Speaker 1: Hey, Hey, this is John O'Brien, entrepreneur and a fellow
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Speaker 1: your podcast. Give us ever attention. We need everything you
Speaker 1: got fast. Waiting on Reparations would beat the Illes podcast two.
Speaker 1: It in every Thursday politics and wordplay. We fight for
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Speaker 1: From Cavalry Audio comes the new true crime podcast, The
Speaker 1: Shadow Girls. I grew up near the banks of the
Speaker 1: Green River and in the shadow of the killer that
Speaker 1: bears its name. Prosecutors described him as a serial killer
Speaker 1: surve But this podcast isn't only about tracking down the killer.
Speaker 1: It's about the victims. We stayed in the woods. He
Speaker 1: always liked to go into words. Listen to the Shadow
Speaker 1: Girls on the I Heart Radio app, on Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. Just off Madison Avenue
Speaker 1: on East seventy third Street for lunchtime. Crowded via quadron
Speaker 1: O fills every sidewalk table as well as the seats
Speaker 1: in its pandemic inspired shed. It's a cheerful neighborhood joint,
Speaker 1: catering to a young crowd with great coffee, sandwiches and pasta.
Speaker 1: A sense of triumph pervades the place. Among all the
Speaker 1: restaurants closed by COVID nineteen, Via Quadrono is more popular
Speaker 1: than ever. Often from a townhouse next door, a stooped
Speaker 1: figure emerges from an upper floor and makes her way
Speaker 1: down the stately front steps past the millennials. She looks
Speaker 1: smaller than she once did, as if scrunched by the
Speaker 1: circumstances that led her here, though she still has the
Speaker 1: white corkscrew curls that made her stand out in any
Speaker 1: art fair or gallery. Opening and the stern, almost imperious
Speaker 1: mien for which she was known. A little over a
Speaker 1: decade ago, Ann Friedman was among the most powerful art
Speaker 1: dealers in New York. Her fiefdom was the Knoedler Gallery,
Speaker 1: from which she sold works by many of the best
Speaker 1: known artists of the mid twentieth century, Mark Rothko, William Dacooning,
Speaker 1: Barnett Newman, Clifford Still, and Jackson Pollock. Today, the Knodler
Speaker 1: is gone. Just three blocks down Madison on the north
Speaker 1: Side street stand the ghosts of the now infamous gallery.
Speaker 1: Two adjoining limestone mansions in the Italian Renaissance style with
Speaker 1: ornate stone arches topped by decorative balconies. In the galleries
Speaker 1: own Renaissance, a royal blue Awning announced the Ndler's two
Speaker 1: buildings in capital letters. In this season of Art Fraud,
Speaker 1: we're examining the rise and fall of the Knodler Gallery.
Speaker 1: It's a story about one of New York City's oldest
Speaker 1: and most celebrated galleries dealing in world class art, and
Speaker 1: how its doors would close forever in the face of
Speaker 1: insurmountable pressure, ultimately in the form of looming prison to time.
Speaker 1: We're talking of course about paintings, fake paintings, or more plainly, forgeries.
Speaker 1: The best fakes are still hanging off people's walls. You
Speaker 1: know they don't even know or suspect that they're fakes.
Speaker 1: Of course, art forgeries only happen because there's money to
Speaker 1: be made, a lot of money. Tens of millions of
Speaker 1: dollars would change hands between a cast of characters before
Speaker 1: it was all over. A few profited, some were cheated,
Speaker 1: and at least one person would find themselves behind bars.
Speaker 1: With me today is Michael Schneerson, a long time contributing
Speaker 1: editor for Vanity Fair, whose feature story on the Knoedler
Speaker 1: Gallery appeared in the magazine shortly after the scandal broke
Speaker 1: in the spring of two thousand twelve. Michael is also
Speaker 1: the author of Boom Mad Money. Mega Dealers and the
Speaker 1: Rise of Contemporary Art are compelling and entertaining over view
Speaker 1: of the dealers who helped make the contemporary art market
Speaker 1: what it is today. The honest dealers, I hasten to add,
Speaker 1: because generally these dealers were and are honest, driven by
Speaker 1: a passion for their artists far more than profit. Here's
Speaker 1: Michael Schneerson. I've written a lot of articles for Vanity Fair,
Speaker 1: but the Notlar case sticks in my mind because at
Speaker 1: the heart of it lies an unresolved mystery. The story,
Speaker 1: of course, has taken some turns that even Anne Friedman
Speaker 1: could not have predicted. You could say that about the
Speaker 1: whole contemporary art market. I suppose who would have imagined
Speaker 1: at the start of the century that an artist named
Speaker 1: Jeff Coon's would make a supersized stainless steel rabbit that's
Speaker 1: sold at auction in May two th nineteen for million dollars,
Speaker 1: the highest price ever paid for a living artist's work.
Speaker 1: Who could have predicted that a young Brooklyn artist named
Speaker 1: Jean Michel Baskuillade would make his oddly haunting abstract portraits
Speaker 1: of tribal figures and totems in a basement for drug money,
Speaker 1: only to have them sell after his premature death for
Speaker 1: as much as a hundred and ten million dollars. Record
Speaker 1: Breaking sales like that have done more than juice the
Speaker 1: art market. They've led to a gray market of private
Speaker 1: dealings that thrive in a hot climate. It's important to
Speaker 1: note that the art market is still the world's largest
Speaker 1: unregulated business. Legal business anyway, you have to do what
Speaker 1: you say you'll do when striking a deal. You have
Speaker 1: to pay your taxes, and that's about it. I remember
Speaker 1: going to a mega dealer's home in East Hampton one
Speaker 1: night and commenting that the art market was the last
Speaker 1: unregulated multibillion dollar equity market in the world. Our host said,
Speaker 1: and let's try to keep it that way, as his
Speaker 1: guests raised their glasses and toasted. When a dealer goes
Speaker 1: further trafficking and paintings that turn out to be fakes,
Speaker 1: is there any pattern to explain why that happens. Usually
Speaker 1: it starts with someone down on their luck, a dealer
Speaker 1: or perhaps an unsuccessful artist. The fraudster may have no
Speaker 1: intention of doing more than tweaking a painting to make
Speaker 1: it more saleable, or fabricating just one work to pay
Speaker 1: the bills. But what if he or she turns out
Speaker 1: to be awfully good at it and the dealer, in
Speaker 1: desperate straits buys it. What if the dealer then sells
Speaker 1: it for a profit to someone unaware of the fraud,
Speaker 1: And so a fascinating dance begins to dance about the
Speaker 1: art that's changing hands, but even more so, a dance
Speaker 1: about the story behind the art. At first, the froster
Speaker 1: tells a bit of the story, just one or two
Speaker 1: tantalizing and fabricated bits to explain how and when the
Speaker 1: painting was done. And then as the dance goes on,
Speaker 1: the victim let's call him the Mark, grows ever more
Speaker 1: eager to hear more. After all, the more he hears,
Speaker 1: the more the expanding story seems to authenticate the art
Speaker 1: he's bought and the money he'll lose if it turns
Speaker 1: out the story was a scam. Until the fraudster and
Speaker 1: the mark are intertwined, each so eager to believe the
Speaker 1: story that for both it sort of comes true. So
Speaker 1: it would become for Ann Friedman, the noted galleryes director,
Speaker 1: and a mysterious woman named La Rosalez, who, on her
Speaker 1: visits to the Nodler starting in always seemed to have
Speaker 1: another mid century masterpiece under her arm. As we embark
Speaker 1: on this exploration, it's my opinion that Anne sold those
Speaker 1: paintings convinced they were real, until the day Glafira brought
Speaker 1: the whole story crashing down. I don't believe Anne knew
Speaker 1: they were fakes and sold them as fakes. I have
Speaker 1: to be honest with you, Alec. I disagree. I think
Speaker 1: you couldn't be a well known, long time dealer in
Speaker 1: top tier art and sell paintings one after another with
Speaker 1: no clear trail of ownership unless you were acting with
Speaker 1: criminal intent. I think and knew exactly what she was doing,
Speaker 1: if not from the beginning, then soon enough, and that
Speaker 1: she hoped she could fool the art world over and
Speaker 1: over again, as indeed she did for some fourteen years.
Speaker 1: So the first question is whether Ann Friedman knew what
Speaker 1: she was buying when she bought these works for whopping
Speaker 1: discounts from Gafa Rosalie and her confederates. And the next
Speaker 1: question is should Anne's own customers to whom she retailed
Speaker 1: these paintings, should they have been more aware of what
Speaker 1: they were doing. There's an argument in the art world
Speaker 1: that when you purchase an expensive work of art, it's
Speaker 1: your obligation, as a sophisticated buyer, to do your research,
Speaker 1: talk to experts, and so forth. Robert Store, former director
Speaker 1: of the Yale School of Art and one of the
Speaker 1: country's most important art critics, said at a conference not
Speaker 1: long ago, the collectors are quote unquote stupid to spend
Speaker 1: millions of dollars on a work of art without personally
Speaker 1: investigating its authenticity. And I think he has a point.
Speaker 1: That's an interesting idea. So what's your responsibility, if you're
Speaker 1: the buyer, to figure out if my artist fake. I've
Speaker 1: got a gallery full of art in the Upper East Side.
Speaker 1: Some of it is real, some of it is not.
Speaker 1: You decide, Well, that's a fair point. I guess my
Speaker 1: reluctance to think the worst event has as much to
Speaker 1: do with how I felt about the gallery as what
Speaker 1: I felt about her. I'm not a serious collector of
Speaker 1: contemporary art, far from it, but I like looking at art,
Speaker 1: and on occasion I bought a painting not for seven
Speaker 1: or eight figures, but maybe six. In fact, I've been
Speaker 1: the victim of an art forgery myself, but we'll get
Speaker 1: to that later. The Noodler felt different from almost every
Speaker 1: other gallery in New York. There was a stateliness about
Speaker 1: the place, a touch of class, old world manners. The
Speaker 1: Nole didn't just sell contemporary art. It's old modern art, too,
Speaker 1: which is to say art by artists who started before
Speaker 1: World War Two, anyone from Brock and Picasso to Francis Bacon.
Speaker 1: A sweeping stairway led from the showrooms to the office above,
Speaker 1: where Anne Friedman presided. The true marvel of Knoedler was
Speaker 1: its legacy. It was the oldest gallery in New York,
Speaker 1: opened in eight through those one it five years, and
Speaker 1: it never closed, not in the Civil War, not in
Speaker 1: World War Two, through every calamity in American history since
Speaker 1: the Antebellum era, the k Nodler had survived. But who
Speaker 1: was Knodler and how did the venerable gallery get its
Speaker 1: start in New York? That's after the break. Give us
Speaker 1: the over attention. We need everything you've got fast Waiting
Speaker 1: on Reparations. We beat the podcast in every Thursday politics
Speaker 1: in wordplay. We fight for the people because they got
Speaker 1: us in the worst way, from the Hill Cooper, the
Speaker 1: Bombay to Kanye, from the left enclave to what the
Speaker 1: neo Kanza, every conversation to break us off with some
Speaker 1: break because we wait in the reparations. Listen to Waiting
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Speaker 1: It was an eighteen fifty two that a young and
Speaker 1: ambitious gallery assistant named Michael Noldler disembarked from a Transatlantic
Speaker 1: ship in New York, scanning the busy waterfront for the
Speaker 1: face he hoped to find. Soon enough, he spotted his man,
Speaker 1: William Shaus Shows had come from Paris four years earlier
Speaker 1: to start a New York branch of a company called
Speaker 1: good Peel V. Bail a see soon to be known
Speaker 1: as Ndler. Michael K. Nodler was a Goopeel employee in Paris.
Speaker 1: That's Dick McIntosh. For years, Dick worked at the Noodler
Speaker 1: Gallery as its historian. He was on the verge of
Speaker 1: publishing the definitive history of the gallery when its gates
Speaker 1: came crashing down. Out of Goopeel met Michael K. Nodler
Speaker 1: in Stuttgart in the course of business and brought him
Speaker 1: to go Peel and Company in Paris, and Michael Noodler
Speaker 1: trained in Paris for a good ten or twelve years.
Speaker 1: He was totally a vassal of out of Coupel. William
Speaker 1: Schaus was the first person sent here to open the gallery,
Speaker 1: who arrived in eighteen forty seven to scout things out
Speaker 1: to help us understand how the Nodler became the first
Speaker 1: art gallery in New York and how for decades it
Speaker 1: remained the Venerable Noteler Gallery, as if venerable was part
Speaker 1: of its title. I've asked Noodler historian Dick McIntosh and
Speaker 1: Francis Batty to art market experts to share some notdal
Speaker 1: history with me at my home on the Upper East Side.
Speaker 1: The fact that I live on East seventy third Street,
Speaker 1: steps from Freedom and Arts is just a coincidence, though
Speaker 1: it does mean I get more sightings of Anne than
Speaker 1: I otherwise would, and to be candid, I've often found
Speaker 1: myself turning a corner at almost the exact moment and
Speaker 1: reaches the corner from the other side, or spotting that
Speaker 1: mop of silver curls half a block away heading in
Speaker 1: my direction. I would be less than honest if I
Speaker 1: did admit I've taken avoidance measures darting between parked cars
Speaker 1: or turning so abruptly that I barge into strangers. Hartley
Speaker 1: it said, I have nothing to say to her, But
Speaker 1: also I know that my Vanity Fair story, while it
Speaker 1: seemed fair to me, cut her deeply. That's never my
Speaker 1: intent with the magazine story. But sometimes the facts just
Speaker 1: go where they will. At any there's not much to
Speaker 1: say other than to ask questions she'd rather not answer,
Speaker 1: and to watch her stock off and a huff dick.
Speaker 1: I know the firm that came to be an odler
Speaker 1: didn't start as an art gallery. What was it exactly?
Speaker 1: When you walked into the place, what did you see?
Speaker 1: A store? The family always called it the store, which
Speaker 1: is an indication of its very eclectic nature. It would
Speaker 1: be very, very pretentious to call yourself a gallery, because
Speaker 1: it's like calling yourself a museum, and that would be,
Speaker 1: I think at that point, very inappropriate. That's Francis Batty.
Speaker 1: Francis has been an art dealer for nearly forty years,
Speaker 1: first in partnership with the late legendary Richard Fagen now
Speaker 1: with her son Alex, a tall and suave dealer in
Speaker 1: his own right who spends every spare moment schmoozing with
Speaker 1: tech billionaires, ready to cover their walls with art. The
Speaker 1: point was to sell the ex has stock of the
Speaker 1: Goo Peel Company from Paris. The technology of making reproductions
Speaker 1: had improved to the point that many more a much
Speaker 1: larger quantity of reproductions could be made could be manufactured.
Speaker 1: Did reproductions usually mean engravings? Originally it meant engravings, but
Speaker 1: by this time there were lithographs, which were the cheapest
Speaker 1: and easiest to produce in the largest quality, and etchings
Speaker 1: and mixed media. At the same time, though, in the
Speaker 1: forties when the store opened, someone was painting right, even
Speaker 1: in America. Thomas Cole Asher b drand the whole Hudson
Speaker 1: River School in her school Colos let us not forget
Speaker 1: the German American Immanuel Leitza who painted the famous Washingtons
Speaker 1: crossing the Della Delaware right. In fact, Goupil made reproductions
Speaker 1: of the painting in all sizes in Paris and sent
Speaker 1: them to America, where they sold like hot kicks. Mark
Speaker 1: Twain famously said that If General Washington had known the
Speaker 1: extent of reproductions that were going to be made of
Speaker 1: his image, he'd have thought twice about crossing the Delaware
Speaker 1: in the first place. How did Michael Nodler get involved
Speaker 1: when Goupil and Shows had a serious disagreement over how
Speaker 1: profits from the New York Gallery We're going to be divided,
Speaker 1: Chaos quit and set up his own business, and Michael
Speaker 1: Nodler was dispatched here to continue on in eighteen fifty two,
Speaker 1: how would you describe the stores evolution from selling reproductions
Speaker 1: to actual paintings for the store to become the first
Speaker 1: real art gallery in New York gradual, and then it
Speaker 1: kind of starts to really pick up steam in the
Speaker 1: eight Then you have this extraordinary kind of explosion for
Speaker 1: the next thirty years of them bringing major, major pictures,
Speaker 1: Goya Turner, I mean, just these legendary names of incredible
Speaker 1: quality to America. Did a few collectors become the lynchpins
Speaker 1: of Noted success. I'm thinking Henry Clay Frick, for one,
Speaker 1: the great steel industrialist. Frick, for many years was Noted's
Speaker 1: biggest client. The first painting he bought was four and
Speaker 1: immediately afterwards he began buying in real quantity, and his
Speaker 1: close association with the noted gallery lasted for the rest
Speaker 1: of his lifetime, in other words, until when he died.
Speaker 1: And when he died, Charles Carstairs, the man who had
Speaker 1: sold me on the first painting, was a pall bearer
Speaker 1: at his funeral. Michael Nodler made the gallery grow, and
Speaker 1: so did his sons. As it did, it began moving uptown,
Speaker 1: up along Broadway, then over to Fifth Avenue, following the
Speaker 1: city's own restless course. The location of the store was
Speaker 1: important for two reasons. First, it was in Littlefarge buildings.
Speaker 1: The choice of the location was determined by a network
Speaker 1: of French people in New York, one of whom was
Speaker 1: the father of Jean LeFarge, the artist, who was a
Speaker 1: real estate investor, a successful real estate investor in early
Speaker 1: New York. Secondly, due to the rise of department store
Speaker 1: in Paris in the mid nineteenth century, which is where
Speaker 1: they really began in the form that we know them today,
Speaker 1: it was clear to all concern that it was a
Speaker 1: good idea to be located near a department store, because
Speaker 1: that's where everybody went for every last little thing. As
Speaker 1: the Ndlers migrated, they started taking on more original art,
Speaker 1: even oil paintings. They sold to the founders of new
Speaker 1: American fortunes. Vanderbilt's Asters and Rockefeller's all frequented Ndler. So
Speaker 1: did Henry Flagler of Standard Oil and sugar refiner H. O.
Speaker 1: Have Ameyer. In the course of two days, railroad magnate
Speaker 1: Jay Gould bought twenty two pictures. All of these grandees
Speaker 1: had more than paintings on the walls of their brand
Speaker 1: new mansions. They had collections. Then in the early ties,
Speaker 1: the dashing Roland Ballet, a Knodler on his mother's side,
Speaker 1: came from Paris in his twenties to work at the
Speaker 1: family business. The last of the Ndler family directors, Roland
Speaker 1: had no choice, really but to join the store when
Speaker 1: he came of age. Roland liked to recall that his
Speaker 1: very first memory of meeting an artist came when he
Speaker 1: was just five. His parents brought him to the Parisian
Speaker 1: countryside of State of Giverny to have lunch with Claude Monet.
Speaker 1: They brought a ham that got sliced at a table
Speaker 1: in the garden. For the rest of his life, Roland
Speaker 1: would remember the white bearded artist eating the ham and
Speaker 1: looking at him with kindly eyes against a backdrop of
Speaker 1: water lilies. Roland arrived in New York in Nino at
Speaker 1: the age of twenty two, drinking most of the way
Speaker 1: with Pierre Matisse, the artist's son who would remain a
Speaker 1: lifelong pal. He came bearing other friendships with some of
Speaker 1: Paris's best contemporary artists, brac Lejee and Picasso. To his chagrin,
Speaker 1: he found his older family members in New York underwhelmed
Speaker 1: by the paintings he brought. Put them in the basement.
Speaker 1: They told him when he showed them the new Cubists
Speaker 1: that Paris had embraced, the children will take them. The
Speaker 1: Knoedler wasn't avant garde, as its family directors reminded Roland,
Speaker 1: it solved the art of its times, or, perhaps more accurately,
Speaker 1: it sold the art of the times its buyers embraced,
Speaker 1: which tended to be a decade or two behind contemporary art.
Speaker 1: Roland had no choice but to grit his teeth and
Speaker 1: sell his clients what they wanted. In the aftermath of
Speaker 1: World War Two, a new school of art arose to
Speaker 1: show its devastation. The often brutal, sweeping brushstrokes of abstract Expressionism.
Speaker 1: Yet Noodler kept its distance as painters like Jackson Pollock
Speaker 1: and William Dacooning, Clifford Still, Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko
Speaker 1: rose with a new generation of dealers, namely Betty Parsons,
Speaker 1: Sidney Janie and Leo Castelli. These were the groundbreaking dealers
Speaker 1: of the nineteen fifties. Very few people were buying contemporary art.
Speaker 1: If Pollock hadn't had Peggy Guggenheim, he would have starved.
Speaker 1: They were all starving in the fifties. They really were
Speaker 1: not until sort of Andy Warhol started to make money
Speaker 1: out of art under Roland Ballet. The k Nodler was
Speaker 1: running out of steam. Having missed the post war era,
Speaker 1: it went on to overlook pop art too. By the
Speaker 1: end of the sixties, it had moved to East, then
Speaker 1: proceeded to spend so much money renovating its newly acquired
Speaker 1: mansion that it nearly went broke. The Knodler needed an angel,
Speaker 1: someone far more deep pocketed than Roland Ballet. In ninet
Speaker 1: seventy one, the Knodler found that angel in armand Hammer,
Speaker 1: the billionaire industrialist, knowing how financially imperiled Roland Ballet's Ndler
Speaker 1: was Hammer bought the gallery for two point five million
Speaker 1: dollars in nineteen seventy one. For that modest sum Hammer
Speaker 1: got Knodler's business, its artists, its reputation and history. He
Speaker 1: also got the Italian Renaissance mansion at nineteen East seventieth Street.
Speaker 1: Not long after that deal, Hammer would buy the adjacent
Speaker 1: mansion at one East seventieth Street. For Hammer, the deal
Speaker 1: was as much about real estate as art. Hammer hired
Speaker 1: one of his two grandsons, Michael, to run the gallery
Speaker 1: as part of a family foundation. Incidentally, Michael's son, Army Hammer,
Speaker 1: would become a well known Hollywood actor. Still, Michael Hammer
Speaker 1: needed top rate dealers who could finally bring contemporary artists
Speaker 1: to musty Old Ndler. He found them in Lawrence Reuben
Speaker 1: and John Richardson. Reuben was a widely respected private dealer
Speaker 1: whose artists included Richard Deepencorn, Robert Motherwell, and Robert Rauschenberg.
Speaker 1: Larry Ruben was very famous because he was the brother
Speaker 1: of Bill Reuben, who I had actually worked for in
Speaker 1: the seventies. They were arguably two of the most important
Speaker 1: people in the entire art world. Bill Reuben was the
Speaker 1: chief curator of the Museum of Modern Art, and that
Speaker 1: was a time when the chief curator of the Museum
Speaker 1: of Modern Art was more important than any director anywhere.
Speaker 1: And the fact that his brother actually ran Knodler was
Speaker 1: a let's say, a subject of both admiration and envy
Speaker 1: and some sort of I would say snarkiness, because people
Speaker 1: would say, well, Bill Rubens having a big Frank Stella
Speaker 1: show at the Museum of Modern Art, which would of
Speaker 1: course make Frank Stella's incredibly valuable. And at the same
Speaker 1: time Stella was represented by his brother who was running
Speaker 1: the Nodler Gallery. So there was some more than whispering
Speaker 1: about conflict of interest, but um, it was evaded by
Speaker 1: Bill Reuben very effectively. We'll be back in a minute.
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Speaker 1: These are the practical suggestions you need to get more
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Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. Larry brought with him a number
Speaker 1: of artists who really almost overnight returned the note alert
Speaker 1: to some sort of eminence. I mean, I'm thinking of
Speaker 1: obviously Stella, as you mentioned, Deven Corn, Richard deven Corn
Speaker 1: another huge coup, and was in Robert Rauschenberg there for
Speaker 1: at least part of the town. Yes, I think Rauschenberg
Speaker 1: was there, and mother, well, you know, abstract expressionism was
Speaker 1: Bill and Larry's kind of sweet spot. And so you know,
Speaker 1: those artists were artists that were celebrated the Museum of
Speaker 1: Modern Art and celebrated and I'm sure ensured Ndler's financial
Speaker 1: viability and success at that time, along with Larry Reuben
Speaker 1: Michael Hammer's other heavy gun was John Richardson, an english
Speaker 1: born critic, curator, Picasso biographer and men about town. He
Speaker 1: told naughty stories about wealthy people and made them clamor
Speaker 1: for more. Along with handling artists he brought to Knoedler himself.
Speaker 1: Richardson was induced to take on Salvador Dolly, or as
Speaker 1: he came to put it, to join the Dolly team.
Speaker 1: Dolly had been with k Noodler since the nineteen pennies,
Speaker 1: when Roland Ballet had brought him in. Roland's wife Felice,
Speaker 1: tells the story of how he brought Dolly to Roland
Speaker 1: was a very good friend of Christian Dior since they
Speaker 1: were young, and Christian Dior was had a little gallery
Speaker 1: in Paris, and he and Rollan had lunch one day
Speaker 1: and Dior said to him, you know, I'm representing a
Speaker 1: Spanish artist. I'm having a show of his right now.
Speaker 1: Would you come to the gallery after lunch? And Rolland
Speaker 1: said sure, I'd love to. And he went to the
Speaker 1: gallery and looked at the paintings and it was this
Speaker 1: young Spanish artist named Salvador Dolly. And of course nod
Speaker 1: La Gallery was a big deal gallery and Christian Dior
Speaker 1: just had this little thing and he said to Roland,
Speaker 1: do you really like him? He said, yes, I like
Speaker 1: his work very much. And Dior said, would you be
Speaker 1: interested in taking him on for Ndler and Rolland said,
Speaker 1: I really would. I'd like to meet him and I'd
Speaker 1: like to to see more of his work. And that's
Speaker 1: what happened, and his role on always tells the story.
Speaker 1: I took Dolly to Knodler and Christian Deal went onto
Speaker 1: the dress business. Dolly's health was fragile now, but the
Speaker 1: old surrealist remained immensely popular and sold out bi annual
Speaker 1: shows at Nodler with a little help from the staff.
Speaker 1: In an interview for Vanity Fair, Richardson described Dolly's poignant situation.
Speaker 1: It was fascinating because he couldn't draw anymore. Richardson recalled
Speaker 1: of Dolly his hands were too weak for him to
Speaker 1: do the work. All he could do was sign his name.
Speaker 1: His eyes had gone. To put Dolly in a good mood,
Speaker 1: the staff would bring female models down to the basement,
Speaker 1: have them undress, and tell them to roll around naked
Speaker 1: on law pieces of rolling paper smeared with blue paint.
Speaker 1: For one show, Dolly had the idea to do holograms
Speaker 1: of his own work, but he hadn't made them yet.
Speaker 1: Richardson explained, in order to do them, we had to
Speaker 1: find some original dollies. So Roland and I went down
Speaker 1: to the basement and we found a bunch of old
Speaker 1: nineteen century sculpture of no great distinction. We got someone
Speaker 1: to paint antlers on a loaf of bread and other
Speaker 1: surrealist cliches, and this crap sold. Dolly's only contribution was
Speaker 1: a huge signature, because that's all he could do anymore.
Speaker 1: It was, in its way a kind of art world fraud,
Speaker 1: except that the clay lumps and the blue painted paper
Speaker 1: and the holograms were at least touched and blessed by
Speaker 1: the artist, and buyers, foolish as they might be, more
Speaker 1: or less new what they were buying. Coincidentally, it was
Speaker 1: at a Salvador Dolly opening at the n Odler Gallery
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty eight where Philly Say first laid eyes
Speaker 1: on Roland Dallet. As she recalls, it was love at
Speaker 1: first sight. It was a Dolly opening. I was representing
Speaker 1: Dolly at the time in the United States, and I
Speaker 1: went with his manager and his wife and we went
Speaker 1: to the gallery and as I walked in, I saw
Speaker 1: this man at the end of the gallery and I
Speaker 1: just thought to myself, my god, that's the man of
Speaker 1: my life. I was married at the time you were married. Yes,
Speaker 1: he was married with I don't know how many mistresses,
Speaker 1: and there were thirty eight years between you. Yes, he
Speaker 1: was so delightfully charming. This is European elegance like doesn't
Speaker 1: exist anymore, didn't even really exist then. It was five
Speaker 1: years later, in nineteen seventy three, when Philie Say was
Speaker 1: arriving at Michael Hammer's gallery to meet a client for lunch.
Speaker 1: When would bring the two back together this time for good.
Speaker 1: I went to the gallery and we were up on
Speaker 1: the second floor and the elevator opened and then off
Speaker 1: the elevator came roll on and I was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, and I said, I've been in Paris for
Speaker 1: three months. If I can't pull this off today, there's
Speaker 1: something definitely wrong with me. At the end of lunch,
Speaker 1: we got up and rolland came over to me and
Speaker 1: he said, you know, I really enjoyed having lunch with you.
Speaker 1: I find you charming, but I would like it if
Speaker 1: we could have lunch just the two of us, would
Speaker 1: you do that? And I said, just tell me when.
Speaker 1: And we had lunch the next day and really practically
Speaker 1: didn't separate from that moment on. With the sale of
Speaker 1: Knodler to armand Hammer, Roland Ballet began organizing his exit.
Speaker 1: He married Philie Say, she at twenty eight, he at
Speaker 1: sixty six, and the two moved to Paris. They lived
Speaker 1: like the newly weds. They were oblivious to their nearly
Speaker 1: four decade age difference until armand Hammer disrupted their idol.
Speaker 1: Hammer owed a third and final payment to Ballet to
Speaker 1: complete his purchase of the Knoedler Gallery and simply refused
Speaker 1: to make it. Roland was appalled. He never thought armand
Speaker 1: Hammer would be so awful and such a crook, Pelisse
Speaker 1: recalled later a judge had to intervene. We were in
Speaker 1: Paris and we got this call from his lawyer that
Speaker 1: Almand Hamma was going to be in New York in
Speaker 1: two days and he wanted to settle it, and Roland,
Speaker 1: if he really wanted to do, they should come to
Speaker 1: New York. So we dropped everything and flew to New York.
Speaker 1: Roland went to court and Hammah was there and the
Speaker 1: thing was. He said, yes, you know all settlements. And
Speaker 1: Roland said, I I have to go back to France
Speaker 1: and I have things to do, and if you want
Speaker 1: to settle it, I want a bank check for it
Speaker 1: by the end of the day. Today Hammer gave the check.
Speaker 1: By the end of the day, the bank check, and
Speaker 1: we went back to Paris. Six of the art business.
Speaker 1: Roland Ballet resigned as Noodler's director and settled in to
Speaker 1: enjoy what would prove to be twenty five more years
Speaker 1: of conjugal bliss with his young and adoring wife. He
Speaker 1: owned one of the two buildings on East seventy Street,
Speaker 1: number twenty one, which would eventually pass to Philly Say
Speaker 1: and be sold by her in two thousand eleven for
Speaker 1: fifteen and a half million dollars, but he rarely came
Speaker 1: to the gallery anymore. So he almost certainly failed to
Speaker 1: notice a nine year old salesperson who joined Nodler in
Speaker 1: December nine. Her name was Ann Friedman, and her impact
Speaker 1: on the gallery would be both profound and tragic. Over
Speaker 1: many of its fifty plus years, the Knoler had been
Speaker 1: a living, breathing presence, a character in the story of
Speaker 1: twenty century art. Its fortunes had risen and sometimes dipped,
Speaker 1: but its reputation remained intact, and the employees who chose
Speaker 1: to work there for modest salaries were personally devoted to it.
Speaker 1: They would find in Ann Freedman a very different kind
Speaker 1: of gallerists, one much more focused on money that art.
Speaker 1: Over a fourteen year period, Ann Friedman oversaw the selling
Speaker 1: of more than sixty disputed paintings, reaping eighty million dollars
Speaker 1: for the gallery, A trio of forgers and Freedman herself
Speaker 1: to the shock and scorn of the entire contemporary art market.
Speaker 1: She even managed to open a new gallery, Friedman Arts,
Speaker 1: on the third floor of a town house on East
Speaker 1: seventy third Street, next door to the chic Via Quadrono restaurant.
Speaker 1: She goes up and down those stairs every day, a
Speaker 1: free woman, but a shunned presence in this neighborhood of
Speaker 1: world renowned dealers. We're coming back from Frank Stella's studio
Speaker 1: and you got a call and now he's boiling. He
Speaker 1: wants to kill her. That's next time on art fraud.
Speaker 1: Come with me and you be, you know, world of
Speaker 1: pure imagination Taco and you see into your imagination Art.
Speaker 1: Fraud is brought to you by I Heart Radio and
Speaker 1: Cavalry Audio. Our executive producers are Matt del Piano, Keegan Rosenberger,
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