WEBVTT - The Knoedler Gallery 0:00:05.640 --> 0:00:09.520 Just off Madison Avenue on East seventy third Street for 0:00:09.640 --> 0:00:14.440 lunchtime crowded Via Quadrono fills every sidewalk table as well 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:19.279 as the seats in its pandemic inspired shed. It's a 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:24.040 cheerful neighborhood joint, catering to a young crowd with great coffee, 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:28.240 sandwiches and pasta. A sense of triumph pervades the place. 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:33.240 Among all the restaurants closed by COVID nineteen, Via Quadrono 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:38.040 is more popular than ever. Often from a town house 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:42.040 next door, a stooped figure emerges from an upper floor 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:45.200 and makes her way down the stately front steps past 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:50.000 the Millennials. She looks smaller than she once did, as 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:53.640 if scrunched by the circumstances that let her here, though 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:56.640 she still has the white corkscrew curls that made her 0:00:56.760 --> 0:01:00.160 stand out in any art fair or gallery opening, and 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:03.440 the stern, almost imperious mien for which she was known. 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:11.280 A little over a decade ago. Ann Friedman was among 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:15.640 the most powerful art dealers in New York. Her fiefdom 0:01:15.720 --> 0:01:19.000 was the Knodler Gallery, from which she sold works by 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:22.080 many of the best known artists of the mid twentieth century. 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:28.120 Mark Rothkoe, William Dacooning, Barnett Newman, Clifford Still, and Jackson Pollock. 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:38.160 Today the Kndler is gone. Just three blocks down Madison 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:42.039 on the north Side Street stand the ghosts of the 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:47.520 now infamous gallery to adjoining limestone mansions in the Italian 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:52.480 Renaissance style with ornate stone arches topped by decorative balconies. 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:57.960 In the galleries own Renaissance. A Royal Blue Awning announced 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:06.480 the Ndler's two buildings in appital letters. In this season 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:10.160 of Art Fraud, we're examining the rise and fall of 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:14.200 the Knoedler Gallery. It's a story about one of New 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:18.400 York City's oldest and most celebrated galleries dealing in world 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:22.600 class art, and how its doors would close forever in 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:27.720 the face of insurmountable pressure, ultimately in the form of 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:33.200 looming prison time. We're talking, of course, about paintings, fake paintings, 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:38.200 or more plainly, forgeries. The best fakes are still hanging 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:41.200 off people's walls. You know they don't even know or 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:46.200 suspect that they're fakes. Of course, art forgeries only happen 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:49.880 because there's money to be made, a lot of money. 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:53.000 Tens of millions of dollars would change hands between a 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:57.400 cast of characters. Before it was all over, A few profited, 0:02:57.720 --> 0:03:00.360 some were cheated, and at least one person and would 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:08.200 find themselves behind bars. With me today is Michael Schneerson, 0:03:08.680 --> 0:03:12.560 a long time contributing editor for Vanity Fair, whose feature 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:16.000 story on the Knoedler Gallery appeared in the magazine shortly 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:19.120 after the scandal broke in the spring of two thousand twelve. 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:23.919 Michael is also the author of Boom Mad Money, Mega 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:27.680 Dealers and the Rise of Contemporary Art are compelling and 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:31.480 entertaining overview of the dealers who helped make the contemporary 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:35.080 art market what it is today. The honest dealers, I 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:39.800 hasten to add, because generally these dealers were and are honest, 0:03:40.160 --> 0:03:43.880 driven by a passion for their artists far more than profit. 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:47.760 Here's Michael Schneerson. I've written a lot of articles for 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:50.640 Vanity Fair, but the Notler case sticks in my mind 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:54.000 because at the heart of it lies an unresolved mystery. 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:57.080 The story, of course, has taken some turns that even 0:03:57.120 --> 0:04:01.640 Anne Friedman could not have predicted. You could say that 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:05.520 about the whole contemporary art market. I suppose who would 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:07.920 have imagined at the start of the century that an 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:12.080 artist named Jeff Coon's would make a supersized stainless steel 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:17.839 rabbit that's sold at auction in May two nineteen million dollars, 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:21.000 the highest price ever paid for a living artist's work. 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:24.080 Who could have predicted that a young Brooklyn artist named 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:28.640 Jean Michel Baskuillade would make his oddly haunting abstract portraits 0:04:28.640 --> 0:04:32.400 of tribal figures and totems in a basement for drug money, 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:36.039 only to have them sell after his premature death for 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:39.719 as much as a hundred and ten million dollars. Record 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:41.920 Breaking sales like that have done more than juice the 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:44.560 art market. They've led to a gray market of private 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:47.680 dealings that thrive in a hot climate. It's important to 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:49.960 note that the art market is still the world's largest 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:54.520 unregulated business. Legal business anyway. You have to do what 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:56.680 you say you'll do when striking a deal. You have 0:04:56.720 --> 0:04:59.760 to pay your taxes, and that's about it. I remember 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:02.240 go in to a mega dealer's home in East Hampton 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:05.240 one night and commenting that the art market was the 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:10.080 last unregulated multibillion dollar equity market in the world. Our 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:13.000 host said, and let's try to keep it that way 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:19.039 as his guests raised their glasses and toasted. When a 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:22.599 dealer goes further trafficking and paintings that turn out to 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:26.279 be fakes, is there any pattern to explain why that happens. 0:05:27.080 --> 0:05:30.040 Usually it starts with someone down on their luck, a 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:33.840 dealer or perhaps an unsuccessful artist. The fraudster may have 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:36.400 no intention of doing more than tweaking a painting to 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:39.440 make it more saleable, or fabricating just one work to 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:42.360 pay the bills. But what if he or she turns 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:44.719 out to be awfully good at it and the dealer, 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:47.960 in desperate straits buys it. What if the dealer then 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:50.680 sells it for a profit to someone unaware of the fraud. 0:05:51.400 --> 0:05:55.359 And so a fascinating dance begins to dance about the 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:58.559 art that's changing hands, but even more so, a dance 0:05:58.560 --> 0:06:01.799 about the story behind the art. At first, the froster 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:03.760 tells a bit of the story, just one or two 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:07.440 tantalizing and fabricated bits to explain how and when the 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:10.520 painting was done. And then as the dance goes on, 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:14.080 the victim let's call him the mark, grows ever more 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:17.240 eager to hear more. After all, the more he hears, 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:20.640 the more the expanding story seems to authenticate the art 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:23.760 he's bought and the money he'll lose if it turns 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:26.440 out the story was a scam, until the fraudster and 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:29.760 the mark are intertwined, each so eager to believe the 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:34.039 story that for both it sort of comes true. So 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:37.200 it would become for Ann Friedman, the Nole Gallery's director, 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:41.360 and a mysterious woman named Lepa Rosalez, who, on her 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:45.279 visits to the Nodler starting in always seemed to have 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:50.440 another mid century masterpiece under her arm. As we embark 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:54.120 on this exploration, it's my opinion that Anne sold those 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:58.120 paintings convinced they were real, until the day Glafira brought 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:01.839 the whole story crashing down. I don't believe Anne knew 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:05.039 they were fakes and sold them as fakes. I have 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:08.320 to be honest with you, Alex, I disagree. I think 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:10.880 you couldn't be a well known, long time dealer in 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:15.080 top tier art and sell paintings one after another with 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:17.680 no clear trail of ownership unless you were acting with 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:20.800 criminal intent. I think and knew exactly what she was doing. 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:23.960 If not from the beginning, then soon enough and that 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:26.040 she hoped she could fool the art world over and 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:29.680 over again, as indeed she did for some fourteen years. 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:35.440 So the first question is whether Ann Friedman knew what 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:38.720 she was buying when she bought these works for whopping 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:44.040 discounts from Fia Rosalie and her confederates. And the next 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:47.840 question is should Anne's own customers, to whom she retailed 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:50.520 these paintings, should they have been more aware of what 0:07:50.560 --> 0:07:52.920 they were doing. There's an argument in the art world 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:55.560 that when you purchase an expensive work of art, it's 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:58.960 your obligation, as a sophisticated buyer to do your research, 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:03.640 talked to experts and so forth. Robert Store, former director 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:05.160 of the Yale School of Art and one of the 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:08.160 country's most important art critics, said at a conference not 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:11.520 long ago, the collectors are quote unquote stupid to spend 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:14.240 millions of dollars on a work of art without personally 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:18.239 investigating its authenticity. And I think he has a point. 0:08:18.920 --> 0:08:22.240 That's an interesting idea. So what's your responsibility of your 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:25.040 the buyer, to figure out if my artist fake. I've 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:27.239 got a gallery full of art in the Upper East Side. 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:29.040 Some of it is real, some of it is not 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:33.160 you decide. Well, that's a fair point. I guess my 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:36.000 reluctance to think the worst event has as much to 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:37.840 do with how I felt about the gallery is what 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:40.680 I felt about her. I'm not a serious collector of 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:44.040 contemporary art, far from it, but I like looking at art, 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:46.560 and on occasion I've bought a painting not for seven 0:08:46.679 --> 0:08:49.240 or eight figures, but maybe six. In fact, I've been 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:52.000 the victim of an art forgery myself, but we'll get 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:56.840 to that later. The Noodler felt different from almost every 0:08:56.840 --> 0:08:59.800 other gallery in New York. There's a stateliness about the 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:03.840 a touch of class, old world manners. The Noder didn't 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:06.840 just sell contemporary art. It's old modern art too, which 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:09.360 is to say, art by artists who started before World 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:13.080 War Two, anyone from Brock and Picasso to Francis Bacon. 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:16.679 A sweeping stairway led from the showrooms to the office above, 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:22.520 where Ann Friedman presided. The true marvel of Knoedler was 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:25.680 its legacy. It was the oldest gallery in New York, 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:31.480 opened in eight Through those five years, it had never closed, 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:34.199 not in the Civil War, not in World War Two, 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:38.800 through every calamity in American history since the Antebellum era, 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:42.760 the k Noodler had survived. But who was Knodler and 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:46.200 how did the venerable gallery get its start in New York? 0:09:47.160 --> 0:10:03.920 That's after the break. It was an eighteen fifty two 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:07.360 that a young and ambitious gallery assistant named Michael Ndler 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:11.000 disembark from a Transatlantic ship in New York, scanning the 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:14.880 busy waterfront for the face he hoped to find. Soon enough, 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:20.640 he spotted his man, William schaus Chaos had come from 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:22.839 Paris four years earlier to start a New York branch 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:26.800 of a company called Goupil vbel a C soon to 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:32.280 be known as Ndler. Michael Knoedler was a Goupeel employee 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:37.600 in Paris. That's Dick McIntosh. For years, Dick worked at 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:40.520 the Knoedler Gallery as its historian. He was on the 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:43.560 verge of publishing the definitive history of the gallery when 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:48.960 its gates came crashing down. Out of Goupiel met Michael 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:53.600 Knoedler in Stuttgart in the course of business and brought 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:59.360 him to Goupeel in Company in Paris, and Michael Knodler 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:05.559 trained in Paris for a good ten or twelve years 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:11.040 he was totally a vassal of Adolf Kupel. William Schaus 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:14.960 was the first person sent here to open the gallery, 0:11:15.400 --> 0:11:19.240 who arrived in eighteen forty seven to scout things out 0:11:21.360 --> 0:11:23.880 to help us understand how the Noodler became the first 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:26.560 art gallery in New York and how for decades it 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:29.600 remained the Venerable Nodler Gallery, as if venerable was part 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:33.360 of its title. I've asked Noodler historian Dick McIntosh and 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:37.360 Francis Batty to art market experts to share some Nodal 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:39.800 history with me at my home on the Upper East Side. 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:42.959 The fact that I live on East seventy third Street, 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:46.640 steps from Freedom and Arts is just a coincidence, though 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:48.760 it does mean I get more sightings of Anne than 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:52.160 I otherwise would, And to be candid, I've often found 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:55.320 myself turning a corner at almost the exact moment and 0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:58.440 reaches the corner from the other side, or spotting that 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:02.240 mop of silver curls to block away heading in my direction. 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:04.720 I would be less than honest if I didn't admit 0:12:04.720 --> 0:12:08.680 I've taken avoidance measures, darting between parked cars or turning 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:12.120 so abruptly that I bargined to strangers. Partly it said 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:14.960 I have nothing to say to her, but also I 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:17.680 know that my Vanity Fair story, while it seemed fair 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:21.120 to me, cut her deeply. That's never my intent with 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:23.680 the magazine story. But sometimes the facts just go where 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:26.800 they will at any rate. There's not much to say 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:29.719 other than to ask questions she'd rather not answer, and 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:34.560 to watch her stock off and a huff dick. I 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:37.160 know the firm that came to be an odler didn't 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:40.240 start as an art gallery. What was it exactly? When 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:42.880 you walked into the place, what did you see? A store? 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:47.760 The family always called it the store, which is an 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:53.720 indication of its very eclectic nature. It would be very, 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:58.280 very pretentious to call yourself a gallery, because it's like 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:02.040 calling yourself a museum, and that would be, I think 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:07.320 at that point, very inappropriate. That's Francis Beatty. Francis has 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:10.280 been an art dealer for nearly forty years, first in 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:13.679 partnership with the late legendary Richard Fagan, now with her 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:16.320 son Alex, a tall and suave dealer in his own 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:20.040 right who spends every spare moment schmoozing with tech billionaires 0:13:20.040 --> 0:13:23.720 ready to cover their walls with art. The point was 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:29.040 to sell the excess stock of the Goopeel Company from Paris. 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:34.080 The technology of making reproductions had improved to the point 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:40.360 that many more a much larger quantity of reproductions could 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:46.199 be made could be manufactured. Did reproductions usually mean engravings? 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:52.800 Originally it meant engravings, but by this time there were lithographs, 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:55.760 which were the cheapest and easiest to produce in the 0:13:55.880 --> 0:14:03.280 largest quality, and etchings and media. At the same time. Though, 0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:05.960 in the eighteen forties when this store opened, someone was 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:09.800 painting right, even in America. Thomas cole A should b 0:14:09.960 --> 0:14:17.040 drand the whole school in school, then Coloss Let us 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:23.440 not forget the German American Immanuel Leitza who painted the 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:28.160 famous Washington crossing the Delaware right. In fact, goo Pelee 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:31.200 made reproductions of the painting in all sizes in Paris 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:33.760 and sent them to America, where they sold like hock kicks. 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:37.240 Mark Twain famously said that if General Washington had known 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:39.200 the extent of reproductions that were going to be made 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:41.840 of his image, he'd have thought twice about crossing the 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:45.760 Delaware in the first place. How did Michael Nodler get involved. 0:14:46.560 --> 0:14:54.880 When Goopeelee and Shouts had a serious disagreement over how 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:59.479 profits from the New York Gallery, We're going to be divided. 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:04.400 Chow's quit and set up his own business, and Michael 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:09.480 Nodler was dispatched here to continue on in eighteen fifty two, 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:13.600 how would you describe the store's evolution from selling reproductions 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:16.360 to actual paintings for the store to become the first 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:19.680 real art gallery in New York gradual, and then it 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:25.520 kind of starts to really pick up steam in the eighties. 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:32.360 Then you have this extraordinary kind of explosion for the 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:41.480 next thirty years of them bringing major, major pictures, Goya, Turner, 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:49.600 I mean, just these legendary names of incredible quality to America. 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:53.840 Did a few collectors become the lynchpins of notary success? 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:58.240 I'm thinking Henry Clay Frick, for one, the great steel industrialist. Frick, 0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:04.240 for many years was Noler's biggest client. The first painting 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:10.400 he bought was four and immediately afterwards he began buying 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:18.080 in real quantity, and his close association with the Knodler 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:21.560 Gallery lasted for the rest of his lifetime, in other words, 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:26.600 until when he died, and when he died. Charles Carstairs, 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:29.240 the man who had sold him the first painting, was 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:38.320 a pall bearer at his funeral. Michael K. Nodler made 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:42.240 the gallery grow, and so did his sons. As it did, 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:45.560 it began moving uptown, up along Broadway, then over to 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:51.400 Fifth Avenue, following the city's own restless course. The location 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:56.440 of the store was important for two reasons. First, it 0:16:56.520 --> 0:17:00.560 was in Little Farge buildings. The choice of the location 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:06.600 was determined by a network of French people in New York, 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:11.679 one of whom was the father of Jean LeFarge, the artist, 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:16.600 who was a real estate investor, a successful real estate 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:22.320 investor in early New York. Secondly, due to the rise 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:29.560 of department stores in Paris in the mid nineteenth century, 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:33.000 which is where they really began in the form that 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:37.440 we know them today, it was clear to all concern 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:40.760 that it was a good idea to be located near 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:45.439 a department store, because that's where everybody went for every 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:52.080 last little thing. As the Nodlers migrated, they started taking 0:17:52.080 --> 0:17:57.080 on more original art, even oil paintings. They sold to 0:17:57.160 --> 0:18:02.080 the founders of New American fortunes Erbilt's Asters and Rockefeller's 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:06.480 all frequented Kndler, so did Henry Flagler of Standard Oil 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:10.160 and sugar refiner H. O. Have Ameyer. In the course 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:15.280 of two days, railroad magnate Jay Gould bought twenty two pictures. 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:18.240 All of these grandees had more than paintings on the 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:23.880 walls of their brand new mansions. They had collections. Then, 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:28.080 in the early nineteen twenties, the dashing Roland Ballet, a 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:31.399 Knodler on his mother's side, came from Paris in his 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:35.760 twenties to work at the family business. The last of 0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:39.960 the Ndler family directors, Roland had no choice, really, but 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:43.399 to join the store when he came of age. Roland 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:46.240 liked to recall that his very first memory of meeting 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:50.800 an artist came when he was just five. His parents 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:54.560 brought him to the Parisian countryside of State of Verny 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:58.119 to have lunch with Claude Monet. They brought a ham 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:00.879 that got sliced at a table in the arden. For 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:03.600 the rest of his life, Roland would remember the white 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:06.840 bearded artist eating the ham and looking at him with 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:13.359 kindly eyes against a backdrop of water lilies. Roland arrived 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:16.760 in New York in n at the age of twenty two, 0:19:17.119 --> 0:19:20.880 drinking most of the way with Pierre Matisse, the artist's son, 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:26.720 who would remain a lifelong pal. He came bearing other 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:31.480 friendships with some of Paris's best contemporary artists, brac Lege 0:19:31.600 --> 0:19:36.240 and Picasso. To his chagrin, he found his older family 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:39.520 members in New York underwhelmed by the paintings he brought. 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:42.520 Put them in the basement. They told him when he 0:19:42.560 --> 0:19:46.000 showed them the new Cubist that Paris had embraced, the 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:51.200 children will take them. The Knoedler wasn't avant garde, as 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:55.119 its family directors reminded Roland. It solved the art of 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:59.120 its times, or, perhaps more accurately, it sold the art 0:19:59.160 --> 0:20:02.479 of the times it's buyers embraced, which tended to be 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:08.240 a decade or two behind contemporary art. Roland had no 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:11.480 choice but to guit his teeth and sell his clients 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:16.280 what they wanted. In the aftermath of World War Two, 0:20:16.400 --> 0:20:19.160 a new school of art arose to show its devastation 0:20:19.720 --> 0:20:24.840 the often brutal, sweeping brushstrokes of abstract expressionism. Yet Noodler 0:20:25.160 --> 0:20:28.240 kept its distance, as painters like Jackson Pollock and William 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:33.119 Dacooning Clifford still Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko rose with 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:37.000 a new generation of dealers, namely Betty Parsons, Sidney Janie 0:20:37.240 --> 0:20:40.800 and Leo Castelli. These were the groundbreaking dealers of the 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:45.360 nineteen fifties. Very few people were buying contemporary art. If 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:49.600 Pollock hadn't had Peggy Guggenheim, he would have starved. They 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:53.480 were all starving in the fifties. They really weren't, not 0:20:53.640 --> 0:20:57.520 until sort of Andy Warhol started to make money out 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:01.800 of art under Rolla Ballet. The Knodler was running out 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:06.280 of steam. Having missed the post war era, it went 0:21:06.320 --> 0:21:09.399 on to overlook pop art too. By the end of 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:13.639 the sixties, it had moved to One East, then proceeded 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:16.920 to spend so much money renovating its newly acquired mansion 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:20.920 that it nearly went broke. The Knodler needed an angel, 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:25.520 someone far more deep pocketed than Roland Ballet. In nineteen 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:29.240 seventy one, the Knodler found that angel in Armand Hammer, 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:37.040 the billionaire industrialist. Knowing how financially imperiled Rollan Ballet's ndler was, 0:21:37.680 --> 0:21:40.719 Hammer bought the gallery for two point five million dollars 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:45.280 in nineteen seventy one. For that modest sum Hammer got 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:50.359 Knodler's business, its artists, its reputation and history. He also 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:54.639 got the Italian Renaissance mansion at nineteen East seventieth Street. 0:21:55.560 --> 0:21:58.560 Not long after that deal, Hammer would buy the adjacent 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:02.320 mansion at one East sevente Street. For Hammer, the deal 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:07.399 was as much about real estate as art. Hammer hired 0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:10.680 one of his two grandsons, Michael, to run the gallery 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:15.280 as part of a family foundation. Incidentally, Michael's son, Army Hammer, 0:22:15.520 --> 0:22:20.320 would become a well known Hollywood actor. Still, Michael Hammer 0:22:20.440 --> 0:22:24.439 needed top rate dealers who could finally bring contemporary artists 0:22:24.800 --> 0:22:29.520 to Musty Old Noler. He found them in Lawrence Reuben 0:22:29.800 --> 0:22:35.440 and John Richardson. Reuben was a widely respected private dealer 0:22:35.440 --> 0:22:40.560 whose artists included Richard Deepencorn, Robert Motherwell, and Robert Rauschenberg. 0:22:42.240 --> 0:22:47.919 Larry Ruben was very famous because he was the brother 0:22:48.160 --> 0:22:52.040 of Bill Ruben, who I had actually worked for in 0:22:52.119 --> 0:22:57.480 the seventies. They were arguably two of the most important 0:22:57.920 --> 0:23:01.280 people in the entire art work or. Bill Ruben was 0:23:01.920 --> 0:23:04.639 the chief curator of the Museum of Modern Art, and 0:23:04.680 --> 0:23:06.879 that was a time when the chief curator of the 0:23:06.960 --> 0:23:11.000 Museum of Modern Art was more important than any director anywhere, 0:23:12.040 --> 0:23:18.440 and the fact that his brother actually ran Kndler was 0:23:18.800 --> 0:23:24.080 a let's say, a subject of both admiration and envy 0:23:24.359 --> 0:23:30.160 and some sort of I would say snarkiness because people 0:23:30.160 --> 0:23:33.480 would say, well, Bill Rubens having a big Frank Stella 0:23:33.600 --> 0:23:36.720 show at the Museum of Modern Art, which would of 0:23:36.760 --> 0:23:43.639 course make Frank Stella's incredibly valuable. And at the same 0:23:43.640 --> 0:23:47.919 time Stella was represented by his brother who was running 0:23:48.000 --> 0:23:53.639 the Kndler gallery, So there was some more than whispering 0:23:53.680 --> 0:23:58.960 about conflict of interest, but um, it was evaded by 0:23:59.160 --> 0:24:06.600 Bill Ruben very effectively. We'll be back in a minute. 0:24:09.040 --> 0:24:13.000 Larry brought with him a number of artists who really, 0:24:13.440 --> 0:24:17.560 almost overnight, returned the not Aler to some sort of eminence. 0:24:17.600 --> 0:24:20.520 I mean, I'm thinking of obviously Stella, as you mentioned, 0:24:20.640 --> 0:24:24.760 Deven Corn, Richard Depon Corn, another huge coup. And wasn't 0:24:24.840 --> 0:24:28.240 Robert Rauschenberg there for at least part of the time, Yes, 0:24:28.400 --> 0:24:33.199 I think Rauschenberg was there, and mother, well, you know, 0:24:33.359 --> 0:24:39.080 abstract Expressionism was Bill and Larry's kind of sweet spot, 0:24:39.560 --> 0:24:43.639 and so you know, those artists were artists that were 0:24:43.640 --> 0:24:48.120 celebrated the Museum of Modern art and celebrated, and I'm 0:24:48.200 --> 0:24:54.440 sure ensured Ndler's financial viability and success at that time. 0:24:55.600 --> 0:24:59.399 Along with Larry Reuben, Michael Hammer's other heavy gun was 0:24:59.480 --> 0:25:04.840 John Cherson, an english born critic, curator, Picasso biographer, and 0:25:05.160 --> 0:25:09.600 men about town. He told naughty stories about wealthy people 0:25:09.920 --> 0:25:13.680 and made them clamor for more. Along with handling artists 0:25:13.680 --> 0:25:17.120 he brought to Knodler himself. Richardson was induced to take 0:25:17.160 --> 0:25:20.080 on Salvador Dolly, or as he came to put it, 0:25:20.240 --> 0:25:23.240 to join the Dolly team. Dolly had been with k 0:25:23.240 --> 0:25:26.880 Noodler since the nineteen twenties, when Roland Ballet had brought 0:25:26.960 --> 0:25:31.720 him in. Roland's wife, Pelisse, tells the story of how 0:25:31.760 --> 0:25:36.679 he brought Dolly Toner. Roland was a very good friend 0:25:36.680 --> 0:25:41.720 of Christian Dio since they were young, and Christian Dio 0:25:42.080 --> 0:25:46.040 was had a little gallery in Paris, and he and 0:25:46.240 --> 0:25:50.119 Rollan had lunch one day and Dior said him, you know, 0:25:50.280 --> 0:25:53.600 I'm representing a Spanish artist. I'm having a show of 0:25:53.720 --> 0:25:56.960 his right now. Would you come to the gallery after lunch? 0:25:57.480 --> 0:26:00.440 And Rolland said sure, I'd love to. And he went 0:26:00.480 --> 0:26:03.199 to the gallery and looked at the paintings and It 0:26:03.280 --> 0:26:07.560 was this young Spanish artist named Salvador Dolly, And of 0:26:07.640 --> 0:26:11.080 course Nodler Gallery was a big deal gallery, and Christian 0:26:11.119 --> 0:26:13.960 Dior just had this little thing. And he said to 0:26:14.080 --> 0:26:16.600 Rolland do you really like him? He said, yes, I 0:26:16.640 --> 0:26:20.600 like his work very much. And Dior said, would you 0:26:20.640 --> 0:26:24.600 be interested in taking him on for Ndler? And Rolland said, 0:26:24.640 --> 0:26:27.120 I really would. I'd like to meet him and I'd 0:26:27.160 --> 0:26:30.320 like to to see more of his work. And that's 0:26:30.359 --> 0:26:34.040 what happened, and his Rolland always tells the story. I 0:26:34.119 --> 0:26:38.359 took Dolly to Ndler, and Christian Dior went onto the 0:26:38.480 --> 0:26:45.280 dress business. Dolly's health was fragile now, but the old 0:26:45.320 --> 0:26:49.760 surrealist remained immensely popular and sold out bi annual shows 0:26:49.760 --> 0:26:53.600 at Nodler with a little help from the staff. In 0:26:53.720 --> 0:26:58.840 an interview for Vanity Fair, Richardson described Dolly's poignant situation. 0:27:00.880 --> 0:27:05.040 It was fascinating because he couldn't draw anymore. Richardson recalled 0:27:05.040 --> 0:27:08.119 of Dolly his hands were too weak for him to 0:27:08.160 --> 0:27:10.760 do the work. All he could do was sign his name. 0:27:11.320 --> 0:27:16.320 His eyes had gone. To put Dolly in a good mood, 0:27:16.840 --> 0:27:20.000 the staff would bring female models down to the basement 0:27:20.560 --> 0:27:23.919 have them undress and tell them to roll around naked 0:27:24.119 --> 0:27:27.720 on large pieces of rolling paper smeared with blue paint. 0:27:28.800 --> 0:27:32.280 For one show, Dolly had the idea to do holograms 0:27:32.280 --> 0:27:35.080 of his own work, but he hadn't made them yet. 0:27:35.200 --> 0:27:38.679 Richardson explained, in order to do them, we had to 0:27:38.720 --> 0:27:42.920 find some original dollies. So Roland and I went down 0:27:42.920 --> 0:27:45.320 to the basement and we found a bunch of old 0:27:45.520 --> 0:27:49.679 nineteen century sculpture of no great distinction. We got someone 0:27:49.720 --> 0:27:52.560