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