WEBVTT - The $17 Million Jackson Pollock 0:00:01.160 --> 0:00:04.439 If you went into the Gucci store and bought a handbag, 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:08.080 you wouldn't ask the salesperson is this a real Gucci? 0:00:08.240 --> 0:00:09.720 You know, you would take that as a sort of 0:00:09.800 --> 0:00:13.480 given fact. So the fact that Noodler, you know, was 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:15.920 the oldest gallery in the city. It was a hundred 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.239 and sixty five years old. It had worked with these 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:21.919 artists in their lifetimes, and if you wanted to buy 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:25.279 an abstract expressionist painting, that's kind of the place you 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:28.960 would go to do that. By the mid two thousand's, 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:33.640 Carlos and Glyphs forgery scheme was raking in enormous profits, 0:00:34.240 --> 0:00:40.440 and yet Glyphra was miserable. Later, she told a federal 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:44.480 judge that Carlos beat her frequently, once going so far 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:48.120 as to break her nose. The beatings, she claimed, were 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:51.279 to keep her from bailing out of the family art business. 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:56.240 Quitting wasn't an option. Carlos warned that if she left, 0:00:56.760 --> 0:00:59.800 he would kidnap their daughters solely and take her to Spain, 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:07.959 and glyph Era would never see her again. Ironically, GPS 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:14.920 relationship with Ann Friedman was blossoming. Rosalies demanded and received 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:18.640 higher fees from Ndler as the fake paintings continued to 0:01:18.720 --> 0:01:24.360 sell for exorbitant prices. Ultimately, Gla would rake in more 0:01:24.360 --> 0:01:28.160 than twenty million dollars in her fourteen year forgery career. 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:35.240 With that money came a commensurate lifestyle. In two thousand five, 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:40.319 Carlos and A bought an enormous square foot house in 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:43.600 the North Shore neighborhood of Sam's Point on Long Island's 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:47.800 Gold Coast. The Mediterranean style home came with a two 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:51.400 point three million dollar price tag, quite a property for 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:56.880 a local art dealer and her seemingly unemployed partner. Friends 0:01:56.880 --> 0:02:00.880 and neighbors found the home beautiful and impressively furnished, but 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:04.400 not without its quirks. The odd thing about it was 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:07.720 they were paintings everywhere, and not just hung on the 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:11.160 walls either. One time we went over to pick up 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:13.560 the kids, my wife and I were in the house 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:16.720 and we were kind of blown away by the art 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:19.880 that we saw in the house, because, you know, Glaire 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:23.200 always had the appearance of being successful. My name is 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:26.640 Brian Scarlatto's I'm an attorney with Costellans and Fink in 0:02:26.680 --> 0:02:31.079 New York City, and I specialized in criminal texts, investigations 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:35.320 and prosecutions. Brian was a family friend of Cfia and 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:39.840 Carlos and Sand's point, their children attended the same school. Later, 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:44.160 when Cpia's legal troubles began, she retained Brian as her attorney. 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:47.520 We knew she had a gallery in New York, but 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:50.119 when we went into the house, you know, we recognized 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:53.680 several pieces that we knew there were war holes. I 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:56.440 believe there was a Picasso, there was a Rothco, and 0:02:56.520 --> 0:02:59.600 others like that. And as I said, there was also 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:02.960 very interesting furniture, and there was just so much art 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:05.440 that some of it was leaned up against the wall 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:08.440 because there wasn't enough room to hang it all on 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:11.000 the walls. And you know, my wife and I think 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:13.840 just assumed that they were using their art as storage 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:16.440 for their gallery. But when you go into somebody's house 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:18.560 and you see warholes in a Picasso and a Rothco 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:21.120 and other things that you recognize, it's it's sort of, 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:25.040 you know, overwhelming. You know, it was also casual. I 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:27.320 remember remarking to my wife on the way out that 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:30.320 you know, oh my god, they have this this little dog, Rocky, 0:03:30.520 --> 0:03:32.720 who was running around embarking. And I remember saying to 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:35.280 my wife, what if Rocky were to pee on a Picasso. 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:39.120 I mean it just and it seemed like it could happen, because, 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:41.640 as I say, things were just stacked up against the wall. 0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:44.720 They were always very elegantly dressed, you know, had nice 0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:46.840 cars in a very nice house, and they seemed to 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:50.280 travel the world, and they also knew a lot about art. 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:52.680 And so they were my friends who were the art 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:59.240 dealers and had a gallery. And Friedman was also living 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:04.160 the good life. Ndler was trafficking almost exclusively in the 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:07.920 David Herbert collection of fake Rothko's, de coonings and pollocks. 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:11.440 Anne had a knack for reaching out to buyers that 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:16.839 were exceedingly wealthy but not necessarily well informed. Domenico and 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:19.800 Eleanor de Sole walked into the Knodler in late two 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:24.000 thousand four in search of a Shawn Scully painting. Scully 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:27.520 was a contemporary abstract artist. The De Soules were fond of. 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:31.560 Domenico De Sole was just stepping down as president and 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:36.120 CEO of Gucci and was becoming designer Tom Ford's partner 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:39.920 in a new fashion company. The Desules had an ocean 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:43.320 front home in Hilton Head, South Carolina, and needed art 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:46.880 to hang on its walls, and didn't have a Shawn 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:50.320 Scully painting to sell them. She did, however, have an 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:55.599 amazing Mark Rothko, as she had done so many times before, 0:04:56.040 --> 0:04:59.000 an enchanted her prospective buyers with the story of the 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:03.359 ex family, David Herbert and the marvelous downtown art world 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:06.479 of the nineteen fifties where artists sold works out of 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:11.080 the back of their studios for cash. The Desoles glowed 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:14.920 with excitement. They had never paid anywhere close to eight 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:18.240 point four million dollars for a painting before, but it 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:22.200 was a Rothco. The very name of the painting, untitled 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:26.320 nineteen fifty six, evoked images of the troubled artist in 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:29.800 his upper east Side carriage house, working late into the night. 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:34.039 Like so many other paintings in the David Herbert collection, 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:38.280 the work was notably smaller than a typical Rothco. Larger 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:41.679 ones went for tens of millions of dollars. Once again, 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:45.040 the painting had no real provenance, nor was it in 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:48.880 the Rothco catalog resume, but Anne said she had no 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:52.039 doubt the magnificent painting they were gazing at, which soar 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:55.160 in value once it was placed in a future supplement 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:59.480 to the catalog resume. The eight point four million dollar 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:03.039 rothco was sold and hung in the Dosoles hilton Head 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:07.480 family home. Eleanor later testified that friends would stop by 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:14.039 just who and a over it. But what was a 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:17.160 roth Cooke compared to a top of the market Pollock. 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:21.440 Ever since Anne had hit a wall with the Leavy Pollock, 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:25.440 she had pressed life for another. By two thousand seven 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:28.919 she had it in hand, a classic drip painting with 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:33.320 a silvery cast. Fully deserving, Anne thought of the seventeen 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:37.440 million dollar price tag she attached to it. Through a 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:42.080 pair of middleman dealers, a transparency of the painting found 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:46.000 its way to a Belgian born financier named Pierre Lagrange. 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:49.640 The Grange was a hedge fund manager, one of the 0:06:49.760 --> 0:06:53.359 richest men in London. He was drawn to the Pollock, but, 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:59.800 like Jack Levy, he wanted assurances that the painting was authentic. Fortunately, 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:03.560 Lagrange wasn't asking for an official eye far evaluation of 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:05.880 the painting. He did want to be sure that the 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:09.880 Pollock Krasner Foundation would authenticate the work. This was a 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:13.880 problem for Anne. The Pollock Foundation had stopped authenticating any 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:17.200 new works purporting to be Pollocks. As for the Pollock 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:21.280 Catalog Resume, its last and final supplement, had been released 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:25.120 in nineteen ninety four. Anne had the clout to arrange 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:28.600 a meeting with the Pollock Krausner Foundation lawyers, in part 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:32.000 because one of the lawyers was also her lawyer. She 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:35.280 talked up the painting and stressed the importance of updating 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:39.040 the entire catalog resume to be reprinted in full color. 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:42.800 It was our only shot to have the painting added. Officially, 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:47.080 the lawyers murmured and hummed, but the word authentication never 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:50.680 quite entered the room. Anne had to think fast or 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:57.160 risk losing the biggest sale of her career. On March eighteenth, 0:07:57.200 --> 0:08:01.160 two thousand seven, Anne rode to Lagrangees camp and told 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:03.640 them exactly what she thought the English collector wanted to 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:07.520 hear quote. The Pollock Krasner Foundation has stated that they 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:11.280 are intending to update and republish the catalog resume in 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:15.480 full color and also in an online version. Every detail 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:20.880 of the email was a lie. Lagrange and his chief lawyer, 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:25.560 Matthew Johnson found the email less than persuasive. They wanted 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:29.160 reps and warranties, as Donson later put it, which was 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:32.080 to say legally binding language that the painting would be 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:35.360 authenticated and that it would appear in the next catalog. 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:42.560 Resume Friedman turned indignant. Quote. The distrusting and demanding language 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:45.000 in this agreement of sale is not in keeping with 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:48.640 the familiar and widely accepted standards and practices in the 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:52.960 art business, she huffed. In her written response, it veers 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:56.920 far from the spirit and understanding of our original agreement. 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:00.120 I have not been confronted by anything like this in 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:03.080 my thirty four years of experience as an art dealer. 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:07.760 We have given you our word. Our invoice is always 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:11.640 our legal guarantee, and has previously stated if this painting 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:13.640 has proved not to be by the hand of Pollock, 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:17.240 the sale would be canceled, to painting return to Knodler 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:21.520 and the full purchase refunded to you end quote. The 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:25.600 hypocrisy of the letter was breathtaking, but Ann's huffing and 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:29.719 puffing seemed to do the trick. On November six, two 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:34.560 thousand seven, Pierre Lagrange completed his purchase of the silvery Pollock. 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:40.120 The Knodler provided a written guarantee that Lagrange's pollock was 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:42.560 from a quote private collection of the heir to a 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:46.640 collector who had obtained it directly from Jackson Pollock. End quote. 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:52.760 The air insisted on anonymity. With seventeen million dollars rendered, 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:56.280 Pierre Lagrange gave his new painting a place of honor 0:09:56.600 --> 0:10:00.439 in his London penthouse, unaware that its true value it 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:03.079 was little more than the canvas it was painted on. 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:21.960 More art fraud in a minute. Around the same time 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:26.560 Pierre Lagrange was acquiring his seven figure Pollock Glafia, Rosalie's 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:30.800 success was perhaps going to her head. An opportunity for 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:34.480 new business came up when her old friend Heimi Andrade 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:39.439 introduced Gfia to an ex notler dealer named Julian Weissman. 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:44.600 Rosale spoke to Weiseman about potentially cutting ties with ann Friedman. 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:48.040 She wanted a new start, she said. As a show 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:51.679 of good faith, she consigned three Robert Motherwell paintings to 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:55.160 Wiseman's gallery, who works were said to be from Motherwell's 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:59.160 Elegy to the Spanish Republic series. The third painting from 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:02.320 the series ultimately sold by Wiseman for six hundred and 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:06.400 fifty thousand dollars to Mark Blondo, director of the Irish 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:12.600 Kalila Gallery. Blondeau like Lagrange wanted authentication and he got it. 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:16.600 Jack Flam and Morgan Spangler, co directors of the Motherwell 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:20.600 Foundation known as the Dadalist, spent hours poring over the 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:24.959 Blonde Motherwell. Its lack of provenance bothered them, but they 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:28.720 felt obligated to authenticate it. The painting was just that good. 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:35.800 Flam and Spangler spent the rest of two thousand seven 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:40.880 finishing Motherwell's catalog resid A. As they did, they noticed 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:47.240 a troubling trend more Spanish elegy paintings without provenance. There 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:50.160 were seven in all, including the one now owned by 0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:54.400 the Khalila Gallery. To the foundation's dismay, four of the 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:58.920 seven paintings were being sold by the Knoedler Gallery. Jack 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:02.920 Flam insisted at all seven Spanish elegy paintings be shown 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:06.720 together at the Knoedler and resisted as long as she could, 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:12.640 but ultimately she caved and agreed. The Spanish elegies were spectacular, 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:16.679 but curiously, they were all signed exactly the same way. 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:20.240 This was strange for a painter who was known to 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:24.400 vary his signature from picture to picture. Three of the 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:28.480 paintings had gone from Gera to Weissman, indicating that Rosalis 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:31.880 had played her side game, likely to ann Friedman's surprise 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:36.960 now and admitted the obvious. All seven paintings had come 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:40.240 from the same source for the moment, she refused to 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:49.000 say who that source. Was Alarmed, the Dadalus Foundation demanded 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:53.680 Knoedler higher, a widely respected forensic art expert named Jamie Martin, 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:58.520 to test two of the disputed Spanish Elegy paintings. Martin 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:04.240 also tested genuine when Motherwell paintings for comparison's sake. What 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:06.760 Jamie Martin would do is he will take a painting 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:10.679 and he will investigate all the aspects of the pain 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:13.720 from the frame to the paints that are used. That's 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:17.760 Jason Hernandez, Assistant District Attorney to New York Second District, 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:21.240 and the course of his criminal investigation, Jason gleaned a 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:25.560 wealth of knowledge about the forensic testing process. He'll take 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:28.600 an incredibly small slice of the paint. He will investigate 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:30.720 the dust that's in the crevices and the cracks of 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:33.800 the paint, and he will determine, you know, what the 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:37.360 composition of those materials are. He will look for what 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:40.840 he calls anomalies, meaning things that shouldn't be there. And 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:43.760 I'll give you a very very simple example. I think 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:47.960 it was the DuPont Corporation at some point patented titanium dioxide, 0:13:48.360 --> 0:13:51.959 which really makes whites really white. It was patented sometime 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:53.880 and I don't know the seventies I'm going to call it. 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:57.040 But what that means is that if I present to 0:13:57.080 --> 0:14:00.040 you a Pollock painting and it has titanium diox, I 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:03.319 didn't we have a problem because Jackson Pollock was dead 0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:13.239 before titanium dioxide was discovered. And Jamie Martin's report was devastating. 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:17.760 He found that a red pigment in one of these 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:21.880 Spanish elegies hadn't existed until years after the paintings were 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:26.280 said to be made. All seven of the Spanish elegies 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:31.800 were immediately scrapped from the upcoming Motherwell catalog Resone. The 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:36.160 Kalila Gallerbay sued the Dadalists. The Dadalist sued Weissman, the dealer. 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:40.160 In the end, all parties settled, with money changing hands 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:45.400 and the Kalila's painting branded on its verso as a forgery. 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:50.800 One day, while Jamie Martin was studying the Spanish elegies, 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:55.040 Jack Flam had a memorable talk with Ann Friedman. She said, 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:57.280 I don't want to get Michael Hammer involved in this. 0:14:57.400 --> 0:15:03.120 He's very lititious, Flam later recalled. Despite her wish to 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:07.280 keep the Spanish Elegy debacle off her boss's desk, Friedman 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:09.640 and Hammer had forged an alliance right from the start, 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:13.960 As a lawsuit would later allege, Anne had kept her 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:16.680 boss in the loop on the sales of Rosales's paintings 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:19.880 from the beginning. She sent Hammer short write ups of 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:22.920 every new painting that came in. The writeups detailed how 0:15:23.040 --> 0:15:26.520 much the gallery paid Glofere for each picture wholesale and 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:29.640 how much Nodler had sold them for retail to its customers. 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:34.160 And yet years later, Anne felt afraid of Michael Hammer 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:37.800 enough to worry he might sue her. It seemed as 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:40.240 if each partner still kept some secrets from the other. 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:45.560 From the start, Knoedler's owner, Michael Hammer had kept all 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:49.920 but invisible in his spacious office at the gallery. Staffers 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:53.040 rarely saw him, and when they did, it was hard 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:56.240 not to be distracted by his artificial tan and a 0:15:56.280 --> 0:16:01.800 wardrobe that could charitably be described as extravagance. Hammers roughly 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:05.840 two dozen vintage cars, some worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, 0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:08.720 only underscore the sense that here was a man of 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:15.840 almost unimaginable wealth, free to do as he wished. By 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:18.720 the fall of two thousand nine, news of the fake 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:22.440 Spanish elegy paintings had reached the Prosecutor's office in the 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:27.760 Second District of New York. Investigators were now sifting through 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:32.240 and Friedman's seventeen years as head of the Ndler Gallery. 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:36.520 Any hopes and had of keeping Michael Hammer out of 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:40.840 the loop were dashed. Seeing law enforcement walked through the 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:45.800 doors had jolted Hammer to his core. That October, he 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:51.160 terminated and Freedman's employment from the Ndler Gallery. Her feet 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:54.920 barely touched the floor as security guards swept her through 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:57.840 the gallery and out the front doors under the Royal 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:10.760 blue awning and was finished. We'll be back after this. 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:16.200 Back in London, Pierre Lagrange was having trouble of his own. 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:20.320 Just two years after buying his seventeen million dollar pollock, 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:23.679 he was embarking on a divorce. He was advised to 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:26.600 sell his recently acquired pollock and split the proceeds with 0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:29.840 his soon to be ex wife Lagrange was shocked to 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:33.680 discover that neither Southnbies nor Christie's would accept the work. 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:37.560 After all, the Pollock had no provenance, and its surfaced 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:41.600 only a few years before. David and Pham, one of 0:17:41.600 --> 0:17:45.199 the world's most respected authorities on modern American art, was 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:48.159 just as skeptical when he personally viewed the painting in 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:53.680 Pierre Lagrange's London home. It was the ninth of April 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:58.440 two thousand and eight when I paid a visit and 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:01.080 I saw the whole collection of the and suddenly we 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:05.879 got to the Pollock. Pierre looked at me. I looked 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:10.080 at Pierre's advisor, and I think I said, what do 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:15.680 you think? And I wouldcall very clearly, saying well, that 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:20.359 has a history. And they were hoping for some more words. 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:25.120 But I never said the west was silence. They were 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:29.080 hoping that you would say the painting was right. Yes, 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:37.480 that's exactly what I did not say. La Grange had 0:18:37.480 --> 0:18:40.520 the distinct feeling he was being toyed with, and he 0:18:40.600 --> 0:18:46.000 was angry. Where was Ann Friedman anyway? News of her 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:49.080 firing hadn't yet made its way to La Grange. The 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:52.760 Knoedler was playing a vanishing game of its own. The 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:56.640 gallery flat out refused to take back Lagrange's Pollock, nor 0:18:56.720 --> 0:19:00.119 would it be fund his seventeen million dollars. After all, 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:04.960 the gallery insisted the painting was genuine. Lagrange was seeing 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:09.600 read he wanted his money, and surfaced in November two 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:14.000 with an email meant to lower the temperature. Once again, 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:17.639 she insisted politely but firmly, that Lagrange's Pollock was one 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:20.639 of several newly discovered works that would be added to 0:19:20.720 --> 0:19:26.760 a revised Pollock catalog. Resimee Ann's timing couldn't have been worse. 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:29.720 Just one month after her attempt to band aid the 0:19:29.800 --> 0:19:34.560 Lagrange situation with yet another lie, Jackson, Pollock expert Eugene 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:39.080 Thaw shocked the art world with a declaration of seismic proportions. 0:19:40.160 --> 0:19:45.280 Thaw declared that Legrange's silvery Pollock looked not right to him. 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:47.439 Thaw was in poor health and he wanted to be 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:50.600 sure his judgment was made clear, so in early two 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:54.600 thousand eleven, he repeated his claim in a videotaped Affidavid 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:59.040 the painting looked fake to him, Thal said, AND's email 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:06.440 was immediately and entirely invalidated. It was now February two eleven. 0:20:07.000 --> 0:20:10.080 Pierre Lagrange still had no interest in meeting Ann Friedman, 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:13.280 but word was that a grand jury was convening to 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:17.719 consider charges stemming from the fake Spanish elegies, and Anne 0:20:17.720 --> 0:20:23.400 was said to be a subject of interest. Lagrange decided 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:27.080 he would meet with her after all, and suggested the 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:30.960 lounge of the Carlisle Hotel with its serpentine rooms of 0:20:31.040 --> 0:20:36.720 overstuffed chairs. Anne arrived early to the Carlyle on a 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:39.920 wintry day and shows a small table in a cozy 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:45.360 lowlit corner. She recognized Lagrange from his long gray hair 0:20:45.760 --> 0:20:49.040 and angular face as soon as he walked in, and 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:52.160 stood up to greet him and his attorney, Matthew Donson. 0:20:53.000 --> 0:20:55.720 Pierre Lagrange, I'm Ann Friedman. It's nice to meet you, 0:20:55.800 --> 0:20:59.800 she said, don't be so sure, Lagrange seethed in his 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:04.600 eligian accent. Lagrange ordered a cocktail, the lawyer a coke. 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:08.560 I've been looking forward to meeting you and discussing the painting, 0:21:08.600 --> 0:21:11.560 and said, cheerfully, let's talk about how I can be helpful. 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:15.479 I want my money, the groans said, his voice rising 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:20.560 with each word. That's all, and tried to stay calm, 0:21:20.680 --> 0:21:24.359 She leaned forward a bit. It's hard to predict the market, 0:21:24.400 --> 0:21:26.720 she noted. She said they might have to wait a 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:30.000 while before selling the painting, but she and La Grange 0:21:30.080 --> 0:21:32.639 would be able to help each other out of this fix, 0:21:32.720 --> 0:21:39.760 and said assuredly. That was when Lagrange lashed out quote. 0:21:39.960 --> 0:21:43.120 He started screaming at the top of his lungs. I'm 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:46.160 going to set you on fire. Do you understand that 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:48.800 I'm going to set you on fire? And you will 0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:51.760 have no life. It will be over, and it will 0:21:51.840 --> 0:21:57.640 hit the press and you will be done. And tried 0:21:57.680 --> 0:22:00.760 to reason with the Belgian financier in a calm voice, 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:05.080 as if talking to an unruly child. Taking the painting 0:22:05.119 --> 0:22:09.359 back simply wasn't an option. She said all the experts 0:22:09.400 --> 0:22:12.480 agreed it was real, and so did she, and said 0:22:13.240 --> 0:22:16.120 she offered to take the painting on consignment and try 0:22:16.160 --> 0:22:22.840 to sell it to someone else. Lagrange was astounded. Anne's 0:22:22.920 --> 0:22:25.960 solution was to find some other sap to unload the 0:22:25.960 --> 0:22:30.240 painting on. Not only was that wildly irresponsible, but surely 0:22:30.520 --> 0:22:33.560 illegal as well. The two of them would be selling 0:22:33.600 --> 0:22:38.360 a painting Lagrange now believed was a fake. If Noodler 0:22:38.440 --> 0:22:42.280 didn't immediately return his money and take back the painting. 0:22:42.400 --> 0:22:47.159 Lagrange railed, he would destroy her reputation. He was furious. 0:22:48.000 --> 0:22:51.960 Lagrange and Johnson stood up. The meeting was clearly over. 0:22:52.720 --> 0:22:55.760 Everyone by now at the Carlysle was staring. This was 0:22:55.800 --> 0:22:59.320 a real scene, and recounted. The waiter came over and 0:22:59.320 --> 0:23:02.960 asked if she is all right. Later, Lagrange would deny 0:23:03.240 --> 0:23:06.399 A's account of the meeting. He hadn't raised his voice, 0:23:06.440 --> 0:23:15.320 he said. The calamity at the Carlisle merely confirmed Lagrange's 0:23:15.359 --> 0:23:18.359 worst fears. He was sure his Pollock was a fake, 0:23:19.040 --> 0:23:22.000 and Friedman persona non grata. At the n Nodler could 0:23:22.000 --> 0:23:25.000 do nothing to get him his money back. Lagrange's only 0:23:25.080 --> 0:23:28.639 move was to squeeze the reclusive Michael Hammer, Noodler's chairman, 0:23:29.080 --> 0:23:31.959 in whatever way he could to recover his seventeen million. 0:23:33.960 --> 0:23:37.320 Lagrange had no idea how utterly dependent the gallery was 0:23:37.400 --> 0:23:41.200 on the sales of Ga Feara Rosales's paintings. He did 0:23:41.280 --> 0:23:43.679 note with interest that Hammer had put one of the 0:23:43.680 --> 0:23:47.479 galleries two adjoining mansions up for sale for more than 0:23:47.520 --> 0:23:51.760 a year, The seventeen thousand square foot Italian Renaissance building 0:23:52.160 --> 0:23:56.320 at nineteen seventy Street had been quietly shopped around town 0:23:56.600 --> 0:24:00.159 for fifty nine point nine million dollars. That is a 0:24:00.240 --> 0:24:03.320 high price in a bear market. It remained for sale 0:24:03.400 --> 0:24:06.840 until February two thousand eleven, when it sold for thirty 0:24:06.880 --> 0:24:12.439 one million dollars, half its original asking price. As it 0:24:12.480 --> 0:24:16.480 turned out, the sale came shortly before the disastrous Carlisle 0:24:16.520 --> 0:24:20.480 Hotel meeting. Lagrange knew exactly where seventeen million of the 0:24:20.480 --> 0:24:24.000 mansions proceeds should go, but Nodler had no interest in 0:24:24.040 --> 0:24:26.639 giving any of that money back to the London hedge funder. 0:24:27.560 --> 0:24:30.480 The standoff with Lagrange remained a secret through much of 0:24:30.520 --> 0:24:34.359 two thousand eleven as lawyers attempted to resolve the situation. 0:24:35.359 --> 0:24:43.040 Then in October came news of the Motherwell Spanish elegy settlement. Hi. 0:24:43.119 --> 0:24:45.600 I'm Patricia Cohen, and I'm a reporter for the New 0:24:45.680 --> 0:24:50.840 York Times. Patricia's first scoop about the Noodler saga was 0:24:50.920 --> 0:24:55.880 dated October eleventh, two thousand eleven. I had no idea 0:24:56.000 --> 0:24:59.680 at that point that that story was going to kind 0:24:59.680 --> 0:25:04.359 of splode into one of the biggest art frauds of 0:25:04.480 --> 0:25:09.240 the last hundred years. I just started digging around, and 0:25:09.960 --> 0:25:13.760 even though that story was relatively short, I quickly realized 0:25:13.760 --> 0:25:17.919 that there was a much bigger story buried beneath this 0:25:18.080 --> 0:25:20.639 with with a lot more questions that came up, and 0:25:20.920 --> 0:25:27.200 then I started digging. Cohen's story in the Times prompted 0:25:27.280 --> 0:25:30.000 Lagrange to do something he should have done far earlier. 0:25:30.440 --> 0:25:33.960 He called Jamie Martin, the forensic expert who had analyzed 0:25:34.000 --> 0:25:36.920 the motherwells, and requested a test on the polit no 0:25:37.080 --> 0:25:42.880 auction house would touch. The tests confirmed Lagrange's worst fears. 0:25:43.560 --> 0:25:47.080 Various pigments in the painting had not existed in nine 0:25:47.160 --> 0:25:51.200 when the painting was supposedly made. It was forensically impossible 0:25:51.320 --> 0:25:56.800 for the work to be legitimate. The report Lagrange received 0:25:56.800 --> 0:26:00.520 in late November of two thousand eleven brought full throated 0:26:00.600 --> 0:26:05.400 legal action. In a searing letter to Michael Hammer, Lagrange 0:26:05.440 --> 0:26:09.919 demanded that Knodler refund his seventeen million dollars in forty 0:26:09.960 --> 0:26:14.400 eight hours or face a lawsuit. The letter would ultimately 0:26:14.440 --> 0:26:19.680 be the last straw from Michael Hammer to Lagrange's astonishment. 0:26:20.160 --> 0:26:25.119 Hammer responded by closing the Knoedler's brass doors permanently on 0:26:25.200 --> 0:26:31.480 November eleven, sixty five years after it first opened for business. 0:26:39.320 --> 0:26:42.720 Gafara wasn't actually named, but New York Times readers learned 0:26:42.960 --> 0:26:45.840 the name of Ann Friedman and learned too that she 0:26:45.880 --> 0:26:48.480 had been accused of selling fake Motherwell's while she was 0:26:48.520 --> 0:26:52.560 president of Nodler. Was there a sense of starting to 0:26:52.600 --> 0:26:55.680 connect the dots sort of? I remember that day very 0:26:55.720 --> 0:26:58.879 well because it was a big scandal. There was an 0:26:58.920 --> 0:27:02.639 FBI investigate issue. We were talking about, you know, many 0:27:02.720 --> 0:27:06.280 paintings in many millions of dollars, and I knew about 0:27:06.320 --> 0:27:11.080 the Pierre Lagrange lawsuit, and so I had basically been 0:27:11.160 --> 0:27:14.959 planning within the next week to have this you know, 0:27:15.400 --> 0:27:19.399 big expose about this, and then when the gallery closed, 0:27:19.440 --> 0:27:24.240 it was like, oh shit, we have to cover this, 0:27:24.400 --> 0:27:27.439 but you know, we've got this really other, big story, 0:27:27.560 --> 0:27:30.040