Speaker 1: I didn't set out to immerse myself in the murky
Speaker 1: realm of art fraud. In two thousand and ten, I
Speaker 1: found myself waging legal war with a dealer who sold
Speaker 1: me a painting that wasn't quite right, as they say
Speaker 1: in the art world. As fate would have it, my
Speaker 1: story was unfolding just as the Knoedler gallery scandal was
Speaker 1: taking center stage under intense scrutiny from the press. As
Speaker 1: an actor, I'm always looking for what defines a character.
Speaker 1: All con artists have their own definitive markings, and Friedman
Speaker 1: and Glyphira Rosales presented themselves as courtly, almost academic, Yet
Speaker 1: behind their poise and professional demeanor, I always sensed an
Speaker 1: undertone of loneliness, even despair. To my surprise, these same
Speaker 1: traits are evident in both our stories in this final
Speaker 1: episode of the season. Art fraud is an ever present phenomenon.
Speaker 1: Not long ago, Intego Philbrick, a dapper, young London dealer,
Speaker 1: managed to steal some seventy million dollars from his friends
Speaker 1: and colleagues by selling fractional shares of paintings than trading
Speaker 1: those shares like monopoly cards, oftentimes pieces of one painting
Speaker 1: would be sold entirely twice over in what amounted to
Speaker 1: a sort of art world Ponzi scheme. Intego was brilliant,
Speaker 1: says his friend Kenny Shackter, a droll and beloved columnist
Speaker 1: of the contemporary art market, even more than like Goo
Speaker 1: Goozien or some of the dealers. He could tell you
Speaker 1: the difference between a two million dollar Christopher Wall painting
Speaker 1: and a two point two million He would really have
Speaker 1: a cabal of people, Intego, that he would sell work to,
Speaker 1: and then he would resell it amongst those participants, unwittingly
Speaker 1: that we're buying and selling art through him. Shackter lost
Speaker 1: one point seven five million dollars when Philbrick vanished, only
Speaker 1: to be arrested on an island off the eastern coast
Speaker 1: of Australia. Kenny was left to wonder what had motivated
Speaker 1: his friend to commit such egregious acts of fraud, just
Speaker 1: as I had wondered about my dealer, Mary Boone. I
Speaker 1: suspect the motivation is almost always universal greed. We'll get
Speaker 1: into my sordid story in a bit, but first I
Speaker 1: want to tell you the story of artist Robert Indiana,
Speaker 1: creator of the iconic love sculpture. The whole world knows
Speaker 1: those four letters to over two that spell love with
Speaker 1: its oh at a Debonair slant. Long ago, Indiana had
Speaker 1: lived with artist Ellsworth Kelly on Cowenty's Slip, the Artists
Speaker 1: Wharf in Lower Manhattan. But in the early eighties he'd
Speaker 1: come to the coast of Maine and never left. His
Speaker 1: home was a rambling Victorian lodge hall on the scruffy
Speaker 1: island of vinyl Haven, about halfway up the coast of May,
Speaker 1: near Rockland. There his career had stalled for Indiana refused
Speaker 1: a trademark or copyright any of his work, and let
Speaker 1: tacky commercial spinoffs of love define him. By the end
Speaker 1: of the seventies, he had moved out of New York City,
Speaker 1: moved to Maine, and moved to vinyl Haven, Maine, which
Speaker 1: is an island an hour off the coast that you
Speaker 1: can only get to by ferry or small engine plane.
Speaker 1: And so he was as isolated as they can get.
Speaker 1: That's Luke nichoas the lawyer who represented Ann Friedman in
Speaker 1: the dissol trial, and I found himself fighting a perhaps
Speaker 1: more noble campaign on behalf of the iconic artist Robert Indiana,
Speaker 1: he was gone as far as the art world was concerned.
Speaker 1: Throughout the eighties, he made works here and there, but
Speaker 1: he wasn't a superstar anymore. He wasn't recognized, and by
Speaker 1: the end of the eighties he might as well not
Speaker 1: even have existed in terms of his presence in the
Speaker 1: fine art world. That was when an art advisor named
Speaker 1: Simon salamac Carro started knocking. Salama Carro had seen his
Speaker 1: work and was interested in meeting with Indiana to talk
Speaker 1: with him about rejuvenating his career. He saw a path.
Speaker 1: He saw a path of reintroducing Indiana's work to art historians,
Speaker 1: to museums. He saw a path of getting the infringing
Speaker 1: use of Indiana's images under control. No more shoes, no
Speaker 1: more trinkets, no more use that was outside of what
Speaker 1: Simon thought would really bring the brand back. Sala mccarrow
Speaker 1: steered his work away from schlocky spinoffs to sculptures in
Speaker 1: what Indiana came to call admiringly the noble Materials. He
Speaker 1: also extricated the artist from an unpaid six hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars in taxes and leans on his home. Such guidance
Speaker 1: didn't come for free. Sala mccarro worked for the Morgan
Speaker 1: Art Foundation for profit that held the rights to produce
Speaker 1: Indiana's best known works, but Indiana could see it had
Speaker 1: promise Morgan would take the copyrights in the trademarks, would
Speaker 1: give Indiana of revenue from the use of those images,
Speaker 1: so it would be a split between them, and Morgan
Speaker 1: would monitor and clean up the market for Indiana's images.
Speaker 1: It went all over the world and started bringing infringement
Speaker 1: suits season desist letters, and ultimately what that did was
Speaker 1: it created the very clear message that Indiana's imagery could
Speaker 1: not be exploited. At the same time, Morgan put millions
Speaker 1: and millions and millions of dollars of funding behind the
Speaker 1: fabrication of indiana sculptures, which are extremely expensive to fabricate,
Speaker 1: difficult to fabricate. You need real facilities that Indiana did
Speaker 1: not have. Ten years later, or so fifteen years, the
Speaker 1: Whitney Museum in New York City had a major retrospective
Speaker 1: of Indiana's work, and he was back on the map again,
Speaker 1: extraordinarily successful. And then what happened. Michael mackenzie came into
Speaker 1: the picture. In two thousand eight. Advisor Michael Mackenzie had
Speaker 1: a brilliant idea, why not change Indiana's love to hope
Speaker 1: and make it the banner for the surging Obama presidential campaign.
Speaker 1: As Mackenzie deepened his relationship with Indiana over Hope, he
Speaker 1: began expanding Hope Prince on canvas, more Hope sculptures, more
Speaker 1: colors of Hope, Expand, Expand, Expand, and then he bought
Speaker 1: a studio on Vinyl even near Indiana to have better
Speaker 1: access to him. Soon other operators began swooping in. I
Speaker 1: spoke with Bob Keys, a long time reporter for the
Speaker 1: Portland Press Herald who just published a fascinating book titled
Speaker 1: The Isolation Artist, Scandal, Deception, and the Last Days of
Speaker 1: Robert Indiana. Keys described the circle of operators well. Jim
Speaker 1: brann Is a long time attorney in Rockland, Maine. He
Speaker 1: became much more closely involved in Indiana's affairs and in
Speaker 1: six helped change Indiana's will that made him the executor
Speaker 1: of the estate. And Jamie Thomas, who was then an
Speaker 1: island caretaker, became much more involved in Indiana's personal affairs
Speaker 1: and he became the power of attorney as well as
Speaker 1: the healthcare power of attorney, And from that point on,
Speaker 1: Indiana certainly lost control of much of the legal and
Speaker 1: professional aspects of his life in terms of his legal representation,
Speaker 1: and Jamie Thomas was authorized at that point to make
Speaker 1: business decisions for him as power of attorney. That's when
Speaker 1: we began to see much more work attributed to Mackenzie
Speaker 1: start to come out of the UH Indiana studio at
Speaker 1: a time when Indiana was definitely in failing health and
Speaker 1: had not made new work in quite a while. Now,
Speaker 1: is that to say that that it looked to you
Speaker 1: and others as if what Mackenzie and um Thomas we're doing,
Speaker 1: and perhaps Brandon as well, was forging. UH forging is
Speaker 1: a legal term. I think what they were doing was
Speaker 1: pushing the boundaries of what was authentic work. The work
Speaker 1: was suspicious right away in the eyes of many people
Speaker 1: who knew it. It didn't seem authentic. My reporting suggests
Speaker 1: that Indiana probably was aware of its creation but not
Speaker 1: involved with it, and and look the other way. And
Speaker 1: that was fairly common during that point in his life.
Speaker 1: And what did it mean that Thomas became beneficiary I
Speaker 1: guess of the estate. I mean he had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with making art. Why was he written into the will?
Speaker 1: Thomas was written into the will because Indiana at some
Speaker 1: point surrounded himself with people from the vinyl Haven community
Speaker 1: who were loyal to him, and Thomas was in that camp.
Speaker 1: Thomas had a relationship with Robert Indiana that went back
Speaker 1: many decades. There is a lot of debate among people
Speaker 1: who worked with Indiana how close they were, but it
Speaker 1: is a fact. At as eightieth birthday party in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, Indiana invited Jamie Thomas to it, and
Speaker 1: that was a pretty personal affair, so they definitely had
Speaker 1: a friendship. Jamie Thomas ultimately convinced Indiana to make him
Speaker 1: the power of Attorney. And then we see Thomas's text
Speaker 1: messages with Mackenzie up until the point Indiana died, where
Speaker 1: they were texting back and forth about works that they
Speaker 1: would create together. You can envision the text W I
Speaker 1: N E and and so forth and so on, you know,
Speaker 1: stacked four letter words. They were texting back and forth
Speaker 1: that they should create on their own while Indiana was
Speaker 1: on his deathbed. And so Mackenzie, deep in that relationship,
Speaker 1: built it with Thomas. Thomas was on the inside. Thomas
Speaker 1: became involved in Indiana's life at a time when his
Speaker 1: health was failing, and many people on the island saw
Speaker 1: him as coming in to help get Indiana out of
Speaker 1: some more trouble. But there's no question that in so
Speaker 1: doing he also isolated Indiana from all of his art
Speaker 1: world contexts who could no longer reach him an interview
Speaker 1: him and talk about things. And at the same time,
Speaker 1: there was a large body of work coming out of
Speaker 1: his studio and it had the mark of Mackenzie all
Speaker 1: over it. Fine art friends like legendary Dartmouth art professor
Speaker 1: John Wilmerding started knocking on the door of Indiana's Vinyl
Speaker 1: Haven home and getting no response. John Wilmerging made at
Speaker 1: least an annual trip to see Robert Indiana at the
Speaker 1: Star of Hope every summer. I believe the last time
Speaker 1: he saw Indiana was in the fall or late summer
Speaker 1: of m d made a comment to Indiana that it
Speaker 1: sort of looks like the School of Indiana, and Indiana
Speaker 1: sort of shrugged and said, I guess in some ways
Speaker 1: that it is. Wilmerding never saw him again. He tried
Speaker 1: to reach him, He sent emails that were not returned.
Speaker 1: He had ters responses from others in the Indiana camp
Speaker 1: and basically was told you're no longer going to be
Speaker 1: able to see him, and other people were peeled away
Speaker 1: as well. By early two thousand eighteen, attorney Luke Nikas,
Speaker 1: representing the Morgan Art Foundation, alleged that the trio of
Speaker 1: art publisher Michael Mackenzie, caretaker Jamie Thomas, and local business
Speaker 1: partner James W. Brannan had taken control of the eighty
Speaker 1: eight year old artist Indiana lived in an old Mason's home.
Speaker 1: Was a very old home, big beautiful home, tons of space,
Speaker 1: but also in need of significant repair that wasn't kept
Speaker 1: up over time, and so Indiana's bedroom was on the
Speaker 1: top floor, and near the end of his life, they
Speaker 1: took the staircase that went from his bedroom out of
Speaker 1: the house down to his yard out of the house.
Speaker 1: That completely removed it. We were told by studio assistants
Speaker 1: that the locks were changed so they couldn't get in
Speaker 1: to help Indiana, that windows were boarded up so that
Speaker 1: he couldn't yell out or reach out for help, and
Speaker 1: so this was total isolation in the extreme to prevent
Speaker 1: Indiana from reaching out to the people he knew could
Speaker 1: help him out of this situation. There was more. Luke
Speaker 1: learned the Trio had taken over Indiana's email account, his
Speaker 1: voice mail, and had completely controlled every aspect of his
Speaker 1: life for the last several years. Not only did Morgan
Speaker 1: allege Jamie Thomas stole money from Indiana and diverted opportunities
Speaker 1: from Indiana, but Morgan alleged that Jamie Thomas and Michael
Speaker 1: Mackenzie had conspired to forge works in Indiana's name. The
Speaker 1: trio had even stolen images that the Morrigan Art Foundation
Speaker 1: owned and sold those images as Indiana's even though they weren't.
Speaker 1: We found a Instagram post a video of someone signing
Speaker 1: in mackenzie studio Robert Indiana works with an auto pen
Speaker 1: or a ghostwriter, and in the middle of the video,
Speaker 1: the studio assistant said for jury and posted that Mackenzie,
Speaker 1: her boss, was forcing her to forge paintings and if
Speaker 1: the police came, she would quote unquote sing like a bird.
Speaker 1: And so we we filed this lawsuit a edging that
Speaker 1: Mackenzie had forged these paintings. The very next day, in
Speaker 1: May of two thousand eighteen, Indiana died. Despite Indiana's death,
Speaker 1: the case forged ahead. We jumped into discovery in the case,
Speaker 1: got more information related to the works that were being made.
Speaker 1: We have witnesses, We took testimony, and then throughout the
Speaker 1: case Michael Mackenzie testified that he had absolutely no more
Speaker 1: works by Indiana in his possession. He wasn't making any works.
Speaker 1: The entire business was shut down in that respect. Two
Speaker 1: weeks ago, I inspected Michael Mackenzie's property to look at
Speaker 1: the works that were on the property, and it turns
Speaker 1: out there were over a thousand works on the property
Speaker 1: that we're supposedly by Robert Indiana. Stencils that he was
Speaker 1: using with certain years two thousand fifteen, two thousand seventeen.
Speaker 1: Stamped on the back of the paintings that were used
Speaker 1: is Indiana signature. So I went to the judge and
Speaker 1: I asked for more discovery given that we had been
Speaker 1: denied information, and then was allowed to go out again
Speaker 1: and inspect the entire studio. And when I was there,
Speaker 1: I cataloged the entire blueprint of how Michael mackenzie operated.
Speaker 1: The catalog resume of Robert Indiana's works was tabbed with
Speaker 1: post it notes. He had a full composition notebook of
Speaker 1: drawings of Indiana works he was creating, and so we
Speaker 1: went back to the court and said he's forging works.
Speaker 1: This is the blueprint, this is the forger's den. I
Speaker 1: received a phone call from one of Michael Mackenzie's now
Speaker 1: former friends and what he said was two things. Number One,
Speaker 1: Michael Mackenzie still forging works. He just forged a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty in his studio. Here's a picture. He's stamping
Speaker 1: the back of those works with two thousand fifteen stencils,
Speaker 1: with two thousand seventeen stencils. He's selling them for a
Speaker 1: lot of money all over the world. And production was
Speaker 1: still ramping up when you came to the studio under
Speaker 1: court order, allowed to inspect his property to see what
Speaker 1: he had created. In the middle of the day and
Speaker 1: night before you arrived, he shipped seven truckloads of art
Speaker 1: off the property into a storage facility to prevent you
Speaker 1: from seeing what he had done. Luke got a declaration
Speaker 1: from Mackenzie under oath, detailing all of this, detailing the
Speaker 1: forgeries he was making, detailing how he was using the stencil's,
Speaker 1: detailing Mackenzie's proclivities towards guns and threats, and the way
Speaker 1: he deals with people in his workplace, and so we
Speaker 1: got that declaration under oath, went back to the judge,
Speaker 1: and the judge is now opening up the whole other
Speaker 1: phase in the case for violation of all of these
Speaker 1: discovery orders that she's issued. In the summer of Luke
Speaker 1: Nichols demonstrated the automatic signature machine that signed Indiana Prince
Speaker 1: and showed the tropes of forgeries. With that, three of
Speaker 1: the parties settled, the Morgan Art Foundation, the artist's Star
Speaker 1: of Hope Foundation, and the estate itself. Perhaps now top
Speaker 1: quality Indiana works could be sold again. Also participating in
Speaker 1: the settlement where Jamie Thomas, the island caretaker, and Jim
Speaker 1: Brannon the lawyer, left out was Michael Mackenzie, who said
Speaker 1: he would work with both parties but implied the wrangling
Speaker 1: wasn't done yet. Quote I can take this apart, he
Speaker 1: warned his partners in The New York Times. The terms
Speaker 1: were secret, which struck many as odd since the Star
Speaker 1: of Hope is a nonprofit foundation. There are many people
Speaker 1: who believe that settlement needs to be made public because
Speaker 1: the Star of Hope Foundation is a public entity in Maine,
Speaker 1: and it's uh the taxpayers and their citizens and residents
Speaker 1: of Maine have vested interest in the outcome of it,
Speaker 1: and it's worth maybe a million hundred million dollars the estate,
Speaker 1: and UH as taxpayers, we have a right to know
Speaker 1: at least what it says and and who's going to
Speaker 1: benefit from the estate and where the artwork is going
Speaker 1: to go. Indiana wanted his artwork on view and for
Speaker 1: public consumption. That's what he cared most about. What I'm
Speaker 1: struck by in this story is the efforts Indiana made
Speaker 1: to get his name back and to get the valuation
Speaker 1: of his work back. And he's successful, but then he
Speaker 1: runs into these people and it just blows up in
Speaker 1: his face. Ultimately, this is the story of a brilliant
Speaker 1: but lonely man whose art may never have filled the
Speaker 1: whole in his heart. Certainly he never had another long
Speaker 1: term partner after Ellsworth Kelly asked for the Vinyl Haven community.
Speaker 1: Despite welcoming the great artist in early the local fishermen
Speaker 1: and their families had cut Indiana off amid shocking charges.
Speaker 1: Indiana had been arrested for solicitation of prostitution in and
Speaker 1: stood accused of paying minors for sex. One local boy
Speaker 1: testified that he was twelve when the abuse began and
Speaker 1: that it had continued for six years. Another accuser also
Speaker 1: came forward. A legal proceeding acquitted Indiana of the charges.
Speaker 1: In Indiana said he felt lucky to be acquitted, a
Speaker 1: sentiment that left the Islanders outraged. I feel that Indiana
Speaker 1: brought on a lot of the problems himself because of
Speaker 1: his inability to resolve the conflicts. He suffered from a
Speaker 1: lot of she was in terms of his youth and
Speaker 1: his lack of trust and his inability to let people
Speaker 1: close to him, and that really did affect him at
Speaker 1: the end. I feel sorry for him because of his
Speaker 1: lack of personal tools that one needs to navigate the world.
Speaker 1: He didn't have a healthy youth grown up, and he
Speaker 1: never figured out how to live in the world in
Speaker 1: a partnered sort of way. All he was left within
Speaker 1: the end was hope. After the break, Michael Shnayerson and
Speaker 1: I will talk about Mary Boone Ross Bleckner and a
Speaker 1: painting I loved and finally was able to purchase sort of.
Speaker 1: In the movie gaslight Ingrid Bergmann found yourself wondering why
Speaker 1: her possessions are moving and vanishing. Is she losing her mind.
Speaker 1: I thought about that movie, Alec when I first heard
Speaker 1: about your own personal brush with art fraud. So how
Speaker 1: did that happen? Well, you know, for a long time
Speaker 1: I had walked around with this mailing card that I
Speaker 1: got from Mary Boone and Gallerie selling a painting by
Speaker 1: Ross Bleckner, and I had it with me and you know,
Speaker 1: kind of stared at it every now and then thought, Wow,
Speaker 1: I wonder where that painting is. And I mean I
Speaker 1: I wasn't someone who was keen on researching that and
Speaker 1: chasing that down. First of all, let's talk about Bleckner
Speaker 1: a minute and and sort of put him in context.
Speaker 1: He had come up in the early eighties in a
Speaker 1: group of young, very dramatic artists represented by the Mary
Speaker 1: Boone Gallery. They were doing something new, you know, breaking
Speaker 1: out of abstract and minimalist art that frankly most people
Speaker 1: were tired of. And Mary saw that the market was
Speaker 1: ready for big, bold paintings with a lot of color paintings,
Speaker 1: you can understand. So by the early nineteen eighties she
Speaker 1: had the hottest gallery in New York. Perhaps not by coincidence,
Speaker 1: her artists were mostly ale, handsome, very dramatic They are
Speaker 1: artists who actually looked and acted like artists. Painters like
Speaker 1: Julian Schnabel with his broken plate paintings, Eric Fishel with
Speaker 1: his paintings that showed a dark side of suburban life,
Speaker 1: and David Sally, who painted sensuous women among various symbols,
Speaker 1: and finally Ross Buckner. So what was it about Ross
Speaker 1: Buckner that you liked, you know, more than those other artists.
Speaker 1: I think just the colors. I mean, you know, my
Speaker 1: own personal taste, you know, I think that picture just
Speaker 1: kind of cast a little tiny spell on me, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? And I like, I said, I
Speaker 1: wound up carrying that in a sheaf of papers that
Speaker 1: I had, that a little binder. One day, as luck
Speaker 1: would have it, I met Ross and a bunch of
Speaker 1: other people for Ross's birthday, which coincided with another opening
Speaker 1: he had at Mary Boone and I went, I saw
Speaker 1: a painting I liked. I had to hustle out the
Speaker 1: door because would relate to another appointment. I came back
Speaker 1: the next day that painting was sold. You went into
Speaker 1: that event one night, I think you said. In two right.
Speaker 1: We went to the gallery because it was Ross's birthday
Speaker 1: and we went to the opening and then we were
Speaker 1: hustled out of the opening very quickly. I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I'd like to spend some time or look at some
Speaker 1: of the paintings, and they were like, what you know.
Speaker 1: They weren't there to buy any of Ross's paintings as friends.
Speaker 1: So I came back the next day and I said
Speaker 1: to Mary, that's the painting I want. She said, well,
Speaker 1: that's sold. And then you realize, well, of course it did,
Speaker 1: and she said, when you come in and we can talk.
Speaker 1: I go to a computer with her and I take
Speaker 1: her to see in mirror the painting that I'd refer
Speaker 1: to in the in the mailer that I carried around
Speaker 1: the Holy Grail here if you will, of Ross's paintings
Speaker 1: to me, I said that picture, I said, where is that?
Speaker 1: She was, I think I can get that. I think
Speaker 1: that guy will sell that painting. So that was the
Speaker 1: picture that was literally the image that you had had
Speaker 1: on your card that you were walking around with was
Speaker 1: the painting Sea and Mirror from n She said, I
Speaker 1: know who bought that, and she said, I think I
Speaker 1: can get it fair. I presume you thought, well that
Speaker 1: could be expensive if she's going to persuade someone to
Speaker 1: sell the painting back to you. But you said, go
Speaker 1: ahead and try your luck, you know, Mary, if you
Speaker 1: can do it, great, and only the next day, if
Speaker 1: not even that day. She called you back to say
Speaker 1: what she said. I got the painting. Now, the paintings
Speaker 1: that were contemporary, the paintings that were from that gallery
Speaker 1: exhibit in and around that time, we're in the high
Speaker 1: five figures. She then came to me and said, I
Speaker 1: can get you this painting for a hundred and ninety
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. And it was more than double the dollars
Speaker 1: that Ross was getting for the other paintings, where they
Speaker 1: were a five thousand dollar range. So what was her
Speaker 1: rationale for why you should pay you know, more than
Speaker 1: ice I was buying the nineties six painting. She was saying, how,
Speaker 1: I'm buying it from this collector and that's what he wants.
Speaker 1: He wants a hundred dollars for the painting. I said, great,
Speaker 1: I'll take it. I was just completely completely overjoyed that
Speaker 1: I could get the painting. Thrilled with the opportunity he
Speaker 1: had been presented to finally own his own holy Grail
Speaker 1: of paintings. Alec purchased ross Buck, Nurse c and Mirror
Speaker 1: from Mary Boone for the agreed price of a hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety thousand dollars. A short time later, the painting
Speaker 1: arrived at Alex's office on the Upper West Side, so
Speaker 1: we had them hang the painting. And when they hung
Speaker 1: the painting, it reeked very strongly of some chemical like
Speaker 1: paint thinner, turpentine, some astringent kind of chemical smell like that.
Speaker 1: And then I called her and I said, that gauzy
Speaker 1: feathered effect that is on display in this painting in
Speaker 1: the N and six Sea and Mirror like no other.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's probably one of his gaussiest series of paintings,
Speaker 1: and very watery. It doesn't look like that at all.
Speaker 1: It doesn't look like that at all. And I said,
Speaker 1: what's going on? And it smells at this chemical? She said, well,
Speaker 1: we took it off the stretcher and we cleaned it
Speaker 1: because the previous owner was a heavy smoker and we
Speaker 1: wanted to clean the painting. And I thought, uh huh, okay.
Speaker 1: But and and even though clean, I thought cleaning wouldn't
Speaker 1: affect the technique of the painting. It was almost like
Speaker 1: she was suggesting that the cleaning of the painting had
Speaker 1: altered the very nature of the painting. It was very
Speaker 1: bright and very vivid. It wasn't at all like the
Speaker 1: other paintings. I said, look like a bag of M
Speaker 1: and M spilled on the floor. Was very bright and
Speaker 1: very shiny. The colors weren't the same in the original
Speaker 1: Sea and Mirror. There are really strong, the yellows are
Speaker 1: very buttery. The reds are very maroon and very burgundy
Speaker 1: and very strong. And these are my favorite colors. There's
Speaker 1: violets that are just all the haunting colors. And then
Speaker 1: the ones that he did for this picture. I mean,
Speaker 1: I I sometimes wonder if he even painted this. It
Speaker 1: was like some assistant or something, because it was really
Speaker 1: nowhere at all remotely like the original painting. And she
Speaker 1: said to me, well, we took it off the stretcher
Speaker 1: in case we had to repair some cracks and stuff.
Speaker 1: And later on I've consulted with someone else who tell
Speaker 1: me that's nonsense. I just find it so fascinating that,
Speaker 1: you know, you called Mary and she just had this
Speaker 1: song and dance about how it was the real painting.
Speaker 1: It was the painting that you had wanted, that you
Speaker 1: had carried around a picture of all these years. You know,
Speaker 1: she could have gone a whole other way here. She
Speaker 1: could have said, you know, I couldn't get that painting,
Speaker 1: but here's some others from the series. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I always live inside a world of alternatives.
Speaker 1: You know what might have happened, what choices might people
Speaker 1: have made. And one of the things that was just
Speaker 1: clear to me was if you'd come to me and said,
Speaker 1: I can't get the painting. The guy in California that
Speaker 1: owns the se and mirror, I either can't find him
Speaker 1: or he doesn't want to sell. My point is is
Speaker 1: that if she come to me and said, I'll have
Speaker 1: him paint you a copy, I'll have him paint you
Speaker 1: another in a series of these types of paintings, I
Speaker 1: would have said great. And it wasn't like I'm saying, oh,
Speaker 1: when you're gonna charge me eight dollars to like like
Speaker 1: I was obsessed about the price. The important thing is
Speaker 1: I would have accepted a copy. Had they told me
Speaker 1: it was a copy, we could have negotiated the price.
Speaker 1: But instead she didn't say it was a copy. She
Speaker 1: put the bin number of the painting on the back
Speaker 1: of the painting she sold me. She put the date
Speaker 1: six on the back of the painting she sold me.
Speaker 1: All of it was just reeked of foul play, of speaking,
Speaker 1: the fact that you're handing me the painting in two
Speaker 1: thousand ten and you're putting the date nine and it
Speaker 1: wasn't the painting from nine six. You put a fake
Speaker 1: date on there. When all this went down and she
Speaker 1: was confronted, legally, the statute of limitations had passed, but
Speaker 1: she decided to go a completely different way. She insisted
Speaker 1: that I knew it was a copy. I knew what
Speaker 1: I was buying. She had never represented to me that
Speaker 1: this was the original painting. She swore up and down
Speaker 1: that I knew I was buying a copy of C
Speaker 1: and Mirror From, not the original painting, which was not true.
Speaker 1: And then we mo went back to the d A
Speaker 1: and said she charged me the price. I just bought
Speaker 1: two paintings from her that were freshly made, so to speak,
Speaker 1: that were freshly baked, and they were in the high
Speaker 1: five figures. Why would I pay a hundred and ninety
Speaker 1: thousand dollars for a freshly baked ross? Now that was
Speaker 1: exhibit A, if you will, And the other was the
Speaker 1: date and the bin number. And when this thing was
Speaker 1: on my war, I said to myself, and again, I
Speaker 1: think it's an important point that it wasn't around me
Speaker 1: all the time I travel uptown. I go to that
Speaker 1: office and I go, oh, there it is, and I say,
Speaker 1: so that means Ross is a fake. And Ross I
Speaker 1: was kind of friendly with. And I thought, well, this
Speaker 1: means Ross ripped me off. And I thought or not.
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe Ross was told he's okay with a copy,
Speaker 1: make him a copy, and I'm going to sell him
Speaker 1: this copy. I believe she played both of us. I
Speaker 1: believe she said Ross, he wants a copy of Sea
Speaker 1: and Mirrors, and she said to me, I'm going to
Speaker 1: get you the original Sea and Mirrors. He thought one thing,
Speaker 1: I thought another thing. As it turned out, that's exactly
Speaker 1: what happened. We reached out to Ross Bleckner for comment,
Speaker 1: and he was gracious enough to respond, well, we don't
Speaker 1: feel comfortable reading his response verbatim. We can say that
Speaker 1: Ross's own recollection of the events is precisely what Alex expected.
Speaker 1: That is to say, Mary Boone contacted Buckner and asked
Speaker 1: him to paint a copy of C and mirror for
Speaker 1: a client. He didn't hear from Mary Boone after that,
Speaker 1: once she took possession of the painting. The moment we
Speaker 1: subpoenaed her emails and she produced, and Ross produced a
Speaker 1: bunch of emails, and she produced almost none. And the
Speaker 1: judge said, if you don't give me these emails, if
Speaker 1: you're saying you don't have emails of your exchange with
Speaker 1: him that discussed this early on, you know, at the onset,
Speaker 1: I was amazed at how firm the judge was and
Speaker 1: how clear the judge was. The judge says, if you
Speaker 1: don't do this, I'm going to assume you're hiding something.
Speaker 1: I'm going to automatically assume there's something you're hiding. And
Speaker 1: they were just shrieking up and down that they couldn't
Speaker 1: wait to have that in the courtroom and over so
Speaker 1: the stuff, and I thought, okay, okay. And then once
Speaker 1: we subpoenaed all of her emails to any sales of
Speaker 1: Ross Bleckner, because we knew deep down inside that she
Speaker 1: didn't wake up one day and start doing this with
Speaker 1: me that day. We wanted to check and see were
Speaker 1: we in the territory of a class action suit with
Speaker 1: a grouping of people who had been treated this way
Speaker 1: in some way, and the moment we subpoenaed all of
Speaker 1: her emails to discuss that, they settled and they wrote
Speaker 1: me a check for a million dollars. I want you
Speaker 1: to tell me about going to marry Ann Bowski. You
Speaker 1: were going to see some paintings. She was going to
Speaker 1: show you a Thornton dial and what happened. That became
Speaker 1: a real turning point when I said to her that
Speaker 1: Mary said, we took the painting off the stretcher in
Speaker 1: order to repair it and clean it. I think she
Speaker 1: said it needed to be repaired. Mary Ann said, well,
Speaker 1: that's ridiculous. I said, what do you mean. She said,
Speaker 1: she would never have taken the painting off the canvas
Speaker 1: and repaired it and cleaned it without your permission. She
Speaker 1: just took it upon herself. She's claiming to do that.
Speaker 1: We just did that for you. And she said, it
Speaker 1: never happens that way. She said, this is an all
Speaker 1: likelihood of fake. It looks like a fake, and it
Speaker 1: smells like a fake because it is a fake. Mary
Speaker 1: Anne Bowski has been an art dealer for twenty five years.
Speaker 1: She started her first gallery and her current gallery on
Speaker 1: Two Street in New York has been opened since two
Speaker 1: thousand six. Alec visited with Marianne recently at her gallery.
Speaker 1: She recalled their original conversation about that ill fated painting.
Speaker 1: You just said, is it strange that I would have gotten,
Speaker 1: you know, a painting after I bought it and it
Speaker 1: would look different than the image that it looked like,
Speaker 1: And then was told that it was cleaned, and I
Speaker 1: was like, that's definitely strange. And then we kind of
Speaker 1: continued talking about it, and I, you know, I had
Speaker 1: real empathy for you, but there was a terrible situation.
Speaker 1: But if the painting comes off the stretcher to be
Speaker 1: cleaned or repaired, that's something that you would affect the
Speaker 1: value of the painting, not necessarily. So let's say I
Speaker 1: had a leasi scavenge. Someone came back with a lazy
Speaker 1: scavenge that I sold them in two thousand one and
Speaker 1: it had some schmutz on it, right, What I would
Speaker 1: do is I would have a conservator look at it
Speaker 1: and recommend what needs to be done. Can it be
Speaker 1: cleaned if you need to in pain? Is there damage?
Speaker 1: Then I would call Lisa or her. If I didn't
Speaker 1: know her personally, I would call s Warner and I
Speaker 1: would say, I have this, and here's the situation. Does
Speaker 1: Lisa want to look at it? And she would either
Speaker 1: say yes or no, or they would say, um, you know,
Speaker 1: she'd like to fix it herself. And if she fixes
Speaker 1: it herself, it's not really going to be um any
Speaker 1: kind of diminution in value because it's her, you know,
Speaker 1: just making sure that her work is in good shape.
Speaker 1: So or if she wanted to clean it, that's not
Speaker 1: going to change anything except clean it. But if she's
Speaker 1: then said, you know there's a terror in it and
Speaker 1: it needs to be fixed, I recommend you go to
Speaker 1: so and so to fix it because they're the best
Speaker 1: of my work. So now I have this painting that
Speaker 1: is on consignment and it's been torn and sown, and
Speaker 1: Lisa has opined on who needs to fix it, and
Speaker 1: we've gotten it fixed and we spent six thousand dollars
Speaker 1: fixing it whatever it is. Then when I go to
Speaker 1: offer that painting to someone, I have to tell them
Speaker 1: you can't see it, but right here, if you look
Speaker 1: on the back, you feel you I do, yes, there's
Speaker 1: a little mark here. The artist has looked at it
Speaker 1: the artist has approved the work that was done at
Speaker 1: it and chose the person to do it. But transparency
Speaker 1: more art fraud in a minute, Alec, what did you
Speaker 1: think of that moment when Marianne first told you your
Speaker 1: treasured Sea and Mere painting was at all likelihood of fake?
Speaker 1: Because that was really the moment. So I gather that
Speaker 1: this hits home. How did that hit you emotionally? Well?
Speaker 1: I think two things. One is I had to kind
Speaker 1: of sort out in my head what Ross's involvement was.
Speaker 1: That was very concerned about that and in any civil litigation.
Speaker 1: Now Ross wound up giving me uh that he found
Speaker 1: up making me a fact simile of seeing mirror that
Speaker 1: I have in my home. Now I have the honest copy.
Speaker 1: I said, give me the copy of the painting that is,
Speaker 1: and then he gave me another painting to settle our dispute,
Speaker 1: if you will. You know, it's a funny situation because
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, it was a fraud, but it was
Speaker 1: a fraud enacted by the painter who painted the original.
Speaker 1: See what's funny is when in the litigation he made
Speaker 1: me the copy of C and mirror that I have
Speaker 1: in my home, that is the genuine copy. Well, there
Speaker 1: it is. It's true. When he wanted to put his
Speaker 1: mind to it and get it right, he did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's really bizarre. When the original painting arrives, it's not
Speaker 1: even close. But when he's told to do it exactly
Speaker 1: the copy, it's very close. It's it's pretty pretty spot on,
Speaker 1: because you wonder how many more copies of it are
Speaker 1: they're out there? If he could so handily render facsimiles
Speaker 1: of Seeing Mirror than how many more were out there?
Speaker 1: How many more people were told they were buying the
Speaker 1: original painting? How many more canvases have written on the
Speaker 1: back and the bin number that I had. But as
Speaker 1: I said, once we wanted to open up a can
Speaker 1: of worms, which would have discussed that, once we wanted
Speaker 1: to speak in court about where else she might have
Speaker 1: done this. They settled the case, you know, when all
Speaker 1: this went down, and I had gone to the d
Speaker 1: A to investigate our options and see what was going on.
Speaker 1: You know, one aspect of it was that this was
Speaker 1: also unnecessary. If I had been someone who had had
Speaker 1: some difficult relationship with Mary, if there's been some friction
Speaker 1: between us, especially in the art world, if wanting to
Speaker 1: settle a score with me, get even with me. I
Speaker 1: didn't really know Mary on a personal level, so there
Speaker 1: was really nothing between us that engendered that kind of treatment.
Speaker 1: I couldn't understand why she would do that to me.
Speaker 1: That's that's what really really upset me. And then I
Speaker 1: thought to myself, that's the whole point. You can walk
Speaker 1: in as a very innocent person who just as a
Speaker 1: lover of arts. I mean, I realized I'm not spending
Speaker 1: tens of millions of dollars on a on a Polock.
Speaker 1: It's not like the Lagrange case and and Friedman and
Speaker 1: Noodler and all that kind of stuff. I'm a guy
Speaker 1: walking in buying something in the high five figures the
Speaker 1: low six figures. But I'm wondering, I'm assuming that some
Speaker 1: of us are like some of the bread and butter
Speaker 1: of that business. And and even if we aren't, what's
Speaker 1: the amount of money I need to spend on the
Speaker 1: painting for you to treat me fairly. If I walked
Speaker 1: in the door and you said, let me just tell
Speaker 1: you this privately, Mary would say, now I'm going to
Speaker 1: sell you a knockoff of bogus painting for the amount
Speaker 1: of money you're willing to spend. But if you spend
Speaker 1: more money, if you're willing to give me more money,
Speaker 1: I'll actually go get you the painting. You won't, I
Speaker 1: won't rip you off, which which was what did I
Speaker 1: need to do to deserve the fair treatment. I didn't
Speaker 1: understand any of why this happened. I guess I'll never know. Alec.
Speaker 1: We started working on this podcast a little over a
Speaker 1: year ago, and I remember at the time you said
Speaker 1: that you believed and Freedman. Your opinion was that she
Speaker 1: didn't know the paintings were fake and she hadn't sold
Speaker 1: them as fakes, and I said, I felt just the opposite.
Speaker 1: And so I wonder, after a whole year of immersing
Speaker 1: ourselves in this podcast and talking to over two dozen experts, artists, lawyers,
Speaker 1: and journalists, have your beliefs held firm? Do you still
Speaker 1: think an Freeman had no idea she was complicit in
Speaker 1: the forgery scheme? Well, I think that what has changed
Speaker 1: is this idea that something hinges on everybody doing something
Speaker 1: they've never done before. Whenever people walk into a room
Speaker 1: and there's a time honored process they have, there's a
Speaker 1: protocol they have, and all of a sudden they throw
Speaker 1: that out the window, to the tune of tens of
Speaker 1: millions of dollars. I made seventy million dollars and fake
Speaker 1: aren't that was sold here this gallery. There was no excuse.
Speaker 1: These people have no excuse. And Friedman Hammer everybody involved
Speaker 1: in this case, these were the top people in the field.
Speaker 1: And what they didn't know. They summoned experts to come
Speaker 1: in and aid them and to counsel them on what
Speaker 1: to do. What I believe now is Anne knew she
Speaker 1: shouldn't have done what she did, but she pressed forward. Well, then,
Speaker 1: my friend, we are in agreement. I really believe that
Speaker 1: people arrive at a place and they believe wrongly as
Speaker 1: it turns out that there's no turning back. Turning back
Speaker 1: in their mind was almost worse. They thought, let's see
Speaker 1: what happens if we get away with it. And if
Speaker 1: they got away with it, then everybody would be walking
Speaker 1: around staring at a fake Rothco and everybody would be happy.
Speaker 1: Who know, right? Really, the person I think who is
Speaker 1: the hammer that just shatters the whole stone work of
Speaker 1: this thing is Lagrange. When La Grange flies over here
Speaker 1: and has an apoplectic fit against this woman, I mean
Speaker 1: this is a guy who's just not going to be denied.
Speaker 1: I agree with you. And then also just the sheer
Speaker 1: number of fakes that began to come forward. You know,
Speaker 1: you could believe a couple of them lacked provenance when
Speaker 1: you're up to forty had all lacked provenace. This is
Speaker 1: something that occurred to me when he came to speak
Speaker 1: with us, and that is I thought, if this woman
Speaker 1: had gone into Anne and she'd had the least bit
Speaker 1: of a whiff of insincerity since of theater, or something
Speaker 1: being fabricated or false about her when I met her,
Speaker 1: it all fell into place. I thought, who could go
Speaker 1: in and do this to Anne? Who could fool Anne?
Speaker 1: Who wouldn't have to be enough to be somebody who
Speaker 1: she's like a school teacher, She's like a kindergarten teacher. Yes,
Speaker 1: I think that very day you said to me, you know,
Speaker 1: I believe her. You didn't believe Anne, but you did
Speaker 1: believe Cofira. One thing I know for sure there were
Speaker 1: sixty or so fake painting sold by the Wiseman and
Speaker 1: no Oldler galleries. And it leaves me with a haunting thought,
Speaker 1: where are those paintings today? We know the dess fake
Speaker 1: Rothko ended up in Attorney Luke Nichols office a story
Speaker 1: to tell curious clients. Francis Babies. Fake Clifford still found
Speaker 1: its way to the basement, only to get misplaced, and
Speaker 1: Friedman's own fake Pollock with the misspelled signature was still
Speaker 1: hanging in her home last we heard. We also know
Speaker 1: a few of the paintings made their way into legal
Speaker 1: proceedings from various law suits. But what about the fifty
Speaker 1: or so others. How many of those fakes have been
Speaker 1: sold very quietly by buyers eager to expunge the stain
Speaker 1: of fraud from their walls, Buyers who may have recouped
Speaker 1: their losses illegally. Of course, perhaps they even profited, as
Speaker 1: Ann Friedman assured them they would with paintings from the
Speaker 1: David Herbert collection. And that's it for art fraud. Most
Speaker 1: of the listeners of this show will never purchase a
Speaker 1: piece of fine art in their lives. We hope you've
Speaker 1: enjoyed this show, nonetheless, And for those who are real collectors, remember,
Speaker 1: if you can fool and Friedman, you can fool anyone
Speaker 1: used today the sweetness and the sorrow wish me luck
Speaker 1: the same to you, But I can't regret what I
Speaker 1: did for love, What I did for love, Look my eyes.
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. We're produced
Speaker 1: by Brandon Morgan and Zach McNeice. Zack also edited and
Speaker 1: mixed this episode. Lindsay Hoffman is our managing producer. How
Speaker 1: A here is Michael Shnayerson. All Love