Speaker 1: The art world is an unregulated business billions of dollars.
Speaker 1: It is essentially a money laundering business. You're working with
Speaker 1: an artificial scarcity of market, and so it's fraud, with
Speaker 1: people cutting corners and things happening. It was when Ann Friedman,
Speaker 1: then the newly minted director of the Knoedler Gallery, first
Speaker 1: met Gafa Rosales had a soho art opening. Larry Reuben
Speaker 1: had been pushed out of Knoedler a year earlier in
Speaker 1: a coup that ended with Ann Friedman being installed at
Speaker 1: the blessing of Michael Hammer. K Nodler's sales were flat,
Speaker 1: the clients were leaving in droves, and Ann Friedman needed
Speaker 1: new work to help propel the gallery forward. The Knoedler,
Speaker 1: always one step behind the times, was hurtling towards the
Speaker 1: art world of a new millennium. The galleries long time
Speaker 1: assistant him Andrade, had introduced Ann to the soft spoken,
Speaker 1: polite woman of Mexican heritage. As fate would have it,
Speaker 1: Gfia Rosalez had two works of art on paper she
Speaker 1: wanted to sell. About. All that anyone could agree on
Speaker 1: was that hime Andrade was a shy Ecuadorian man of
Speaker 1: modest height. He was one of eleven children who had
Speaker 1: come to New York in the early nineteen sixties and
Speaker 1: found a home in a circle of artificionados. He'd made
Speaker 1: his way to Larry Ruben's gallery one Street and worked
Speaker 1: as the galley's driver. Reuben had then brought him over
Speaker 1: to Knoedler as a sort of jack of old trades.
Speaker 1: His job was to do pretty much whatever anyone wanted
Speaker 1: him to do. As Anne put it in one of
Speaker 1: her interviews for Vanity Fair, he would do everything from
Speaker 1: changing light fixtures to running errands. But he always wore
Speaker 1: a blazer and a tie and went to fancy dinner
Speaker 1: parties and escorted well to do women. He was like
Speaker 1: a mascot, but I mean that in a respectful way.
Speaker 1: He epitomized the spirit of the gallery. Despite a faulty
Speaker 1: grasp of English. After half a century, Hymie was perfectly
Speaker 1: capable of charming one of those women into buying a
Speaker 1: painting from Knodler. Andrade's greatest passion was Latin American art.
Speaker 1: As late as two thousand eleven, while the forgery ring
Speaker 1: was metastasizing amid criminal investigations, the boyish Andrade gave a
Speaker 1: talk about Ecuadorian art and his fifty years of immersion
Speaker 1: in it at the mid Manhattan Library. The Knottler, in
Speaker 1: a press release for it, would describe Andrott's long time
Speaker 1: friend and dealer David Herbert as quote one of the
Speaker 1: best American portrait artists. Unquote that was patently untrue. But Herbert,
Speaker 1: upon his death, would be cast in another role as
Speaker 1: a central figure in the back story of Knoedler's conspiracy
Speaker 1: of fakes, possibly aided and embedded by hime Andrade, who
Speaker 1: had just become David Herbert's executor. With boxes of documents
Speaker 1: rich in art world lore, Anne would never quite come
Speaker 1: out and say explicitly that him may have steered her
Speaker 1: to the papers that gave rise to a conspiracy ring
Speaker 1: of art forgers, but more than one Knodler's staffer would
Speaker 1: take umbrage at the way Anne defended him less than
Speaker 1: forcefully in Vanity Fair. Was Anne implying that hime Andrade
Speaker 1: had introduced her to Glafia Rosales knowing the two works
Speaker 1: at issue were fake, or had him done no more
Speaker 1: than to introduce his boss to a Mexican woman who
Speaker 1: shared his love of Latin American arts. Here again is
Speaker 1: writer Michael Schneyerson. Leslie Feeley took a dim review of
Speaker 1: Anne and her treatment of Himie. She said Anne treated
Speaker 1: Himie more like a gopher than a mascot. Quote. He
Speaker 1: was a very kind, dignified man, but Anne would send
Speaker 1: him out to get her tampons. Unquote. He had a
Speaker 1: poor education the legacy of his childhood in Ecuador. Jimmy
Speaker 1: was a gopher. He that's he was. He was going
Speaker 1: and he got to know a lot of people in
Speaker 1: the art business. He had more aught in his home,
Speaker 1: but all South America. That's the Noteler's art handler Joe
Speaker 1: Stevens Andrade rented a ground floor apartment in an ornate
Speaker 1: but musty rental building at seventeen East seventieth Street, literally
Speaker 1: next door to the Noodler. He seemed to like being
Speaker 1: on call for whatever needs a rose. I used to
Speaker 1: stay there whenever I had openings because I worked so late.
Speaker 1: And now I used to go and wife said, man,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna come, I'm saying, Heimie's Chris, Jimmy. We'd go
Speaker 1: a call out and have you know, you know, at
Speaker 1: ten o'clock, ten thirty at night, after we locked up
Speaker 1: and tell me about the apartment that he had. There
Speaker 1: was stuffed, like this place is three four times bigger
Speaker 1: than his apartment. He had a huge and art work everywhere.
Speaker 1: Fifty pieces on the wall is big. He had all
Speaker 1: this African South American sculptures everywhere, boxes everywhere. You couldn't
Speaker 1: put another thing on that counter. That's a pack. He
Speaker 1: had closets filled with this stuff. He was like, it
Speaker 1: looked like aoid up who did everything. Rosales and Androde
Speaker 1: had struck up a friendship based on Latin American artist
Speaker 1: sometime in the late es. At some point, Rosals mentioned
Speaker 1: she was trying to sell two works on paper by
Speaker 1: Richard deepen Corn, the great abstract artist represented for years
Speaker 1: by the Knodler Gallery until Larry reuben departure and Anne's
Speaker 1: promotion did I may think Ann Friedman might take a
Speaker 1: look and tell Glyphira what she thought. This was a
Speaker 1: pivotal moment the first time Glypira Rosalee focused on Ann
Speaker 1: Friedman as her target for newly minted forgeries. Soon enough,
Speaker 1: and Friedman found herself looking at a pair of classic
Speaker 1: deepen Corn drawings. Sadly, that great profusion of Ocean Park
Speaker 1: paintings and drawings. All those Christmas mornings the staff had
Speaker 1: described opening brand new deep In corn work had come
Speaker 1: to an end. Deep In Corn had died in and
Speaker 1: his daughter Gretchen and son in law Richard Grant, co
Speaker 1: heads of the Artists Foundation, had ended the galleries long
Speaker 1: association with Deepen Corn. They didn't much like Ann Friedman.
Speaker 1: They liked her even less after the coup that put
Speaker 1: her in charge. Still, Nodler was widely known as Eben
Speaker 1: Corn's main gallery. There would be no more primary works
Speaker 1: directly from the artist, but secondary works, those that had
Speaker 1: changed hands at least once, were fair game for anyone
Speaker 1: who wanted to buy or sell them, and Nodler could
Speaker 1: put buyers and sellers together as well or better than
Speaker 1: anyone else, given its history with the artist. So when
Speaker 1: hera offered to show Anne too Deepen Corns, the Nodler's
Speaker 1: director jumped at the chance. Days after Anne's coup in November,
Speaker 1: a certain calm had come over the Kndler Gallery. Larry
Speaker 1: Reuben had even agreed to stay on as director until
Speaker 1: the last day of the year. The old art world
Speaker 1: War horse had recovered his spirits somewhat and shrugged off
Speaker 1: the coup. Perhaps it was time for him to leave
Speaker 1: Ndler after all. Gracefully, he even did Ann Friedman a
Speaker 1: favor by agreeing to take a look at the too
Speaker 1: Deepened Corn works on paper. Like most of Deep and
Speaker 1: Corn's work since the mid nineteen sixties, these were geometrical
Speaker 1: abstractions from his Ocean Park series. When Anne asked where
Speaker 1: they'd come from, Rosals demurred. Regrettably. She said her client
Speaker 1: wanted to remain anonymous. That was hardly unusual for works
Speaker 1: brought in by perfect strangers. Unfortunately, neither of the drawings
Speaker 1: had identifying marks on their verso verso is what dealers
Speaker 1: call the back of an artwork, no record of the
Speaker 1: works tracing back to the artists studio. There was no
Speaker 1: trace of later buyers and sellers, no auction markings either.
Speaker 1: In a word, the drawings had no provenance. That was
Speaker 1: a problem. So what is provenance. It's the paper trail
Speaker 1: of what we know about an artwork, starting from the
Speaker 1: time it was created. It tells us who owned it,
Speaker 1: when it was sold, where it was shown, and so forth.
Speaker 1: Had Deep and Corn been alive, the issue of provenance
Speaker 1: for these works would have been moot after all, the
Speaker 1: artist was the best judge of his own work. He
Speaker 1: could say in an instant whether these two drawings were
Speaker 1: done by his hand or not. When an artist died,
Speaker 1: the primary work he left behind in his studio or
Speaker 1: home was easy to judge and usually genuine too, so
Speaker 1: it wasn't difficult for the artist's family or executor to
Speaker 1: authenticate those works and record them for posterity. The challenge
Speaker 1: came with secondary works sold after the artist's death, works
Speaker 1: bought and sold and bought again, works that sometimes vanished
Speaker 1: and then reappeared. Were they real or not? An artist
Speaker 1: like Deep and Corn post a special challenge. His Ocean
Speaker 1: Park works were all beautiful, but also quite similar. Larry Reuben,
Speaker 1: as it turned out, was underwell by the Ocean park
Speaker 1: esque drawings, and Freedman showed him quote I told her
Speaker 1: I did not think they were good, Reuben later told
Speaker 1: Vanity Fair, which was to say, I thought they were fake.
Speaker 1: He said the gallery couldn't or certainly shouldn't sell them.
Speaker 1: Not long after, Deep and Corn's widow, Phillis, paid a
Speaker 1: visit to the Noddler with her daughter Gretchen, and Friedman
Speaker 1: had called the drawings to their attention. And the family
Speaker 1: were worried about them. When Anne laid them out on
Speaker 1: a table at the gallery, Gretchen and Phillis stared at
Speaker 1: those drawings for a long time. They looked quite good.
Speaker 1: We really, we're pretty impressed. It was clearly a beautiful piece.
Speaker 1: I am Gretchen deep and Corn Grant. My father is
Speaker 1: Richard Deepon Corn. Despite the exceptional quality of the works,
Speaker 1: the family felt they were not authentic. You could see
Speaker 1: the hand of the forger in both of them. You
Speaker 1: look at someone's work long enough in my entire life.
Speaker 1: I'm seventy six years old, so I was alive during
Speaker 1: my father's career, and you have a sense of it.
Speaker 1: Not perfect, but you do have a pretty good sense.
Speaker 1: What I said to and at the time was that
Speaker 1: the problem for me was that they didn't have any soul.
Speaker 1: They didn't seem to breathe. I just couldn't relate to it,
Speaker 1: even though it was clearly a beautiful piece, and reactions
Speaker 1: surprised them. She didn't even thank them for calling attention
Speaker 1: to what might be fake Deepen corns. Neither did she
Speaker 1: suggest she would hand them back to their owner, whoever
Speaker 1: they might be. The whole question of what the nobler
Speaker 1: might do with them was simply not addressed. Of course,
Speaker 1: she didn't say to in Freedman, I think they're fake,
Speaker 1: because you know, in the art world you cannot call
Speaker 1: something a fake because if you do so, you might
Speaker 1: be sued for defamation of property. So people are very careful.
Speaker 1: Just Seli Reggaeteo is a reporter currently with the Center
Speaker 1: for Investigative Reporting. She pursued the note of story for
Speaker 1: several years and came up with a few scoops, starting
Speaker 1: with the story of Dr Bernard Krueger. They might say
Speaker 1: this doesn't look right, but you don't quite say this
Speaker 1: is fake. So it's quite interesting that I talked to
Speaker 1: both Russian Demonquirn as she was seeing this this pieces
Speaker 1: as they were about to be sold, and then I
Speaker 1: also talked to Bernard Krueger, who was looking at the
Speaker 1: pieces from the buyer's perspective. And in both instances, you
Speaker 1: see there were several things strange about this. You know,
Speaker 1: where they were coming from, how they looked, how much
Speaker 1: they were being offered. All of those things adopts to
Speaker 1: you know, there's something strange happening here. Here's Francis Beatty again.
Speaker 1: I do remember going to a Deep and Corn show
Speaker 1: of Deep and Corn works on paper and someone saying
Speaker 1: to me, you have to be super careful because you
Speaker 1: want to make sure that you're not buying one of
Speaker 1: the things that the family has disavowed. And the idea
Speaker 1: that you would show something, let alone sell it, that
Speaker 1: the family of the artist has disavowed, is absolutely shocking.
Speaker 1: I mean, you have a responsibility to your client, and
Speaker 1: if something has a cloud over it, the cloud is
Speaker 1: never going to disperse. Since the drawings were secondary market works,
Speaker 1: the family couldn't keep Ann Friedman from doing what she
Speaker 1: wanted with them, which was, of course, to sell them,
Speaker 1: as Larry Reuben later told Vanity Fair, and Friedman could
Speaker 1: justify selling those two drawings because the artist's wife had
Speaker 1: not called them fake, nor had Larry Reuben. I wasn't
Speaker 1: one sure they weren't real, Reuben explained later. And you
Speaker 1: can get into a lot of trouble by declaring something
Speaker 1: as fake when you don't have the hard evidence. And
Speaker 1: since I was leaving, I said to Anne, fine, you
Speaker 1: handle it, and she did. Despite the doubts expressed by
Speaker 1: the family, and Friedman sold the Deep and Corn drawings
Speaker 1: to the perfect buyer. More art fraud in a minute.
Speaker 1: Not long after the Deep and Corn Family's disconcerting visit
Speaker 1: to Knoedler, a doctor named Bernard Krueger received a phone
Speaker 1: called he never expected to get. Krueger was a collector,
Speaker 1: perhaps not a great collector, but an eager one, especially
Speaker 1: in regard to which your deep in Corn's work. He
Speaker 1: liked to think he had an inside track. He was,
Speaker 1: after all, and Friedman's doctor. He told me he loved
Speaker 1: Devon Coorn's work for many years, and at the time
Speaker 1: he was alive in the nineties, and even before that,
Speaker 1: I think he started buying the first diven Corns in
Speaker 1: the eighties. He had to go through Knodler because at
Speaker 1: the time Richard Devon Corn was alive and Knodler represented him.
Speaker 1: And what Ben Krueger told me is that every time
Speaker 1: he wanted to buy a piece, it was not easy.
Speaker 1: You would think you have money, you want to buy
Speaker 1: a piece of art, You walk in and say, I
Speaker 1: want this, But that's not how it works in the
Speaker 1: art world. You know, there is no like free market,
Speaker 1: or you know, they sell for whoever they want to sell,
Speaker 1: and they might give up price to me and a
Speaker 1: different price to you. And the way that Bernard described
Speaker 1: to me is that Ann Friedman was quite difficult and
Speaker 1: quite protective, and she would say to him, no, you
Speaker 1: cannot buy this one. If you want, you can buy
Speaker 1: this other one. He said to me, I would need
Speaker 1: to beg to buy, and sometimes she would let me buy,
Speaker 1: and sometimes she wouldn't. And I asked him why why
Speaker 1: would she do that? And he said, well, that was
Speaker 1: her way of having power and having control. Despite having
Speaker 1: an inside track as Hans doctor, Bernard Krueger was having
Speaker 1: a difficult time purchasing a work from the artist he
Speaker 1: most coveted. Surprisingly, all of that would change after Deep
Speaker 1: and Corn passed away in early and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: Bernard Krueger gets a call from Knoedler saying, we have
Speaker 1: the two different corns for you to see. You know,
Speaker 1: they just came in. I think you would like it.
Speaker 1: I was a ready, like, wait a minute, don't you
Speaker 1: think that was change? For years you've been begging to
Speaker 1: buy a dipping corn. All of a sudden they're calling
Speaker 1: you and offer you a dipping corn. And he said no.
Speaker 1: I thought I was great. I thought I was finally
Speaker 1: getting a good deal on a dipping corn, because he
Speaker 1: bought one of them and that was one of the fakes.
Speaker 1: If I remember the numbers right. He told me the
Speaker 1: last deep and Corn he had bought for like a
Speaker 1: hundred twenty five hundred thirty five thousand, and that one
Speaker 1: he bought for eighty thou dollars. So again he was thrilled.
Speaker 1: He's like, all of a sudden, I'd been offered a
Speaker 1: deep and corn, and it's cheaper than the last one
Speaker 1: I bought. Nadler did well by those two Deepen Corn sales,
Speaker 1: earning forty five thousand dollars on each. When word of
Speaker 1: the sale reached the Deep and Corn family, they were shocked,
Speaker 1: As the late artist's daughter Gretchen said, we thought, being
Speaker 1: the naive people we were and being honest, we basically
Speaker 1: thought she would simply return them and that would be that. Instead,
Speaker 1: she wrote a letter to my mother and to me
Speaker 1: that we had come to the gallery and authenticated these works,
Speaker 1: and therefore she had sold them, and we were very distressed.
Speaker 1: I wanted to write to Anne and tell her that
Speaker 1: this was not okay, and that we had not authenticated them.
Speaker 1: She can sell whatever she wants, but she can't say
Speaker 1: that we authenticated it. And my mother was very shy
Speaker 1: about being in an antagonistic position with anybody, and she
Speaker 1: really didn't want me to write on behalf of myself
Speaker 1: or on behalf of her, and so that was dropped. Later,
Speaker 1: Dr Krueger would say he had sold the work and
Speaker 1: had no idea where they were. Perhaps, But over the
Speaker 1: next fifteen years, the Deepened Corns would routinely hear of
Speaker 1: fake Deepen Corn works on paper popping up in the market.
Speaker 1: Each new appearance meant that some new owner was trying
Speaker 1: to unload his Deepen Corns, either with or without the
Speaker 1: knowledge that they were fake. When the works once again vanished,
Speaker 1: the implication was just as clear. Some new owner had
Speaker 1: been duped or worse, set out to con his own
Speaker 1: next prospective buyer. In the years to come, stories like
Speaker 1: that would find their way to the Deepen Corn Foundation
Speaker 1: on a regular basis. Eventually, the family counted some two
Speaker 1: d and fifty deep in Corn images around the world,
Speaker 1: submitted for authentication or just out of curiosity. They ranged
Speaker 1: from the occasional top drawer forgery to when art students
Speaker 1: homage for class credit left in a garage to be
Speaker 1: celebrated briefly as the real McCoy. Times were tough in
Speaker 1: the art market of and few galleries were feeling it
Speaker 1: as much as Noler, which had little to live on
Speaker 1: after Larry Reuben's departure other than its reputation and venerability.
Speaker 1: I mean, she wasn't making much money at I mean
Speaker 1: business wasn't good, and so she needs something was needed,
Speaker 1: something really special. Money was needed. Still, Anne seemed to
Speaker 1: harbor lingering concerns about those works. Perhaps she was eager
Speaker 1: to prove their authenticity to herself and to pave the
Speaker 1: way for more paintings from Glafira Rosales. Surely Coalfia could
Speaker 1: share with Anna telling detail or two details to assure
Speaker 1: her the works had some shred of provenance. Gently, but firmly,
Speaker 1: Glyphia declined to say anything about where the deep and
Speaker 1: corn drawings had come from. She would only say she
Speaker 1: was representing a man she called Mr X Junior, whose
Speaker 1: parents had passed on to their son more paintings by
Speaker 1: some of the best known artists of the post war period.
Speaker 1: Soon enough, Anne was calling him Mr X Junior too,
Speaker 1: and referring to his parents as Mr. And Mrs X.
Speaker 1: It sounded a bit silly, but maybe a fan played
Speaker 1: ball Glyphia might introduce Anne to Mr X Juniorphia did
Speaker 1: say that Mr X Junior had more works to sell
Speaker 1: if they could be placed discreetly. These were works that
Speaker 1: had been long stored by Mr X hermetically sealed. Even
Speaker 1: Glafira had said the paintings had been in storage for
Speaker 1: so long that critics and collectors would be thrilled to
Speaker 1: see these lost masterpieces finally unwrapped. I have never, and
Speaker 1: I actually don't have any colleagues who I know, who
Speaker 1: have regularly managed to obtain from a private person a
Speaker 1: picture for let's say two hundred thousand dollars that then
Speaker 1: they could sell for eight hundred thousand dollars. I mean,
Speaker 1: it just simply doesn't happen. If somebody came to me
Speaker 1: and said, I want to sell you this Cliford Still,
Speaker 1: and I know that the Cliford Stills fair market price
Speaker 1: would be a million, and they say to me, well,
Speaker 1: I'm going to sell it to you for two hundred thousand,
Speaker 1: I would think immediately that it was hot. What other conclusion.
Speaker 1: It's the same in any business. I think if you're
Speaker 1: a diamond merchant, somebody comes to you with the diamond,
Speaker 1: and they're selling it to you for of its real value.
Speaker 1: You would assume that there was something wrong with it.
Speaker 1: You say no, thank you. And if you bought a
Speaker 1: painting by mistake, letting your passions get the better of you,
Speaker 1: what would you do when you came to your senses.
Speaker 1: These things once in a while happened to dealers. You
Speaker 1: just you make a mistake, but the minute you do,
Speaker 1: you recognize it, you give the money back. You know you,
Speaker 1: you take it, and you learn from it. Otherwise you
Speaker 1: lose your reputation completely and utterly. So that's one of
Speaker 1: the really key things. It wasn't long before fa Rosalez
Speaker 1: was back in the Nler, this time with a painting
Speaker 1: by abstract expressionist Mark Rothko under her arm. It was
Speaker 1: a beautiful work, has Anne described it later, with dark
Speaker 1: orbs against a pale pink peach backdrop, and like the
Speaker 1: Deepen Corns, it had no provenance other than the link
Speaker 1: to Mr and Mrs X. I think that they were
Speaker 1: the consortium, not just Cliff ear Right. They created paintings
Speaker 1: that were actually quite smart because they were very highly valued.
Speaker 1: I'm Maria Condakova, I'm an author journalist and psychologist, the
Speaker 1: author most recently of the Biggest Bluff and also most
Speaker 1: relevant to this, the confidence game. I mean, let's be honest,
Speaker 1: Abstract expressionism is not necessarily the most technically advanced paintings.
Speaker 1: Now I'm not saying that Rothco is not technically advanced.
Speaker 1: He is. He could paint anything. But for someone who's not,
Speaker 1: you know, incredibly technically advanced painters, probably easier to create
Speaker 1: a Rothco than a rum round one. That I think
Speaker 1: you said in your book, it's very important for the
Speaker 1: con artists not to move too quickly. That was the
Speaker 1: whole part of the what I think you call the
Speaker 1: long con. Something that con artists, the good con artists
Speaker 1: have in abundance is patients. Some cons take decades to
Speaker 1: play out all the way. So you really need to
Speaker 1: be able to see the long game and not just
Speaker 1: be in it for you know, the immediate profit. You
Speaker 1: need to be able to see how does this play
Speaker 1: out over time? And one thing that you have to
Speaker 1: hand to life Era is you know, she didn't just
Speaker 1: do her homework on and she did her homework on
Speaker 1: the art mark and how that world works and what
Speaker 1: people expect if you walk in right away with twenty
Speaker 1: roth Goes and a few Pollocks in there, someone's gonna say, Okay,
Speaker 1: hold on one second, we're gonna do some very heavy
Speaker 1: duty analysis on this, but one at a time. Lost treasures,
Speaker 1: you know, we really don't want to part with them,
Speaker 1: but we're we're selling them piecemeal. That's much more compelling
Speaker 1: and invites less scrutiny. And she's also building the market
Speaker 1: for herself because now, even though there was originally no provenance,
Speaker 1: now a lot of these pieces are in collections and
Speaker 1: some end up making it two shows and to museums,
Speaker 1: and so that creates the provenance that this is the
Speaker 1: collection of Mr. X. And some of these have already
Speaker 1: been validated by some of the leading galleries and museums
Speaker 1: and collectors in the world. I think that if someone
Speaker 1: brought me a Rothco who I didn't know and who
Speaker 1: had no kind of bona fidees in the art world,
Speaker 1: I would be very suspicious. Where did this person get it?
Speaker 1: And it was stolen? I mean, you don't just go
Speaker 1: oneer around with Rothko's right, and did show the painting
Speaker 1: to Christopher Rothko, son of the late artist, who professed
Speaker 1: to find it beautiful That was enough for Anne. She
Speaker 1: bought the painting for one dollars from Rosalis. She sold
Speaker 1: it to the Michelle Rosenfeld Gallery for three thousand dollars
Speaker 1: for a gross profit of one hundred nine Later, when
Speaker 1: she heard about the sale, Francis Beatty found Anne's strategy underwhelming.
Speaker 1: If she showed it to Christopher Rothko, I would say
Speaker 1: that would be a good first step. But that doesn't
Speaker 1: tell you where it came from. That doesn't tell you
Speaker 1: that the person has good title to it. You know
Speaker 1: that you would have to investigate. A few people knew
Speaker 1: that Nodler was starting to deal in works without any provenance.
Speaker 1: The circle had been confined to Glypha and any confederates
Speaker 1: she might have, as well as the staffers at the gallery,
Speaker 1: who could gossip but hardly take on their imperious boss.
Speaker 1: Leslie Feely recalled seeing one of the Rothcoes brought in
Speaker 1: by Gpa. I just walked in and saw this great
Speaker 1: red painting, presuming to be a Rothco. I just couldn't
Speaker 1: even look at it because it was so garish and
Speaker 1: so not by Rothko, and they were selling it for
Speaker 1: at the time million dollars. It was not that large
Speaker 1: and it was clearly a fake. None of these paintings
Speaker 1: had any provenance, at least of the kind that the
Speaker 1: art market expected, Nor were any in the catalog resume
Speaker 1: of Mark Rothko or the soon to be completed catalog
Speaker 1: resume for the late Richard Diebencorn. How could it an
Speaker 1: organization and not check the provenance. That's what you're supposed
Speaker 1: to do for an art fairy, supposed to check the
Speaker 1: provenance on any painting, particularly a Rothco. And there it was.
Speaker 1: Nobody took it out, just sitting there. But just to
Speaker 1: play devil's advocate here, many paintings must meet the market
Speaker 1: with no provenance because the artist has just finished them,
Speaker 1: or or maybe he put them aside and got bored
Speaker 1: with his painting. In the old days, you had to
Speaker 1: ask Jeane thaw On Francis O'Connor to write an attestation.
Speaker 1: I mean recently, there are lots of states that don't
Speaker 1: want to write authenticity, which is very problematic. And so
Speaker 1: what you do is you get people in, you sit
Speaker 1: them down and you say, I'm worried about this. You know,
Speaker 1: this is a picture which has been offered to me.
Speaker 1: I think it looks beautiful, but it has I have
Speaker 1: no proven it's on it, and I really need to
Speaker 1: know what you think about it. You ask a couple
Speaker 1: of people, and you do your due diligence because you're
Speaker 1: on the line for it. One of the most important
Speaker 1: aspects of provenance is in an artwork by a great
Speaker 1: established artist be readily found, and that artists catalog resume.
Speaker 1: A catalog resume is done by scholars or a family
Speaker 1: in which they try to write down every single picture
Speaker 1: that to date has been attributed to this artist and
Speaker 1: that they think is legitimate. And typical catalog resume is
Speaker 1: like the Pollock catalog resume. It says where the work
Speaker 1: comes from in scrupulous detail. Sometimes it says whether it's
Speaker 1: been repainted, whether it was in a fire. I mean,
Speaker 1: you try to get as much information as you possibly can.
Speaker 1: You try to document every single picture by that artist.
Speaker 1: You also have to be sure that you're passing something
Speaker 1: that's legitimate or is considered legitimate by the authorities. Of course,
Speaker 1: it does sometimes happen that a painting lacks any provenance.
Speaker 1: It's rare, but it happens. So what do you do?
Speaker 1: Start calling in the experts and hopefully get them to
Speaker 1: look at the actual work, Invite them to a gallery opening,
Speaker 1: Steer them to your newly acquired Barnett Newman A Rothko.
Speaker 1: Is there anything wrong with doing what she did? As
Speaker 1: far as that goes, one could argue that Anne and
Speaker 1: asking the depon Corn family to look at those two
Speaker 1: works on paper was acting quite properly. No, there's nothing
Speaker 1: wrong with doing that. I mean, you want to know
Speaker 1: what distinguished scholars and what people who are regarded to
Speaker 1: have what we call the art business a good eye,
Speaker 1: in other words, they have, you have some reason to
Speaker 1: believe that you would risk your reputation on their say so.
Speaker 1: I guess one important nuance of this is that if
Speaker 1: you want to get that expert's opinion, you are upfront
Speaker 1: about asking him, rather than sort of inveigling him to
Speaker 1: come into your office after hours while everyone's downstairs having
Speaker 1: a glass of wine, and you show this picture and
Speaker 1: the expert says, oh, that's a nice picture, how beautiful.
Speaker 1: That is not the same thing as authentication, which is
Speaker 1: sort of the ultimate stamp of approval. This is just
Speaker 1: an expert, perhaps caught a bit away from office hours,
Speaker 1: and saying that looks like a nice painting. It's not roof.
Speaker 1: Could there ever be a situation where you've got enough
Speaker 1: signatures from experts that people would say, yes, that's real.
Speaker 1: I mean, now we all know you have it forensically tested.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you have such a picture that has
Speaker 1: no provenance and you are very suspicious about you get
Speaker 1: it on consignment from whoever it is, and you have
Speaker 1: it tested, you have to get a complete consensus. You
Speaker 1: have to have every single person who could question such
Speaker 1: a thing in line. And then of course you have
Speaker 1: the whole issue. Can you pass good title to this picture?
Speaker 1: Which is I think just as problematic and far more frightening.
Speaker 1: You are passing good title and guaranteeing the authenticity and
Speaker 1: the title. That's what the uniform code said, as you
Speaker 1: were doing if you write an invoice. The staffers learned
Speaker 1: to keep their distance when Rosaliss name was mentioned. Whenever
Speaker 1: something about the Rosales works was discussed. One staffer said
Speaker 1: that was a closed door meeting for Anne. That was
Speaker 1: unusual at all. Other times the door to Anne's second
Speaker 1: floor office was open. Sign new House would step over
Speaker 1: a rope and come on in. A staffer recalls of
Speaker 1: the publishing mogul, so the door was only closed for
Speaker 1: certain sensitive meetings. It was around this time that Anne
Speaker 1: and Glepa held a staff meeting to discuss how many
Speaker 1: paintings remained in the mysterious collection. Rosales identified approximately eight
Speaker 1: works that were still available. There is another still a
Speaker 1: Gottlieb too, decoon ngs a motherwell a new whom in
Speaker 1: one or two Caldlers. That's attorney Emily rice Baum. Over
Speaker 1: a decade later, at trial, attorneys Gregory Claric, Aaron Crowle,
Speaker 1: and Emily would present evidence of handwritten notes of this
Speaker 1: infamous meeting. The lawyers noted something peculiar about cafe as
Speaker 1: purported inventory, and then Anne asks is there a pollock?
Speaker 1: And lo and behold it all says I'll go check, yeah,
Speaker 1: let me check. She was not on her list. You
Speaker 1: would think if she had a Jackson Pollock, she would
Speaker 1: come in and say she had a Jackson Pollock. And
Speaker 1: then it's you know, two years later, having gone to none,
Speaker 1: she suddenly has five. Did someone did discover a missing
Speaker 1: pollock in their attic? Once every decade or so, does
Speaker 1: something like that pop up? A Rothcoe that roughly traded
Speaker 1: with his dentist for some dental work? Does that pop up. Sure,
Speaker 1: you know there's one here and there's one there, But
Speaker 1: are there three? Are there? Fo I from the same source,
Speaker 1: are there eight? Are there twelve? Or there twenty? Are
Speaker 1: there forty one? Literally? Never, Despite her initial estimate of
Speaker 1: having eight paintings in the collection, Gafa would manage to
Speaker 1: deliver over thirty more works to Knodler, including five supposed
Speaker 1: Jackson Pollock's, surprisingly and treated Kndler's own artists just as
Speaker 1: harshly as she treated the galleries assistance and just trashed
Speaker 1: her own artists, every single one of them. Knodler artist
Speaker 1: Donald Sultan later said she would never answer phone calls.
Speaker 1: She was completely disinterested in the artist she had. She
Speaker 1: kind of ignored everyone who was there. All her dealings
Speaker 1: were secretive, Sultan said. According to Sultan, and was out
Speaker 1: of her depth. After Larry Reuben's departure, Sultan said it
Speaker 1: was as if the director of the Metropolitan Museum of
Speaker 1: Art was like Philippe de Montebelle, deciding that he's going
Speaker 1: to turn the thing over to the secretary. According to
Speaker 1: one staffer who worked closely with her, Anne was not
Speaker 1: above dramatizing a story to sell a painting. There was
Speaker 1: this painting by Helen Frankenthaler. We had hung onto it
Speaker 1: for a couple of years, recalls a staffer. A museum
Speaker 1: director came into Anne's office and had the painting out,
Speaker 1: and the museum director said, where did that come from?
Speaker 1: The staffer went on to say there had been a
Speaker 1: woman killed in a hit and run. This was in
Speaker 1: the news. She had been an art collector and said,
Speaker 1: I can't really tell you, but there was a recent
Speaker 1: tragedy you might have read about in the news, very
Speaker 1: sad story. The staffers said, in fact, we had bought
Speaker 1: the painting at auction in or whatever. An art net
Speaker 1: search would have shown it hadn't come from this woman's collection.
Speaker 1: But Anne just lie to this director why we probably
Speaker 1: got it on the cheap and Anne was marking it up.
Speaker 1: On another occasion, Anne took in a double paneled Milton
Speaker 1: Avery painting, which was to say that there was a
Speaker 1: painting on each side of the wood. Instead of showing
Speaker 1: it that way to the Averies, Anne reportedly had a
Speaker 1: conservator split the painting down the middle and get two
Speaker 1: salable works instead of one, a considerably greater profit to
Speaker 1: her and the gallery. I asked Francis if this was
Speaker 1: typical in any way for a gallery director. Never in
Speaker 1: a million years. I mean, I you know, you hear
Speaker 1: these stories about people doing them in the kind of
Speaker 1: olden days, but no one would imagine doing that in
Speaker 1: my era. It's a kind of vandalization of an object
Speaker 1: that you certainly can't do without enormous thought, and I
Speaker 1: would think, consultation with lots of other people. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back. Sometimes Anne seemed drawn by the sheer challenge
Speaker 1: of a newly arrived work. Someone might come off the
Speaker 1: street with a calder and a story, recalls one staffer,
Speaker 1: it was my father's and he passed away. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to sell it. Inevitably, the owner didn't want to wait
Speaker 1: long enough to put the calder up for auction. The
Speaker 1: provenance sounded sketchy, but Anne went upstairs where the finances
Speaker 1: were done, and ended up buying it for cash. The
Speaker 1: staffer said, I was thinking, either there's something wrong, or
Speaker 1: you're taking this painting and we'll sell it for two
Speaker 1: or three times the amount. I was. Seeing this for
Speaker 1: the first time. It was an indication to me. Over
Speaker 1: the next year or two, other deep in corn works
Speaker 1: on paper came in from Glyphra Rosales. Like the first ones,
Speaker 1: they were ocean park abstracts, but they were different in
Speaker 1: one sense. According to Rosales, they came from the the
Speaker 1: Honda Gallery in Madrid, indicated by the seemingly well worn
Speaker 1: label on the back of each one. The Deep in
Speaker 1: Corn families doubts about those first two drawings seemed to
Speaker 1: have worried and Friedman to she had written a letter
Speaker 1: to Rosalie asking for at least some provenance on the
Speaker 1: newly surfaced the Honda Gallery ocean parks. Leslie Feeley recalls
Speaker 1: and searches for provenance. She would be in touch with
Speaker 1: people who used to work at the National Gallery, like
Speaker 1: a Carmen. I mean, she tried to find names that
Speaker 1: would fool people, and she lied and lied and made
Speaker 1: up these fake provenances. I believe from the beginning she
Speaker 1: knew these were fixed, they had no provenances. She made
Speaker 1: up provenances every day. The Honda Gallery works troubled the
Speaker 1: deep and Corn family as well. We began looking up
Speaker 1: the Handy Gallery and it all seemed very strange because
Speaker 1: all the work that they had handled. You can't talk
Speaker 1: to anybody, they're all dead. But the works that they
Speaker 1: did handle when they were in existence, were very, very
Speaker 1: different from the work that my father did, things like
Speaker 1: Picasso and some of the earlier abstract people. I just
Speaker 1: remember thinking, Wow, that just seems odd. Apparently Rosalis had
Speaker 1: made some calls and came up with provenance for the
Speaker 1: Honda Gallery. Deepen corns. The key figure was a Spanish
Speaker 1: restaurant owner named Cesario Fontanella. Supposedly, he told Rosalez that
Speaker 1: he had owned a restaurant called Taverna says Are on
Speaker 1: Fleming Street, near Madrid's Castellana Plaza from the late nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies until nineteen eighty five. The Taverna Cesar had been
Speaker 1: a hangout for artists. Everyone from Francis Bacon to Andy
Speaker 1: Warhol had frequented the place, or so Rosalez heard. Nearby
Speaker 1: was the Jande Gallery, said Clario Fontenella, where many of
Speaker 1: those artists had shown. Fernando Vijande would often bring them
Speaker 1: over to the Taverna Cesar. Deep and Corn had been
Speaker 1: one of the regulars, and in a time honored artistic tradition,
Speaker 1: had often paid off his bar bills with art or
Speaker 1: traded his own art. The nimble says our Fontenelle had
Speaker 1: procured his deepon Corns that way, and kept them for
Speaker 1: all those intervening years, he said, and was selling them
Speaker 1: only now after deepin Corne's death. It was a fine story,
Speaker 1: except that Rodrigo Vijande, the late gallery owner's son, found
Speaker 1: it preposterous. First, he had never heard of the Tavernas Caesar.
Speaker 1: He would have known it well if his father patronized it.
Speaker 1: He would have known which artists hung out there, too,
Speaker 1: because Rodrico had helped run the gallery with his father
Speaker 1: and knew its artists upon his father's death. In the
Speaker 1: most off key detail of Caesar Fontendles's story was the
Speaker 1: Tavernas address. Even if it had existed, it wouldn't have
Speaker 1: been a hangout for artists from the the Honda Gallery
Speaker 1: because it's supposed address on Fleming Street was two or
Speaker 1: three miles from the gallery. Both galleries that my father
Speaker 1: owned in Madrid were right where he lived, in front
Speaker 1: of his house on Nunez de Balboa in the center
Speaker 1: of Madrid, Rodrico explained moreover, of the Hondai didn't drive, that,
Speaker 1: declared his son Rodrigo, was why he lived some fifty
Speaker 1: yards from his galleries at first, and Freeman may have
Speaker 1: believed the the Honda Gallery story. Certainly she wanted to
Speaker 1: believe it. If it was true, it might validate the
Speaker 1: half dozen other such ocean parks that Rosalis was bringing
Speaker 1: in one by one. With their now distinctive the Honda
Speaker 1: Gallery labels had cast a glow of authenticity over all
Speaker 1: the ocean park, Deepen Corns and over Glafira Rosalee herself.
Speaker 1: But a label isn't provenance. It's just a label. If
Speaker 1: the label had been part of a paper trail of ownership,
Speaker 1: the result would have been picture perfect provenance. In this case,
Speaker 1: the trail petered out as soon as it began. What
Speaker 1: was it fair to say that every time you saw
Speaker 1: a deep in Corn ocean park that had a label
Speaker 1: on back, that it was almost certainly fake. I think
Speaker 1: one could say that, Yes, she swears that she didn't know,
Speaker 1: which seems hard to believe. That's k Noodler artist Michael
Speaker 1: David Again, should she have known? Yeah? And is this
Speaker 1: business fraud with people cutting corners with fraud? Absolutely? And
Speaker 1: Friedman had her Deepened Corns with the Honda Gallery labels,
Speaker 1: but she pressed Rosalees for more proof of the works
Speaker 1: provenance If she wasn't going to uncover an actual paper trail,
Speaker 1: she could do the next best thing. She could find
Speaker 1: experts on the painters whose works were coming in from
Speaker 1: Mr x Jr. Already she had done that with Chris Rothko,
Speaker 1: the late artist's son. Since then another Rothko expert, David
Speaker 1: and Pam, had praised it too, and would do her
Speaker 1: part seeking out more art world academics who might inspect
Speaker 1: the paintings as they came in and find that they
Speaker 1: were true. But couldn't Lafa do something to fill in
Speaker 1: the story of the ex family and arranged for Anne
Speaker 1: to meet Mr x Jr. At last, not yet, Rosavas
Speaker 1: deflected soon, she felt soon. But then came the most
Speaker 1: astonishing accident, one that seemed to prove beyond doubt that
Speaker 1: Mr X and his paintings were real after all. In
Speaker 1: their conversations, Lafra and Anne often talked about art of
Speaker 1: the post war period. Lafia knew a lot enough to
Speaker 1: impress Anne, and the two women share their favorite artists,
Speaker 1: one of whom was Clifford. Still in most cases, Glafira
Speaker 1: would go through Mr X's collection searching for a painting
Speaker 1: by one of the artists and had spoken of with
Speaker 1: great admiration. Miraculously Glafira would find one. Glafira Rosales told
Speaker 1: investigators that the galleries would often ask her for specific
Speaker 1: things without asking many questions where it came from. So
Speaker 1: think about this. You are a gallery and you are
Speaker 1: buying painting after painting from this woman from Mexico who
Speaker 1: sess was representing a famous collector. So then, as a
Speaker 1: gallery owner, I turned to her and say, so do
Speaker 1: you think he might happen to have some mother will?
Speaker 1: And then a few weeks later she comes with a
Speaker 1: mother will. I mean, what is really the likelihood that
Speaker 1: this would happen, And would then ask her to send
Speaker 1: an image of the work if they'd met with her approval,
Speaker 1: and would ask to bring the painting in. A standard
Speaker 1: routine was followed. The painting was put in the trunk
Speaker 1: of Mr X Junior's car and transported to a photographer's studio.
Speaker 1: Pictures were duly taken and the painting was then put
Speaker 1: back in the trunk of the car. The plan, as usual,
Speaker 1: was to send the transparencies once they came back from
Speaker 1: the studio to Ann at the Knoedler and would then
Speaker 1: decide if the painting met with her approval. Only then
Speaker 1: would the painting be sent to the gallery. Rosalis soon
Speaker 1: called Freedman with terrible news while the driver was bringing
Speaker 1: Mr X's Clifford Still painting from the photographer's studio. She
Speaker 1: said there had been an accident. The car had a
Speaker 1: rear engine and the engine had caught fire. The painting
Speaker 1: was nearly destroyed, all but a fragment. When she got
Speaker 1: over her shock and told Rosalee to bring her the fragment,
Speaker 1: the painting was indeed badly burned. It would have been
Speaker 1: two and a half feet by three feet, Freedman said later. Indeed,
Speaker 1: nearly all of the paintings Rosalis would bring were of
Speaker 1: medium scale. To Anne, it made absolute sense that the
Speaker 1: painting had been stored in the trunk, and was fascinated
Speaker 1: with the fragment, and more so with the transparency that
Speaker 1: accompanied it. The transparency, after all, showed the whole painting
Speaker 1: before it was consumed by fire. On the drive back
Speaker 1: to Mr X Junior's house, you could see the whole thing,
Speaker 1: and with a fragment you can analyze the front and
Speaker 1: back differently. You can do a touch and feel about it.
Speaker 1: And later said later in telling that story and would
Speaker 1: beam with triumph. Quote would a con artist burn the
Speaker 1: painting and then save a fragment so it could be
Speaker 1: forensically examined if the painting wasn't real, wouldn't that make
Speaker 1: it obvious? Unquote? Everything checked out and declared, including that
Speaker 1: in one of the pigments that Clifford still used in
Speaker 1: many paintings, there's an oxidation that had proof positive the
Speaker 1: pigment proved the painting was real, or so felt Anne
Speaker 1: as for the burned fragment and kept it as proof
Speaker 1: that the first Clifford still Mr. X Junior had sold
Speaker 1: her had been real as well. One staff are recalled
Speaker 1: that the fragment was kept in a flat white portfolio.
Speaker 1: You could see the burn marks on the edges. It
Speaker 1: was an friedman's own shroud of Turin conveniently, Mr x Jr.
Speaker 1: Managed to find another Clifford still in storage and sent
Speaker 1: it along and in turn took it to the annual
Speaker 1: Art Dealers Association of America show at the New York Armory.
Speaker 1: Bill Ruben came by in a wheelchair and said of
Speaker 1: the famous director of the Museum of Modern Art and
Speaker 1: brother of the Nler's former director, Larry Reuben whom Anne
Speaker 1: had dispatched from the Notler. According to Freedman, Bill Reuben
Speaker 1: looked hard at the Clifford still and said, yes, that's
Speaker 1: a cliff painting. I turned it around for him and
Speaker 1: he confirmed that it was a Clifford Still painting. Bill
Speaker 1: Ruben had been duped by the Rosava's ring too. In reality,
Speaker 1: none of the details in as story of the burned
Speaker 1: Clifford Still painting were true. Now we know no fire
Speaker 1: really happened, right did it did? Happened? Actually, Carlos was
Speaker 1: preparing the pieces and he was treating them with her
Speaker 1: dryers and following them in coal and hot temperatures, so
Speaker 1: that one got burned because he forgot to turn the
Speaker 1: hair dryer of, and of course it went in flames.
Speaker 1: And now Anne is waiting for the piece. And what
Speaker 1: is this planation I'm going to give Carlos Tom It
Speaker 1: will tell them this. I want people to know that
Speaker 1: I have never talked to nobody. I have never been
Speaker 1: interviewed about my life or about this case except for
Speaker 1: the government of course. More from Glafira Rosale's herself next
Speaker 1: time on art fraud. You have the cool, clear eyes
Speaker 1: of a seeker of wisdom and truth. Yet there's that
Speaker 1: bob turned chin and the grin of impetuous youth. Believe
Speaker 1: you hard, Believeving you. Art Fraud is brought to you
Speaker 1: by I Heart Radio and Cavalry Audio. Our executive producers
Speaker 1: are Matt del Piano, Keegan Rosenberger, Andy Turner, myself, and
Speaker 1: Michael Ayerson. 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. How a writer is Michael Schneyerson. I
Speaker 1: believe you and my faith and my fallow my