the business for 31 years.The auctioneer said it can trace the artwork’s ownership back decades.The lawyer representing the Basquiat estate, James Cinque, has stated that “the
committee had never authenticated the work” that is on the block—but, then, many Basquiats at auction have never been authenticated by the estate. The record for a Basquiat at auction is $48.8 millon, set in 2013, so this work is arguably, a bargain. More Information: http://observer.com/2015/10/a-mystery-basquiat-in-nashville/


4. THE HAGUE (AFP).- Two famous paintings thought to be works of mediaeval Dutch master Hieronymus Bosch are likely to have been imitations painted around the same time, Dutch media reported on Saturday. The works "Christ Carrying the Cross" (around 1515-16) and "The Seven Deadly Sins" (around 1500) "were made at the same time, but likely to have been made by imitators," public news broadcaster NOS said. More Information: http://artdaily.com/news/82608/Dutch-mediaeval-master-Hieronymus-Bosch-paintings--likely-imitations--say-scientists#.VjfcDa6rTNA

5.  NEW YORK Lawsuits in Knoedler Forgery Case Are Set for Trial
By GRAHAM BOWLEY New York Times OCT. 11, 2015
"Two lawsuits in the Knoedler & Company gallery forgery case, one of the art market’s more stunning scandals, are set to go to trial in January because there is “ample
circumstantial evidence” for a jury to decide whether the gallery’s former president knew that some paintings she was selling were fake, a federal judge said in a ruling on Friday.

The judge issued the 83-page ruling to explain why last month he had denied motions by the gallery and its former president, Ann Freedman, to dismiss the lawsuits filed by buyers of two fake works.
Before it abruptly closed in 2011, Knoedler, then the oldest gallery in New York, had over 15 years, according to the court papers, sold 32 forgeries that it represented as being Modernist masterworks by painters like Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Robert Motherwell. The paintings were created by a single man in Queens and brought to the gallery by Glafira Rosales, a Long Island dealer who pleaded guilty to charges related to the fraud in 2013.
Federal officials have concluded that Ms. Rosales and her boyfriend commissioned the forgeries and used the venerable gallery to create legitimacy for the works.
The gallery and Ms. Freedman have repeatedly said that they, too, were misled by Ms. Rosales and were convinced the art was genuine. But buyers of the fakes have challenged that account in several lawsuits accusing Ms. Freedman of knowingly participating in the fraud.
And now the judge in two of the cases, Paul G. Gardephe of United States District Court in Manhattan, has ruled that the suits should go to trial."
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/12/arts/design/lawsuits-in-knoedler-forgery-case-are-set-for-trial.html?_r=0