Speaker 1: I think that con artists are effective because they are
Speaker 1: incredible readers of human beings. What they do better than
Speaker 1: almost anyone else is figure out what makes you personally tick,
Speaker 1: what motivates you, What are your hopes, what are you
Speaker 1: scared of you know? What are your fears, what are
Speaker 1: your hang ups? How do you see the world, what
Speaker 1: are the biases and the lenses through which you view reality?
Speaker 1: And then what they do is sell that back to you.
Speaker 1: They give you the vision of the world that you
Speaker 1: already believe in, the vision of yourself that you want
Speaker 1: to see reflected back and not reality. Part of what
Speaker 1: makes a con artist story so compelling is there's usually
Speaker 1: a grain of truth that makes the lie more convincing.
Speaker 1: So it will with Rosales and the story she was
Speaker 1: spinning to Anne Friedman about a supposed Clifford Still painting.
Speaker 1: It was a wild tale in which the painting was
Speaker 1: said to be photographed then stored in the trunk of
Speaker 1: a car. Only the car's rear engine had caught fire,
Speaker 1: leaving the painting badly burned and unsellable. And it happened.
Speaker 1: Actually Carlos was preparing the pieces, and he was threaten
Speaker 1: them with her dryers and putting them in coal and
Speaker 1: hot temperatures, so that one got burned because he forgot
Speaker 1: to turn the hair dryer of, and of course it
Speaker 1: went in flames. And now Anne is waiting for the piece.
Speaker 1: Then what is this planation I'm going to give Carlos
Speaker 1: tom It would tell them this ironically, and Freedman would
Speaker 1: later use a fragment of the burned painting as proof
Speaker 1: the paintings must have been real. After all, what forgers
Speaker 1: would intentionally burn their carefully crafted artwork. In fact, certain
Speaker 1: materials in the burned fragment typically appeared in authentic Clifford
Speaker 1: Still paintings, A mishap that could have hindered the entire
Speaker 1: operation became instead proof of the paintings Authenticityfra Rosalee is
Speaker 1: unquestionably the most fascinating and elusive character in the story
Speaker 1: of the Knoler scandal. While many of the major players
Speaker 1: have sat for interviews on camera or in print over
Speaker 1: the years, Mosalez has only told her story privately to
Speaker 1: federal prosecutors and investigators. Michael Schnayerson and I spoke with
Speaker 1: Gfira rosales in early in a small conference room at
Speaker 1: the Lowell Hotel in New York City. She was accompanied
Speaker 1: by her daughter solely. Rosales is a shy, diminutive woman
Speaker 1: with straight, dark hair almost shoulder length, and glasses that
Speaker 1: make her look rather academic. She speaks softly, apologizing for
Speaker 1: her English these days. Rosales lives with her daughter in
Speaker 1: a small Upper east Side apartment, decades before the irresistible
Speaker 1: hustle of New York City life would lure her to
Speaker 1: Knodler Fra. Rosales was born and raised in Mexico. My
Speaker 1: father had a lot of cows, all kind of animals,
Speaker 1: and we have to help with everything, of course, so
Speaker 1: it was a little runch so no water, no electricity.
Speaker 1: I grew up with a very difficult father. My childhood,
Speaker 1: it was very, very difficult. Your father was difficult, well,
Speaker 1: he was abusive. You know. We have to get up
Speaker 1: at four o'clock in the morning go and help him
Speaker 1: to the farm. Also helped my mom clean places for
Speaker 1: the animals, gave them food, carry water from kilometers away
Speaker 1: because there was no water. And then I went to
Speaker 1: Mexico City, so I studied there. I was a north
Speaker 1: I became a Norse, and then I was a study
Speaker 1: in medicine. It was my dream to be a doctor.
Speaker 1: Despite her initial dreams of working in medicine, Rosalas was
Speaker 1: intrigued by fine art as well. At the school, they
Speaker 1: teach you about art, about the mural list, the big
Speaker 1: mural list of the country, like the rivera Frida Carlo,
Speaker 1: all of them. By the age of nineteen, rosals had
Speaker 1: a boyfriend, a scruffy, an impressive restaurateur in Mexico City
Speaker 1: named Carlos Bergantinos. Carlos had come from Spain to run
Speaker 1: a little eatery in Mexico's capital. City's sister worked as
Speaker 1: a waitress at the restaurant. One night, she called Glafira
Speaker 1: in a panic. As it turned out, a relationship that
Speaker 1: would be fraught with chaos started no less dramatically. She
Speaker 1: was scared that something happened at the restaurant somebody, which
Speaker 1: it was him. It was drunk and he was having problems.
Speaker 1: So I came to help him, kind of rescue him,
Speaker 1: and from then he never leave me alone. Despite their
Speaker 1: chaotic beginnings, bergen Tinos and Rosawa's stayed together and would
Speaker 1: eventually have a daughter together. It was bergen Tinos who
Speaker 1: first urged Gofra to come to the United States. I
Speaker 1: never want to come here. I never thought that it
Speaker 1: was good to come here. I felt sorry for people
Speaker 1: who came here and went through so much, so I
Speaker 1: never thought to come here. But he convinced me to come.
Speaker 1: He said that it was a land of opportunities. Carlos
Speaker 1: and a first arrived in Chicago. They lived there only
Speaker 1: for a short time before moving south to Houston, Texas,
Speaker 1: where the couple worked many different low wage jobs to
Speaker 1: support themselves. He was working as a waiter, he works
Speaker 1: as a chef. I clean houses. I work as a guaitress,
Speaker 1: bus girl, taking care of elderly people. From Houston, the
Speaker 1: couple eventually moved to New York City. They arrived one
Speaker 1: night on a bus at Port Authority, walking past prostitutes
Speaker 1: and drug addicts. They carried their bags to a shelter
Speaker 1: on Fourteenth Street, but were turned away. They ended up
Speaker 1: that first night in a hotel on West fourteenth Street
Speaker 1: with communal bathrooms so appalling that GFRA used a bucket
Speaker 1: to avoid them. Longing for a more peaceful and safer community,
Speaker 1: Carlos and Glaf settled in Great Neck Long Island. One
Speaker 1: early business venture for the pair was learning how to
Speaker 1: treat antique furniture, specifically, how to make new furniture look old.
Speaker 1: There seemed to be some promise in that. Inside a
Speaker 1: local art gallery, one day, Carlos Bergantino stumbled onto a
Speaker 1: potentially more lucrative idea. We were selling antiquities and we
Speaker 1: came to a gallery where they were selling art too,
Speaker 1: and they say that this painting is on the style
Speaker 1: of And from there is where Carlos got the idea
Speaker 1: of off, if they could work with antiquities, why not
Speaker 1: work with paintings making them look old. Tool Fira says
Speaker 1: she resisted the idea, but had no choice. Carlos pressure me.
Speaker 1: He pressured me, he um abuse me physically, and and
Speaker 1: vali and um. He also threatened me to take my
Speaker 1: door away. He couldn't go to galeries himself because he
Speaker 1: held that reputation, so I had no choice. As it
Speaker 1: turned out, Carlos Burgontina's was highly skilled at aging new
Speaker 1: artworks and presenting them as old master works. He first
Speaker 1: used his burgeoning talent to sell at least one fake
Speaker 1: painting presented as a work by the artist Jean Michel Basquiat. Well,
Speaker 1: what happened was that painting unentitled one is a fake
Speaker 1: Basquiat painting that was sold by Christie's back in the
Speaker 1: early nineties. That's Richard Gallop, a New York City attorney
Speaker 1: who specializes in the art world. Basiad died I think
Speaker 1: in seven. This painting was sold at auction in at
Speaker 1: Christie's and it was consigned to Christie's by Burgontinos, and
Speaker 1: the painting was sold as an authentic Baskia and it
Speaker 1: sold for two hundred thousand dollars, and then Tony Shafrazie
Speaker 1: then exhibited it at his gallery and a Basquia show
Speaker 1: back in I think in those days Christie's didn't care
Speaker 1: about verifying or confirming the information, or they had a
Speaker 1: posity of information about the consigner. So the consigner didn't
Speaker 1: have to give his social Security number, didn't have to
Speaker 1: prove how he knew Bascia, didn't have to give any
Speaker 1: kind of biographical history of the relationship between him and Baskia,
Speaker 1: how he acquieted from the artist. They just took it
Speaker 1: on consignment, put it on the auction floor, and sold
Speaker 1: it well more than amazing. Before the Bascia was consigned
Speaker 1: to Christie's. Christie's they had that painting on an easel
Speaker 1: and they called up Gerard Basquia. Gerard was John Michelle's father,
Speaker 1: and they said, we've got this Basquia. We're not sure
Speaker 1: it's authentic and everything else. Go over and take a
Speaker 1: look at it. And he went over to sixty seven
Speaker 1: Street with a friend of his and they looked at
Speaker 1: the painting and he didn't think it was right. They
Speaker 1: nevertheless put it in the auction and they sold it.
Speaker 1: Boskia showed that even the most renowned auction houses were
Speaker 1: willing to compromise for the sake of a sale, and
Speaker 1: that con artists were all too ready to nudge them along.
Speaker 1: Burgundino's tried another fast one at Christie's in the early
Speaker 1: nine nineties, damaging whatever small reputation he had. Burgund Tino's
Speaker 1: got into trouble in the early nineties, you know, because
Speaker 1: he went to Christie's and he bid four thousand dollars
Speaker 1: for a South American painting and then ran out of
Speaker 1: the auction room. That's always great when a bitter runs
Speaker 1: out of the auction room. Afterward, they can't get his number.
Speaker 1: Literally ran out of there, I guess, so yeah, and this,
Speaker 1: of course at the same time as the boskiat right
Speaker 1: right in and around the same time, they were buying
Speaker 1: paintings all over the place and phonying up paintings all
Speaker 1: over the place. On another occasion, around nineteen Carlos made
Speaker 1: a successful bid of eighty five thousand dollars on a
Speaker 1: nineteenth century Spanish painting, but then he failed to make
Speaker 1: payment and take the work. Christie sued him as a result.
Speaker 1: Because of these ham handed art deals, money for Carlos
Speaker 1: and Glaphyra was tight. To make ends meet, Glypha sold
Speaker 1: Halloween pumpkins. She sold flowers. At one point, she and
Speaker 1: Carlos even wholesaled lobsters to New York restaurants. On Long
Speaker 1: Island's north shore, Carlos had come to love fishing and
Speaker 1: hung out with local fishermen. On a whim, he bought
Speaker 1: an old ambulance and filled it with lobsters freshly caught
Speaker 1: by his pals. Carlos would then deliver the lobsters to
Speaker 1: Manhattan restaurants in the ambulance. One day, with lobsters on board,
Speaker 1: bound for a local restaurant, Carlos found himself running late.
Speaker 1: The restaurant owner threatened to fire him if he missed
Speaker 1: his deadline. In desperation, Carlos turned on the ambulance's siren
Speaker 1: and raced through traffic, arriving just in time. Glafia urged
Speaker 1: him not to use the siren again, but Carlos wouldn't
Speaker 1: hear of it. He continued his ambulance lobster deliveries, racing
Speaker 1: down the streets of New York with the siren wailing. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Carlos was pulled over by police. Did the ambulance workers
Speaker 1: need an escort? No? Carlos said, no problem there. The
Speaker 1: cops grew suspicious. What was he transporting? Sheepishly, Carlos pulled
Speaker 1: out two lobsters and displayed them in the glare of
Speaker 1: the spotlight. For a moment, the cops stood in stunned silence.
Speaker 1: When Carlos explained his mission, the officers collapsed in laughter,
Speaker 1: more art fraud. In a minute, forced to participate in
Speaker 1: Carlos's art forgery scheme, of began educating herself in art.
Speaker 1: Carlos's mishaps had revealed the obvious He needed to stay
Speaker 1: in the shadows. Fra was now the front person, the
Speaker 1: charmer with a surprisingly keen eye for art. Carlos sent
Speaker 1: me to look for customers. I took courses, I took
Speaker 1: sim possums, I took lectures. Carlos saw himself as something
Speaker 1: of an artist. He even took classes at the Art
Speaker 1: Student League on fifty seven Street in New York. For decades,
Speaker 1: the league had drawn up and coming artists, including many
Speaker 1: abstract expressionists, Helen Frankenthaler, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, Robert Rauschenberg,
Speaker 1: and Moore. Among the students at the league was a
Speaker 1: Chinese artist named Patian Quan, an immigrant artist taking classes
Speaker 1: and in his spare time selling portraits own street corners
Speaker 1: to earn extra money. He met him in the village
Speaker 1: on sixth Avenue. The painter was there doing portraits. I
Speaker 1: believe people, and that's how I know that he met him.
Speaker 1: Eager to make a market for himself. Kaan also painted
Speaker 1: Impressionist landscapes. Carlos could tell they were good, but where
Speaker 1: was the potential for in the style of Impressionist paintings,
Speaker 1: The originals were among the best known artworks in the world.
Speaker 1: Forging a mone water lily painting would be like holding
Speaker 1: up an American flag and claiming it was an original image.
Speaker 1: But creating in the style of works by abstract expressionist
Speaker 1: painters like Pollock, Decooning and the others would work as
Speaker 1: long as Kwan was skilled enough to produce persuasive knockoffs.
Speaker 1: He tried several artists, then he came up with he
Speaker 1: was the best. Carlos tried several artists. Can I say
Speaker 1: something about that? There is like that version I see
Speaker 1: on the media that they portrayed Quan the genius. They
Speaker 1: portrayed me, I am the billion but patient he could
Speaker 1: not do that himself. Of course, he needed guidance. Quan's
Speaker 1: later portrayal in the media as the genius artist would
Speaker 1: irk Lafra. She knew that Carlos's contribution to the paintings
Speaker 1: was just as important as Kuan's. Where would Quan be
Speaker 1: without Carlos's idea to create these paintings in the style
Speaker 1: of Lafia saw how much work Quan put into each painting,
Speaker 1: but she also knew just how much of the process
Speaker 1: was a true team effort. The help that I gave
Speaker 1: it was to say if it was okay, if it
Speaker 1: was not okay, I mean, And how about Carlos? What
Speaker 1: help did he give them? Well? He gave him, the
Speaker 1: materials he prepared, the materials he signed for the pieces.
Speaker 1: An ambitious artist himself, Quan had grown up in China's
Speaker 1: island city of Joshan and in Shanghai. Early on, he
Speaker 1: had painted portraits of Chairman Mao for display in Chinese
Speaker 1: workplaces and schools. But as the Cultural Revolution ebbed, he
Speaker 1: had participated in a daring abstract art movement in Shanghai.
Speaker 1: At the same time, Quan had begun copying the works
Speaker 1: of well known Chinese artists. It's important to note that
Speaker 1: in Chinese art there's no dishonor in copying others work.
Speaker 1: It's an homage and for that matter, an historical tradition.
Speaker 1: Many artists make a point of creating a sort of
Speaker 1: split screen art, with a traditional painter's picture on one
Speaker 1: side of the campus and a young artist's interpretation of
Speaker 1: it on the other. Armed with a student visa and
Speaker 1: his own American dreams, Quan had come to New York
Speaker 1: City in one and moved into a tiny white cottage
Speaker 1: street in wood Haven. Queen's Surviving as an artist proved difficult, however,
Speaker 1: instead of making his name in America, he had been
Speaker 1: forced to take jobs in construction. Kwan's neighbor across the street,
Speaker 1: Edwin Gardner, recalled him as unhappy. Whenever he could, Quan
Speaker 1: would go back to China to visit. When he was
Speaker 1: over in China, he would feel like a rock star.
Speaker 1: Gardener explained, because when he walked out on the street,
Speaker 1: everybody knew him, but there was no way to make
Speaker 1: a living as an artist in China in those post
Speaker 1: cultural revolutionary years. My name is Jong Hun too, just
Speaker 1: ten years away. Put a family name first, but you
Speaker 1: called me perfect. I'm painter. Come here. In nineteen eighty two,
Speaker 1: Hong Tu met Kuan in the United States. They became
Speaker 1: friends and fellow artists. Through the night is patient is
Speaker 1: very quiet person. And also I heard from other students. Uh.
Speaker 1: He told me patient is very frustrated because his wife
Speaker 1: during Shanghai, his own family, his wife, his children's during Shanghai.
Speaker 1: Here he's alone. He feels so lonely, and nobody recogned him,
Speaker 1: nobody know his art, nobody especially his English was not
Speaker 1: so good. Quan displayed his art on a street corner
Speaker 1: in Greenwich Village along with other Chinese artists who had
Speaker 1: immigrated to America, but eventually he began to present the
Speaker 1: sidewalk art scene. Hong too recalls his friends saying, I'm
Speaker 1: not good to do that. There's a competition between artists.
Speaker 1: People lower pressed people sit there to make portrait, some
Speaker 1: fifteen dollars four portrait. The other one said ten dollars.
Speaker 1: He gonna do that because he clearly had some ambition. Yes,
Speaker 1: and he had ambition to be a good artist. Yes.
Speaker 1: One day we have a common friend. She brought patient
Speaker 1: to MoMA. Patient was now down to the floor at
Speaker 1: the front of Monet Water, ready painting, and the crying
Speaker 1: cried like a baby, kneeling down that day in tears.
Speaker 1: At the moment, Quan's passion and his desire to be
Speaker 1: a truly great artist was obvious to everyone who knew him.
Speaker 1: One thing on the tellio, that's what I feeled about
Speaker 1: American after a few years, and give you married American
Speaker 1: even never promise you that you will become because of
Speaker 1: or famous a rich artists, but this country promise you
Speaker 1: have the freedom to do. You are undue the last
Speaker 1: day of your lafe. I think that early nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: many tense artists plaining portrait in the street, but in
Speaker 1: the same time, and he's still working in the street,
Speaker 1: but not like a street portrait artist. He pinned some
Speaker 1: small like a landscape that still left opinion. Is his studio,
Speaker 1: then his sail, and then he came out to the
Speaker 1: streets and saw the lands. Yes, that's what I heard.
Speaker 1: People find him rosela boyfriend. As they struggled through the
Speaker 1: eighties and early nine nineties, Kuan and hung To had
Speaker 1: much in common, though by outward appearances, hung Too was
Speaker 1: more successful. He found a gallery to represent him both
Speaker 1: in New York and China. He rented a sprawling studio
Speaker 1: space and woodside queens. The subways overhead rumbled loudly but
Speaker 1: were oddly soothing. Some of his work was winsome, even playful.
Speaker 1: He made heavy bronze replicas of McDonald's packaging for French
Speaker 1: fries and hamburgers. Other works, particularly at the Art Students League,
Speaker 1: showed a darker side, but four hung to the immigrant
Speaker 1: experience on which he based his work was ultimately uplifting,
Speaker 1: not so for Quan. One day, Carlos and Glyphura stopped
Speaker 1: to admire the paintings of a Chinese artist doing Impressionist landscapes.
Speaker 1: So skilled was the artist that Carlos introduced himself. He
Speaker 1: showed Kwan a book of various artist work, including the
Speaker 1: Hudson River painters. Could Quan paint a picture like one
Speaker 1: of these? Sure? Quan said. The friendly couple offered to
Speaker 1: pay him one hundred dollars, and Kuan went off to
Speaker 1: work on his new picture. When the trio met up
Speaker 1: again in the village, Quan showed them his painting. It
Speaker 1: was remarkable. Carlos doubled Kwan's compensation to two hundred dollars
Speaker 1: per painting. Quan was creating pictures in the style of
Speaker 1: These were interpretations of the original artist's work, with one
Speaker 1: big difference. Carlos and Fia wanted the original artist's name
Speaker 1: in the lower right corner, not Quans. Working from the
Speaker 1: garage of his house in Queen's Quan began turning out
Speaker 1: one dazzling knockoff after another. Carlos Lephira noticed that Kwan
Speaker 1: was good at landscapes, but much better at abstract expressionist works.
Speaker 1: That was convenient because the style of the works was
Speaker 1: much more forgiving and subjective. Carlos would come by to
Speaker 1: inspect Kwan's work with Gphia in tow they marveled at
Speaker 1: how realistic the forgeries were. Incredibly At first, Kwan and
Speaker 1: Bergantina's sold their fakes on the street. Kwan was paid
Speaker 1: to pittance for his work, about seven dollars per canvas. Now,
Speaker 1: Kwan said nothing to his buyers on the street about
Speaker 1: whether the paintings were real or not. He used his
Speaker 1: poor English to shrug off all questions. Either the passers
Speaker 1: by bought his paintings or not. Surprising number did. Remarkably,
Speaker 1: Quan proved so fascile that he could imitate not just
Speaker 1: one mid century master, but nearly all of them. Experts
Speaker 1: would be stunned that such a thing was even possible.
Speaker 1: Later he would tell ABC News, my intent wasn't from
Speaker 1: my fake paintings to be sold as the real thing.
Speaker 1: They were just copies to put up in your home
Speaker 1: if you like. Over time, Carlos grew more ambitious and
Speaker 1: in his own way, just as skilled as Kwan. He
Speaker 1: brought Kwan old canvases at flea markets and auctions, and
Speaker 1: so applied him with old paints used specifically for forgery.
Speaker 1: Carlos stained the canvases with tea bags to make them
Speaker 1: look older. A blow dryer came in handy. He also
Speaker 1: exposed the newly painted canvases to harsh weather. Carlos was
Speaker 1: particularly good at frames, finding originals at flea markets and
Speaker 1: garage sales, and then treating them to look as if
Speaker 1: they'd been resting intact for half a century or more. Later,
Speaker 1: when authorities calmed his studio, they would find among supplies
Speaker 1: and envelope labeled Rothcoe Nails, Edwin and Mary Ann Gardner.
Speaker 1: Kwan's neighbors and queens began to notice that a man
Speaker 1: in an expensive car would come to Kwan's house fairly,
Speaker 1: often carrying paintings too. Not from the house that was
Speaker 1: likely Bergantino's Carlos would bring a painting in for him
Speaker 1: to work on or fix up. Gardener recalled of the
Speaker 1: mysterious visitor, but Quan didn't volunteer any details, and Gardner
Speaker 1: thought better than to ask. Into Quan's tiny garage came
Speaker 1: the paintings wrapped up. Out they went some days later.
Speaker 1: Before long, Kuan's wife came to join him in the US.
Speaker 1: The result of a complex and expensive process that his
Speaker 1: fellow artists could hardly help but notice, and now with
Speaker 1: some money in his pocket, he decided to celebrate. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't to a big party. He holds it a big
Speaker 1: party at his house because his wife moved to New York.
Speaker 1: Beyind him that's biggest things for every everyone, so he
Speaker 1: can give a big party. And after him, hey, what
Speaker 1: are you doing right now? He said, I have some
Speaker 1: deal of representing my work that time what ad we
Speaker 1: called the timeline. He already do the fake painting. Quan
Speaker 1: didn't tell Hong To or any of his other guests
Speaker 1: what he was doing. He just turned up the music. Well,
Speaker 1: we were sitting together for Chinese people, Chinese party. It's
Speaker 1: not it's all usual usual people just eating, just tolking. No. Later,
Speaker 1: when the truth came out, the occasional right up would
Speaker 1: note that Chinese artists often imitated the work of earlier masters,
Speaker 1: But as Hong too noted, there was a difference between
Speaker 1: an artistic tribute signed by the acolytes name and a
Speaker 1: work where only the original signature was appended. Because you
Speaker 1: sell this kind of opinion other people's style with the signature.
Speaker 1: But people, that's my study, Oh that's my copy. What
Speaker 1: you didn't do was claim your own painting was someone
Speaker 1: else's work. That, declared Hong to was a crime. If
Speaker 1: you'll copy other people's work, you sell the mess you've
Speaker 1: got a Bergantinos would deny ever meeting Ann Friedman or
Speaker 1: visiting the Knodler gallery. He said Glypha alone had duped
Speaker 1: the Ndler. He claimed Glypha had hired Kwan to turn
Speaker 1: out the forged masters. I was never ambitious, Carlos told
Speaker 1: The New York Times in a follow up article. Glyphra
Speaker 1: was the ambitious one. She had been motivated, he said,
Speaker 1: by money and glamor. She loved fancy clothes and fancy parties.
Speaker 1: Glyphra has her own version, of course. She says Carlos
Speaker 1: had grown more abusive and given her no choice but
Speaker 1: to carry on as the front person in the scheme.
Speaker 1: The fancy parties and the fancy clothes she may have
Speaker 1: bought were part of the job. Without that polished appearance,
Speaker 1: she might never have met him. Andrade and Ann Friedman
Speaker 1: had a Soho art gallery opening in the early nineteen nineties.
Speaker 1: One of the son who gave a lecture. She had
Speaker 1: a gallery in the Soho area. She invite us to
Speaker 1: go to her opening, and there is where I met Jimmy,
Speaker 1: and he told me about he works at that gallery.
Speaker 1: And did he say that he might introduce you to
Speaker 1: a freedman? Yes? Why did I may introduce you to Anne? Well?
Speaker 1: I told him that I have access to some pieces
Speaker 1: of art, and so he introduced you to Anne. And
Speaker 1: then Anne said bring them in. Wow. And that first
Speaker 1: one was the Deep in Corn? Yes? Okay, Now did Pion?
Speaker 1: Did he make that Deep in Corn with your help
Speaker 1: and with Carlos's help? Yes, but it's not that he
Speaker 1: just made one and wailah, it's nice, it's good. No,
Speaker 1: he had to make many. He had and we and
Speaker 1: we have to choose the best one. It was not
Speaker 1: us pay in one thou or five? No, you, he
Speaker 1: made many, but they were not good. So many efforts.
Speaker 1: Finally you had a good Deep in Corn and you
Speaker 1: took it in. And when you came in to the noddler,
Speaker 1: how did you feel? I mean, wasn't it kind of scary?
Speaker 1: Very scary? I? No, you know that you knew the
Speaker 1: painting was fake? Well? Yes, I did so. It was
Speaker 1: very scary, very stressful, but I was pressured by Carlos.
Speaker 1: It would be fair to say here that a couple
Speaker 1: is skilled in prevarication, as Rosales and Bergantino's may not
Speaker 1: have been entirely truthful in recounting their story. At the
Speaker 1: same time, for GPRA, at least, the cost of later
Speaker 1: lying to lawnforcement investigators would have been severe. Indeed, if
Speaker 1: discrepancies were discovered, we are inclined to believe that the
Speaker 1: story she's told us is true. But it's worth remembering
Speaker 1: that these are the words of a self confessed con artist.
Speaker 1: Was very smart in targeting, and specifically, I think that
Speaker 1: she had to understand the profile of the victims. She
Speaker 1: was looking for someone who had everything to gain, someone
Speaker 1: who needed to establish her name in the art world,
Speaker 1: someone who was hungry and still needed something that would
Speaker 1: cement her reputation. That's Maria Kannakova Again. Maria is the
Speaker 1: author of The Confidence Game, Why We Fall Forward every Time?
Speaker 1: A New Yorker staff writer and Harvard graduate. Maria devotes
Speaker 1: a whole chapter of her book to the notal or forgeries,
Speaker 1: bringing to bear her years of study of the practice
Speaker 1: of deception and chance. In the relationship between Anne Friedman
Speaker 1: and golf Rosalie, she saw classic signs of the con
Speaker 1: artist at work and an all too willing victim. There
Speaker 1: were a few things about Anne that I think really
Speaker 1: stood out. She was new at her job, and she
Speaker 1: started as a secretary, So someone who clearly starts with
Speaker 1: a chip on her shoulder in some respects because you
Speaker 1: start from the very bottom. She's female. Most directors of
Speaker 1: prominent art galleries are males. She's not yet established. People
Speaker 1: are kind of looking at her thinking, huh, you know,
Speaker 1: is she going to be able to pull this off?
Speaker 1: And so I'm guessing that made the rounds of the
Speaker 1: art world, looked into different galleries and tried to figure
Speaker 1: out who's going to be my ideal victim. It was
Speaker 1: not happenstance that she approached Anne and that she actually
Speaker 1: zeroed in on someone who would be the most susceptible,
Speaker 1: who was most likely to believe this because she was
Speaker 1: most motivated to believe this. So thrillingly vibrant were the
Speaker 1: works and seemingly real that Anne Freeman let her passions
Speaker 1: get the best of her. Of course they were genuine,
Speaker 1: She told art world experts, how could they not be
Speaker 1: amongst fellow staffers, experts, and collectors, and was adamant. Soon
Speaker 1: she felt Glyphra and her client Mr x Jr. Would
Speaker 1: trust her enough to share their story with her, and
Speaker 1: she was trustworthy, as Anne fervently told every time she
Speaker 1: came in. In the meantime, Anne had to avoid pushing
Speaker 1: too hard lest Mr X Junior reconsider and take his
Speaker 1: paintings elsewhere. And so through the rest of the nineties,
Speaker 1: the shy seller and the eager buyer kept an uneasy balance.
Speaker 1: Two or three masterly paintings that sold a great profit
Speaker 1: led to four and five paintings and more none had
Speaker 1: any reasonable provenance. Naturally, Anne grew desperate to hear more.
Speaker 1: Perhaps the first clue came over lunch. Lafear and Anne
Speaker 1: had become close enough to celebrate each new painting from
Speaker 1: the Mr. X Junior collection with a high priced Upper
Speaker 1: east Side. Lunch was kind enough to remember Anne's birthday
Speaker 1: and gave her a meaningful present each year, an expensive
Speaker 1: pen for example. Anne in turn would ask Kaphia about
Speaker 1: her daughter, who excelled in violin. I saw her as
Speaker 1: a well mannered woman, and later said of Gape at
Speaker 1: a vanity fair. Was it frustrating that I couldn't learn
Speaker 1: more from her? Sure? But I always hoped every time
Speaker 1: I was with her that she would reveal more, and
Speaker 1: that I would come closer to knowing more Stone by
Speaker 1: overturned stone. She knew that some day I expected to
Speaker 1: meet him, and added of fear and Mr X Jr.
Speaker 1: She never said never, She just said I can't now.
Speaker 1: Under gentle but persistent pressure, Rosales finally let slip the
Speaker 1: Mr X and his wife, The parents of her client,
Speaker 1: had been a wealthy couple from the Philippines. Their fortune
Speaker 1: had come from the sugar business, and it had allowed
Speaker 1: them to make frequent art buying trips to New York.
Speaker 1: Often on these Tripsfa recounted they had been guided by
Speaker 1: Alfonso Osorio, an abstract expressionist painter whose own Philippine family,
Speaker 1: like Mr. And Mrs Exes, had grown wealthy from the
Speaker 1: sugar trade. As Anne discovered in her research, Osorio was
Speaker 1: close to many abstract expressionist painters, none more so than
Speaker 1: Jackson Pollock. Often in the nineteen fifties, Osorio entertained the
Speaker 1: Hampton's art crowd at his sixty acre Easthampton waterfront compound
Speaker 1: called The Creeks. It was at Pollock's urging that Osorio
Speaker 1: bought The Creeks in the first place. As Anne noted
Speaker 1: with growing excitement, Osorio had been known for acting as
Speaker 1: an informal art advisor, putting buyers, especially Filipino buyers, in
Speaker 1: touch with artists and their dealers. It was possible that
Speaker 1: the paintings may have been bought directly from various New
Speaker 1: York artists studios in cash, with no taxes paid. From there,
Speaker 1: they would be smuggled back to the Philippines. That would
Speaker 1: account for the collection's long disappearance and their re emergence
Speaker 1: in Cora's hands. Or so said Anne. It was art
Speaker 1: world sleuthing, one clue leading to the next. Anne and
Speaker 1: her staffers spent a lot of time poring over the
Speaker 1: noted archives, going all the way back to the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 1: It happened to be the best art archive in America.
Speaker 1: That was the kind of archive hunting that may have
Speaker 1: made Alfonso Ossare a key character in the back story,
Speaker 1: at least in Anne Friedman's mind. Later, Anne told me
Speaker 1: she had asked Glafira, did the name Osario ring any bells?
Speaker 1: With Mr X Jr. Promised to ask her mysterious client.
Speaker 1: We'll be back after this sure enough. With as next
Speaker 1: visit came fascinating news. As hunch was right. According to
Speaker 1: Mr X Jr. His art buying parents had indeed dealt
Speaker 1: with Alfonso Osoriosorio fit perfectly into the back story. Glafira
Speaker 1: and Anne were now embroidering together. Mr. And Mrs X
Speaker 1: had purportedly died by the time Glafira Rosale's paid her
Speaker 1: first visit to the Ndler. So had Alfonso Osorio, whose
Speaker 1: ashes upon death were scattered over the grounds of the creeks.
Speaker 1: Was it mere coincidence that artists, dealers, and go betweens
Speaker 1: had a way of dying shortly before the burgn Tino's
Speaker 1: team started tweaking their legacies as they sifted through the archives,
Speaker 1: and and her staffers also searched for photographs taken in
Speaker 1: the studios of mid century artists. Perhaps the paintings in
Speaker 1: the backgrounds of those photographs might offer clues, and was
Speaker 1: so into connoisseurship, improving that something existed because we found
Speaker 1: some archival letter from Robert Motherwell, one former staffer says,
Speaker 1: by way of example, in fact, they never found any
Speaker 1: direct evidence ever, and was very sure of herself. The
Speaker 1: staffer added, if she believed, and she could make others believe, well,
Speaker 1: you know the old saying, you can't cheat an honest man.
Speaker 1: You know that what the story is, that's nobler artist
Speaker 1: Donald Supton. She certainly should have known the fact that
Speaker 1: she didn't know where they came from was a tip off,
Speaker 1: because any reputable dealer would not deal with that. And
Speaker 1: then the other part of it is that if she
Speaker 1: thought they were real, she thought that she was getting
Speaker 1: them from this woman at a cheap price. So basically
Speaker 1: she thought she was conning the woman. So you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, you can't shet an honest man. You know,
Speaker 1: the whole nature of a con person is to make
Speaker 1: you seem like you can't trust them, right, So that
Speaker 1: she her idea was to make them feel like, you know,
Speaker 1: they're very lucky to know someone like you who's trustworthy,
Speaker 1: whereas they may not be, and you know, so and
Speaker 1: so forth. So basically Anne was conning and thought she
Speaker 1: was conningfa and in fact Lifa was conning her for
Speaker 1: Golfia and Anne they was soon caused for another celebratory punch.
Speaker 1: It was the day that first brought in a Jackson pollock.
Speaker 1: It was a classic drip painting, unusually small, but a
Speaker 1: pollock it was, or so it seemed to be Freedman
Speaker 1: and her husband, Robert, decided to buy it themselves for
Speaker 1: the relatively modest price of two hundred and eighty thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: In buying it together, Anne and her husband may have
Speaker 1: hoped to establish themselves as pollock dealers. Interestingly, Anne and
Speaker 1: Robert Friedman may also have chosen to keep the small
Speaker 1: pollock for themselves because of how it was signed. One day,
Speaker 1: while I was working on my story for Vanity Fair,
Speaker 1: Anne invited me up for a tour of her apartment.
Speaker 1: On the walls hung a small Jackson pollock that was
Speaker 1: about the size of a magazine cover. Oddly, its signature
Speaker 1: was misspelled as p O L l O K. The
Speaker 1: sea was missing. It would remain in the Freedman's personal
Speaker 1: collection all through the saga that ensued. The curious misspelling
Speaker 1: of pollock would come up later and even be disputed
Speaker 1: by Anne, written off as a slip of the pen.
Speaker 1: Maria Kannakova recalls this debacle. She started describing how, oh, well,
Speaker 1: probably you know the pen skipped or this or that.
Speaker 1: She made up excuses for it. Rather than say, okay,
Speaker 1: but this is a problem, she said, See, it's definitely
Speaker 1: not a fake because a fake Pollock would never have
Speaker 1: misspelled the name Pollock, and listening to her say that
Speaker 1: when I talked to her was just mind boggling. To
Speaker 1: Anne's pride and delight, Lafia brought her a second, larger Pollock,
Speaker 1: a greenish drip style painting called untitled nine. The painting
Speaker 1: was twelve by eighteen inches. It was small for a Pollock,
Speaker 1: but impressive looking all the same. This time the artist's
Speaker 1: name was spelled correctly. It was the first of at
Speaker 1: least four Pollocks that would pass through the Ndler, despite
Speaker 1: his refusal to furnish any more personal details, and could
Speaker 1: hardly complain about how her paintings were selling in the
Speaker 1: New Millennium. One couple, Murray and cab Bring, bought a
Speaker 1: Deep and Corn for ninety four thousand dollars. Richard Gilson
Speaker 1: bought a Deep and Corn for one hundred forty eight
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. The Michelle Rosenfeld Gallery bought a Rothko for
Speaker 1: a three hundred twenty five thousand dollars. The Kemper Museum
Speaker 1: bought a Franz Climb for four hundred seventy five thousand
Speaker 1: dollars and a Rothko for six hundred fifteen thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Soon after, Hughes and Schilla Podocker bought a Franz climb
Speaker 1: themselves for five hundred thirty five thousand dollars. Jack and
Speaker 1: fran Levy paid seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars for
Speaker 1: a Clifford, still, five hundred and sixty thousand for a
Speaker 1: Franz Climb, and six hundred fifteen thousand dollars for a Rothko.
Speaker 1: The Leavis would eventually eclipse all other individual purchases to date,
Speaker 1: acquiring a Jackson Pollock from the Knodler Gallery for two
Speaker 1: million dollars. For some reason, remained willing to accept modest
Speaker 1: prices from the Ndler. These are prices far lower than
Speaker 1: the works would have earned her at auction or even
Speaker 1: through other dealers. Was a just too shy to press
Speaker 1: Anne for more? Or was Anne just that good of
Speaker 1: a negotiator? Perhaps the latter, since is Anne later put
Speaker 1: it with pride quote, I never paid Gla a commission.
Speaker 1: I just gave her the net price end quote, which
Speaker 1: was to say that the two women agreed on a
Speaker 1: flat fee, and GPA just took what she got and
Speaker 1: then set whatever retail price she liked and sold them
Speaker 1: to the buyer. That there was not percentage. To me,
Speaker 1: there was a payment. Carlos told me asked her for
Speaker 1: this much. I got that much. I don't know how
Speaker 1: much she got and never told Gilfia what the retail
Speaker 1: price would be. Anything over that flat fee was Ndlers
Speaker 1: to keep with Anne pocketing whatever commission she chose to take.
Speaker 1: E A. Carmine, an expert in both Pollock and Rothko,
Speaker 1: who had previously declared as first Rothko to be real,
Speaker 1: weighed in again on the Knodlers new Pollock. Once again,
Speaker 1: he concluded the painting was real. As experts go, Carmine
Speaker 1: was the genuine article. He had served as the National
Speaker 1: Galleries founding curator of Contemporary Art in Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: So when Carmine determined the Pollock was legitimate, it carried
Speaker 1: a lot of weight. It wasn't the same as true provenance,
Speaker 1: but it was a good start. Later other experts would
Speaker 1: note that Carmine had rendered that judgment only after signing
Speaker 1: on as a paid consultant to the Knodler Gallery. If
Speaker 1: she didn't officially you get a contract and hire him,
Speaker 1: she and it in the money. You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And also she used stories, and you know she said,
Speaker 1: you know, e A. Carmine approved. This doesn't mean he
Speaker 1: proved it. One Nodler staffer recall just how vital a
Speaker 1: role Carmine was now playing in legitimizing works from Fa rosales.
Speaker 1: One time we had a check going out to e. A. Carmine,
Speaker 1: the staffer recall, only the check hadn't been cut yet,
Speaker 1: and Anne was furious. He wrote appraisals that helped sell work,
Speaker 1: The colleague recalls and saying, he really just got us
Speaker 1: out of a jam. We need to get him a
Speaker 1: check right away. Jack Levy, co chairman of Mergers and
Speaker 1: Acquisitions at Goldman Sachs, bought his two million dollar poblic
Speaker 1: in late two thousand one. The Levies had already bought
Speaker 1: three other mid century works from Ndler that would turn
Speaker 1: out to be fake. With that per of Untitled ninety nine,
Speaker 1: they were in for over four point three million dollars.
Speaker 1: Levy was an eager collector, but a careful one too.
Speaker 1: Before taking possession of his Pollock, he demanded it be
Speaker 1: vetted by the International Foundation for Art Research or i FAR.
Speaker 1: If I FAR approved the work, he would happily accept
Speaker 1: the sale. If not, no Oldler would have to take
Speaker 1: the painting back and return two million dollars to the leads,
Speaker 1: and readily agreed. Later, she said she had no doubt
Speaker 1: the painting was real. The cover letter was certainly seen
Speaker 1: by Jack Levy. We said we cannot accept the work
Speaker 1: as a work by Jackson Pollock. More from Sharon Flesher,
Speaker 1: executive director of I Far next time on Art Fraud.
Speaker 1: Art Fraud is brought to you by I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Cavalry Audio. Our executive producers are Matt del Piano,
Speaker 1: Keegan Rosenberger, Andy Turner, myself, and Michael Shnayerson. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to composer Danielle Ava Schwab. The classical selections in this
Speaker 1: week's episode are from her new album Out of the Tunnel,
Speaker 1: available now. We're produced by Brandon Morgan and Zach McNeice.
Speaker 1: Zach also edited and mixed this episode. Lindsay Hoffman is
Speaker 1: our managing producer. Our writer is Michael Schneerson.