Speaker 1: Just off Madison Avenue on East seventy third Street for
Speaker 1: lunchtime crowded Via Quadrono fills every sidewalk table as well
Speaker 1: as the seats in its pandemic inspired shed. It's a
Speaker 1: cheerful neighborhood joint, catering to a young crowd with great coffee,
Speaker 1: sandwiches and pasta. A sense of triumph pervades the place.
Speaker 1: Among all the restaurants closed by COVID nineteen, Via Quadrono
Speaker 1: is more popular than ever. Often from a town house
Speaker 1: next door, a stooped figure emerges from an upper floor
Speaker 1: and makes her way down the stately front steps past
Speaker 1: the Millennials. She looks smaller than she once did, as
Speaker 1: if scrunched by the circumstances that let her here, though
Speaker 1: she still has the white corkscrew curls that made her
Speaker 1: stand out in any art fair or gallery opening, and
Speaker 1: the stern, almost imperious mien for which she was known.
Speaker 1: A little over a decade ago. Ann Friedman was among
Speaker 1: the most powerful art dealers in New York. Her fiefdom
Speaker 1: was the Knodler Gallery, from which she sold works by
Speaker 1: many of the best known artists of the mid twentieth century.
Speaker 1: Mark Rothkoe, William Dacooning, Barnett Newman, Clifford Still, and Jackson Pollock.
Speaker 1: Today the Kndler is gone. Just three blocks down Madison
Speaker 1: on the north Side Street stand the ghosts of the
Speaker 1: now infamous gallery to adjoining limestone mansions in the Italian
Speaker 1: Renaissance style with ornate stone arches topped by decorative balconies.
Speaker 1: In the galleries own Renaissance. A Royal Blue Awning announced
Speaker 1: the Ndler's two buildings in appital letters. In this season
Speaker 1: of Art Fraud, we're examining the rise and fall of
Speaker 1: the Knoedler Gallery. It's a story about one of New
Speaker 1: York City's oldest and most celebrated galleries dealing in world
Speaker 1: class art, and how its doors would close forever in
Speaker 1: the face of insurmountable pressure, ultimately in the form of
Speaker 1: looming prison time. We're talking, of course, about paintings, fake paintings,
Speaker 1: or more plainly, forgeries. The best fakes are still hanging
Speaker 1: off people's walls. You know they don't even know or
Speaker 1: suspect that they're fakes. Of course, art forgeries only happen
Speaker 1: because there's money to be made, a lot of money.
Speaker 1: Tens of millions of dollars would change hands between a
Speaker 1: cast of characters. Before it was all over, A few profited,
Speaker 1: some were cheated, and at least one person and would
Speaker 1: find themselves behind bars. With me today is Michael Schneerson,
Speaker 1: a long time contributing editor for Vanity Fair, whose feature
Speaker 1: story on the Knoedler Gallery appeared in the magazine shortly
Speaker 1: after the scandal broke in the spring of two thousand twelve.
Speaker 1: Michael is also the author of Boom Mad Money, Mega
Speaker 1: Dealers and the Rise of Contemporary Art are compelling and
Speaker 1: entertaining overview of the dealers who helped make the contemporary
Speaker 1: art market what it is today. The honest dealers, I
Speaker 1: hasten to add, because generally these dealers were and are honest,
Speaker 1: driven by a passion for their artists far more than profit.
Speaker 1: Here's Michael Schneerson. I've written a lot of articles for
Speaker 1: Vanity Fair, but the Notler case sticks in my mind
Speaker 1: because at the heart of it lies an unresolved mystery.
Speaker 1: The story, of course, has taken some turns that even
Speaker 1: Anne Friedman could not have predicted. You could say that
Speaker 1: about the whole contemporary art market. I suppose who would
Speaker 1: have imagined at the start of the century that an
Speaker 1: artist named Jeff Coon's would make a supersized stainless steel
Speaker 1: rabbit that's sold at auction in May two nineteen million dollars,
Speaker 1: the highest price ever paid for a living artist's work.
Speaker 1: Who could have predicted that a young Brooklyn artist named
Speaker 1: Jean Michel Baskuillade would make his oddly haunting abstract portraits
Speaker 1: of tribal figures and totems in a basement for drug money,
Speaker 1: only to have them sell after his premature death for
Speaker 1: as much as a hundred and ten million dollars. Record
Speaker 1: Breaking sales like that have done more than juice the
Speaker 1: art market. They've led to a gray market of private
Speaker 1: dealings that thrive in a hot climate. It's important to
Speaker 1: note that the art market is still the world's largest
Speaker 1: unregulated business. Legal business anyway. You have to do what
Speaker 1: you say you'll do when striking a deal. You have
Speaker 1: to pay your taxes, and that's about it. I remember
Speaker 1: go in to a mega dealer's home in East Hampton
Speaker 1: one night and commenting that the art market was the
Speaker 1: last unregulated multibillion dollar equity market in the world. Our
Speaker 1: host said, and let's try to keep it that way
Speaker 1: as his guests raised their glasses and toasted. When a
Speaker 1: dealer goes further trafficking and paintings that turn out to
Speaker 1: be fakes, is there any pattern to explain why that happens.
Speaker 1: Usually it starts with someone down on their luck, a
Speaker 1: dealer or perhaps an unsuccessful artist. The fraudster may have
Speaker 1: no intention of doing more than tweaking a painting to
Speaker 1: make it more saleable, or fabricating just one work to
Speaker 1: pay the bills. But what if he or she turns
Speaker 1: out to be awfully good at it and the dealer,
Speaker 1: in desperate straits buys it. What if the dealer then
Speaker 1: sells it for a profit to someone unaware of the fraud.
Speaker 1: And so a fascinating dance begins to dance about the
Speaker 1: art that's changing hands, but even more so, a dance
Speaker 1: about the story behind the art. At first, the froster
Speaker 1: tells a bit of the story, just one or two
Speaker 1: tantalizing and fabricated bits to explain how and when the
Speaker 1: painting was done. And then as the dance goes on,
Speaker 1: the victim let's call him the mark, grows ever more
Speaker 1: eager to hear more. After all, the more he hears,
Speaker 1: the more the expanding story seems to authenticate the art
Speaker 1: he's bought and the money he'll lose if it turns
Speaker 1: out the story was a scam, until the fraudster and
Speaker 1: the mark are intertwined, each so eager to believe the
Speaker 1: story that for both it sort of comes true. So
Speaker 1: it would become for Ann Friedman, the Nole Gallery's director,
Speaker 1: and a mysterious woman named Lepa Rosalez, who, on her
Speaker 1: visits to the Nodler starting in always seemed to have
Speaker 1: another mid century masterpiece under her arm. As we embark
Speaker 1: on this exploration, it's my opinion that Anne sold those
Speaker 1: paintings convinced they were real, until the day Glafira brought
Speaker 1: the whole story crashing down. I don't believe Anne knew
Speaker 1: they were fakes and sold them as fakes. I have
Speaker 1: to be honest with you, Alex, I disagree. I think
Speaker 1: you couldn't be a well known, long time dealer in
Speaker 1: top tier art and sell paintings one after another with
Speaker 1: no clear trail of ownership unless you were acting with
Speaker 1: criminal intent. I think and knew exactly what she was doing.
Speaker 1: If not from the beginning, then soon enough and that
Speaker 1: she hoped she could fool the art world over and
Speaker 1: over again, as indeed she did for some fourteen years.
Speaker 1: So the first question is whether Ann Friedman knew what
Speaker 1: she was buying when she bought these works for whopping
Speaker 1: discounts from Fia Rosalie and her confederates. And the next
Speaker 1: question is should Anne's own customers, to whom she retailed
Speaker 1: these paintings, should they have been more aware of what
Speaker 1: they were doing. There's an argument in the art world
Speaker 1: that when you purchase an expensive work of art, it's
Speaker 1: your obligation, as a sophisticated buyer to do your research,
Speaker 1: talked to experts and so forth. Robert Store, former director
Speaker 1: of the Yale School of Art and one of the
Speaker 1: country's most important art critics, said at a conference not
Speaker 1: long ago, the collectors are quote unquote stupid to spend
Speaker 1: millions of dollars on a work of art without personally
Speaker 1: investigating its authenticity. And I think he has a point.
Speaker 1: That's an interesting idea. So what's your responsibility of your
Speaker 1: the buyer, to figure out if my artist fake. I've
Speaker 1: got a gallery full of art in the Upper East Side.
Speaker 1: Some of it is real, some of it is not
Speaker 1: you decide. Well, that's a fair point. I guess my
Speaker 1: reluctance to think the worst event has as much to
Speaker 1: do with how I felt about the gallery is what
Speaker 1: I felt about her. I'm not a serious collector of
Speaker 1: contemporary art, far from it, but I like looking at art,
Speaker 1: and on occasion I've bought a painting not for seven
Speaker 1: or eight figures, but maybe six. In fact, I've been
Speaker 1: the victim of an art forgery myself, but we'll get
Speaker 1: to that later. The Noodler felt different from almost every
Speaker 1: other gallery in New York. There's a stateliness about the
Speaker 1: a touch of class, old world manners. The Noder didn't
Speaker 1: just sell contemporary art. It's old modern art too, which
Speaker 1: is to say, art by artists who started before World
Speaker 1: War Two, anyone from Brock and Picasso to Francis Bacon.
Speaker 1: A sweeping stairway led from the showrooms to the office above,
Speaker 1: where Ann Friedman presided. The true marvel of Knoedler was
Speaker 1: its legacy. It was the oldest gallery in New York,
Speaker 1: opened in eight Through those five years, it had never closed,
Speaker 1: not in the Civil War, not in World War Two,
Speaker 1: through every calamity in American history since the Antebellum era,
Speaker 1: the k Noodler had survived. But who was Knodler and
Speaker 1: how did the venerable gallery get its start in New York?
Speaker 1: That's after the break. It was an eighteen fifty two
Speaker 1: that a young and ambitious gallery assistant named Michael Ndler
Speaker 1: disembark from a Transatlantic ship in New York, scanning the
Speaker 1: busy waterfront for the face he hoped to find. Soon enough,
Speaker 1: he spotted his man, William schaus Chaos had come from
Speaker 1: Paris four years earlier to start a New York branch
Speaker 1: of a company called Goupil vbel a C soon to
Speaker 1: be known as Ndler. Michael Knoedler was a Goupeel employee
Speaker 1: in Paris. That's Dick McIntosh. For years, Dick worked at
Speaker 1: the Knoedler Gallery as its historian. He was on the
Speaker 1: verge of publishing the definitive history of the gallery when
Speaker 1: its gates came crashing down. Out of Goupiel met Michael
Speaker 1: Knoedler in Stuttgart in the course of business and brought
Speaker 1: him to Goupeel in Company in Paris, and Michael Knodler
Speaker 1: trained in Paris for a good ten or twelve years
Speaker 1: he was totally a vassal of Adolf Kupel. William Schaus
Speaker 1: was the first person sent here to open the gallery,
Speaker 1: who arrived in eighteen forty seven to scout things out
Speaker 1: to help us understand how the Noodler became the first
Speaker 1: art gallery in New York and how for decades it
Speaker 1: remained the Venerable Nodler Gallery, as if venerable was part
Speaker 1: of its title. I've asked Noodler historian Dick McIntosh and
Speaker 1: Francis Batty to art market experts to share some Nodal
Speaker 1: history with me at my home on the Upper East Side.
Speaker 1: The fact that I live on East seventy third Street,
Speaker 1: steps from Freedom and Arts is just a coincidence, though
Speaker 1: it does mean I get more sightings of Anne than
Speaker 1: I otherwise would, And to be candid, I've often found
Speaker 1: myself turning a corner at almost the exact moment and
Speaker 1: reaches the corner from the other side, or spotting that
Speaker 1: mop of silver curls to block away heading in my direction.
Speaker 1: I would be less than honest if I didn't admit
Speaker 1: I've taken avoidance measures, darting between parked cars or turning
Speaker 1: so abruptly that I bargined to strangers. Partly it said
Speaker 1: I have nothing to say to her, but also I
Speaker 1: know that my Vanity Fair story, while it seemed fair
Speaker 1: to me, cut her deeply. That's never my intent with
Speaker 1: the magazine story. But sometimes the facts just go where
Speaker 1: they will at any rate. There's not much to say
Speaker 1: other than to ask questions she'd rather not answer, and
Speaker 1: to watch her stock off and a huff dick. I
Speaker 1: know the firm that came to be an odler didn't
Speaker 1: start as an art gallery. What was it exactly? When
Speaker 1: you walked into the place, what did you see? A store?
Speaker 1: The family always called it the store, which is an
Speaker 1: indication of its very eclectic nature. It would be very,
Speaker 1: very pretentious to call yourself a gallery, because it's like
Speaker 1: calling yourself a museum, and that would be, I think
Speaker 1: at that point, very inappropriate. That's Francis Beatty. Francis has
Speaker 1: been an art dealer for nearly forty years, first in
Speaker 1: partnership with the late legendary Richard Fagan, now with her
Speaker 1: son Alex, a tall and suave dealer in his own
Speaker 1: right who spends every spare moment schmoozing with tech billionaires
Speaker 1: ready to cover their walls with art. The point was
Speaker 1: to sell the excess stock of the Goopeel Company from Paris.
Speaker 1: The technology of making reproductions had improved to the point
Speaker 1: that many more a much larger quantity of reproductions could
Speaker 1: be made could be manufactured. Did reproductions usually mean engravings?
Speaker 1: Originally it meant engravings, but by this time there were lithographs,
Speaker 1: which were the cheapest and easiest to produce in the
Speaker 1: largest quality, and etchings and media. At the same time. Though,
Speaker 1: in the eighteen forties when this store opened, someone was
Speaker 1: painting right, even in America. Thomas cole A should b
Speaker 1: drand the whole school in school, then Coloss Let us
Speaker 1: not forget the German American Immanuel Leitza who painted the
Speaker 1: famous Washington crossing the Delaware right. In fact, goo Pelee
Speaker 1: made reproductions of the painting in all sizes in Paris
Speaker 1: and sent them to America, where they sold like hock kicks.
Speaker 1: Mark Twain famously said that if General Washington had known
Speaker 1: the extent of reproductions that were going to be made
Speaker 1: of his image, he'd have thought twice about crossing the
Speaker 1: Delaware in the first place. How did Michael Nodler get involved.
Speaker 1: When Goopeelee and Shouts had a serious disagreement over how
Speaker 1: profits from the New York Gallery, We're going to be divided.
Speaker 1: Chow's quit and set up his own business, and Michael
Speaker 1: Nodler was dispatched here to continue on in eighteen fifty two,
Speaker 1: how would you describe the store's evolution from selling reproductions
Speaker 1: to actual paintings for the store to become the first
Speaker 1: real art gallery in New York gradual, and then it
Speaker 1: kind of starts to really pick up steam in the eighties.
Speaker 1: Then you have this extraordinary kind of explosion for the
Speaker 1: next thirty years of them bringing major, major pictures, Goya, Turner,
Speaker 1: I mean, just these legendary names of incredible quality to America.
Speaker 1: Did a few collectors become the lynchpins of notary success?
Speaker 1: I'm thinking Henry Clay Frick, for one, the great steel industrialist. Frick,
Speaker 1: for many years was Noler's biggest client. The first painting
Speaker 1: he bought was four and immediately afterwards he began buying
Speaker 1: in real quantity, and his close association with the Knodler
Speaker 1: Gallery lasted for the rest of his lifetime, in other words,
Speaker 1: until when he died, and when he died. Charles Carstairs,
Speaker 1: the man who had sold him the first painting, was
Speaker 1: a pall bearer at his funeral. Michael K. Nodler made
Speaker 1: the gallery grow, and so did his sons. As it did,
Speaker 1: it began moving uptown, up along Broadway, then over to
Speaker 1: Fifth Avenue, following the city's own restless course. The location
Speaker 1: of the store was important for two reasons. First, it
Speaker 1: was in Little Farge buildings. The choice of the location
Speaker 1: was determined by a network of French people in New York,
Speaker 1: one of whom was the father of Jean LeFarge, the artist,
Speaker 1: who was a real estate investor, a successful real estate
Speaker 1: investor in early New York. Secondly, due to the rise
Speaker 1: of department stores in Paris in the mid nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: which is where they really began in the form that
Speaker 1: we know them today, it was clear to all concern
Speaker 1: that it was a good idea to be located near
Speaker 1: a department store, because that's where everybody went for every
Speaker 1: last little thing. As the Nodlers migrated, they started taking
Speaker 1: on more original art, even oil paintings. They sold to
Speaker 1: the founders of New American fortunes Erbilt's Asters and Rockefeller's
Speaker 1: all frequented Kndler, so did Henry Flagler of Standard Oil
Speaker 1: and sugar refiner H. O. Have Ameyer. In the course
Speaker 1: of two days, railroad magnate Jay Gould bought twenty two pictures.
Speaker 1: All of these grandees had more than paintings on the
Speaker 1: walls of their brand new mansions. They had collections. Then,
Speaker 1: in the early nineteen twenties, the dashing Roland Ballet, a
Speaker 1: Knodler on his mother's side, came from Paris in his
Speaker 1: twenties to work at the family business. The last of
Speaker 1: the Ndler family directors, Roland had no choice, really, but
Speaker 1: to join the store when he came of age. Roland
Speaker 1: liked to recall that his very first memory of meeting
Speaker 1: an artist came when he was just five. His parents
Speaker 1: brought him to the Parisian countryside of State of Verny
Speaker 1: to have lunch with Claude Monet. They brought a ham
Speaker 1: that got sliced at a table in the arden. For
Speaker 1: the rest of his life, Roland would remember the white
Speaker 1: bearded artist eating the ham and looking at him with
Speaker 1: kindly eyes against a backdrop of water lilies. Roland arrived
Speaker 1: in New York in n at the age of twenty two,
Speaker 1: drinking most of the way with Pierre Matisse, the artist's son,
Speaker 1: who would remain a lifelong pal. He came bearing other
Speaker 1: friendships with some of Paris's best contemporary artists, brac Lege
Speaker 1: and Picasso. To his chagrin, he found his older family
Speaker 1: members in New York underwhelmed by the paintings he brought.
Speaker 1: Put them in the basement. They told him when he
Speaker 1: showed them the new Cubist that Paris had embraced, the
Speaker 1: children will take them. The Knoedler wasn't avant garde, as
Speaker 1: its family directors reminded Roland. It solved the art of
Speaker 1: its times, or, perhaps more accurately, it sold the art
Speaker 1: of the times it's buyers embraced, which tended to be
Speaker 1: a decade or two behind contemporary art. Roland had no
Speaker 1: choice but to guit his teeth and sell his clients
Speaker 1: what they wanted. In the aftermath of World War Two,
Speaker 1: a new school of art arose to show its devastation
Speaker 1: the often brutal, sweeping brushstrokes of abstract expressionism. Yet Noodler
Speaker 1: kept its distance, as painters like Jackson Pollock and William
Speaker 1: Dacooning Clifford still Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko rose with
Speaker 1: a new generation of dealers, namely Betty Parsons, Sidney Janie
Speaker 1: and Leo Castelli. These were the groundbreaking dealers of the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties. Very few people were buying contemporary art. If
Speaker 1: Pollock hadn't had Peggy Guggenheim, he would have starved. They
Speaker 1: were all starving in the fifties. They really weren't, not
Speaker 1: until sort of Andy Warhol started to make money out
Speaker 1: of art under Rolla Ballet. The Knodler was running out
Speaker 1: of steam. Having missed the post war era, it went
Speaker 1: on to overlook pop art too. By the end of
Speaker 1: the sixties, it had moved to One East, then proceeded
Speaker 1: to spend so much money renovating its newly acquired mansion
Speaker 1: that it nearly went broke. The Knodler needed an angel,
Speaker 1: someone far more deep pocketed than Roland Ballet. In nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy one, the Knodler found that angel in Armand Hammer,
Speaker 1: the billionaire industrialist. Knowing how financially imperiled Rollan Ballet's ndler was,
Speaker 1: Hammer bought the gallery for two point five million dollars
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy one. For that modest sum Hammer got
Speaker 1: Knodler's business, its artists, its reputation and history. He also
Speaker 1: got the Italian Renaissance mansion at nineteen East seventieth Street.
Speaker 1: Not long after that deal, Hammer would buy the adjacent
Speaker 1: mansion at one East sevente Street. For Hammer, the deal
Speaker 1: was as much about real estate as art. Hammer hired
Speaker 1: one of his two grandsons, Michael, to run the gallery
Speaker 1: as part of a family foundation. Incidentally, Michael's son, Army Hammer,
Speaker 1: would become a well known Hollywood actor. Still, Michael Hammer
Speaker 1: needed top rate dealers who could finally bring contemporary artists
Speaker 1: to Musty Old Noler. He found them in Lawrence Reuben
Speaker 1: and John Richardson. Reuben was a widely respected private dealer
Speaker 1: whose artists included Richard Deepencorn, Robert Motherwell, and Robert Rauschenberg.
Speaker 1: Larry Ruben was very famous because he was the brother
Speaker 1: of Bill Ruben, who I had actually worked for in
Speaker 1: the seventies. They were arguably two of the most important
Speaker 1: people in the entire art work or. Bill Ruben was
Speaker 1: the chief curator of the Museum of Modern Art, and
Speaker 1: that was a time when the chief curator of the
Speaker 1: Museum of Modern Art was more important than any director anywhere,
Speaker 1: and the fact that his brother actually ran Kndler was
Speaker 1: a let's say, a subject of both admiration and envy
Speaker 1: and some sort of I would say snarkiness because people
Speaker 1: would say, well, Bill Rubens having a big Frank Stella
Speaker 1: show at the Museum of Modern Art, which would of
Speaker 1: course make Frank Stella's incredibly valuable. And at the same
Speaker 1: time Stella was represented by his brother who was running
Speaker 1: the Kndler gallery, So there was some more than whispering
Speaker 1: about conflict of interest, but um, it was evaded by
Speaker 1: Bill Ruben very effectively. We'll be back in a minute.
Speaker 1: Larry brought with him a number of artists who really,
Speaker 1: almost overnight, returned the not Aler to some sort of eminence.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm thinking of obviously Stella, as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: Deven Corn, Richard Depon Corn, another huge coup. And wasn't
Speaker 1: Robert Rauschenberg there for at least part of the time, Yes,
Speaker 1: I think Rauschenberg was there, and mother, well, you know,
Speaker 1: abstract Expressionism was Bill and Larry's kind of sweet spot,
Speaker 1: and so you know, those artists were artists that were
Speaker 1: celebrated the Museum of Modern art and celebrated, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure ensured Ndler's financial viability and success at that time.
Speaker 1: Along with Larry Reuben, Michael Hammer's other heavy gun was
Speaker 1: John Cherson, an english born critic, curator, Picasso biographer, and
Speaker 1: men about town. He told naughty stories about wealthy people
Speaker 1: and made them clamor for more. Along with handling artists
Speaker 1: he brought to Knodler himself. Richardson was induced to take
Speaker 1: on Salvador Dolly, or as he came to put it,
Speaker 1: to join the Dolly team. Dolly had been with k
Speaker 1: Noodler since the nineteen twenties, when Roland Ballet had brought
Speaker 1: him in. Roland's wife, Pelisse, tells the story of how
Speaker 1: he brought Dolly Toner. Roland was a very good friend
Speaker 1: of Christian Dio since they were young, and Christian Dio
Speaker 1: was had a little gallery in Paris, and he and
Speaker 1: Rollan had lunch one day and Dior said him, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm representing a Spanish artist. I'm having a show of
Speaker 1: his right now. Would you come to the gallery after lunch?
Speaker 1: And Rolland said sure, I'd love to. And he went
Speaker 1: to the gallery and looked at the paintings and It
Speaker 1: was this young Spanish artist named Salvador Dolly, And of
Speaker 1: course Nodler Gallery was a big deal gallery, and Christian
Speaker 1: Dior just had this little thing. And he said to
Speaker 1: Rolland do you really like him? He said, yes, I
Speaker 1: like his work very much. And Dior said, would you
Speaker 1: be interested in taking him on for Ndler? And Rolland said,
Speaker 1: I really would. I'd like to meet him and I'd
Speaker 1: like to to see more of his work. And that's
Speaker 1: what happened, and his Rolland always tells the story. I
Speaker 1: took Dolly to Ndler, and Christian Dior went onto the
Speaker 1: dress business. Dolly's health was fragile now, but the old
Speaker 1: surrealist remained immensely popular and sold out bi annual shows
Speaker 1: at Nodler with a little help from the staff. In
Speaker 1: an interview for Vanity Fair, Richardson described Dolly's poignant situation.
Speaker 1: It was fascinating because he couldn't draw anymore. Richardson recalled
Speaker 1: of Dolly his hands were too weak for him to
Speaker 1: do the work. All he could do was sign his name.
Speaker 1: His eyes had gone. To put Dolly in a good mood,
Speaker 1: the staff would bring female models down to the basement
Speaker 1: have them undress and tell them to roll around naked
Speaker 1: on large pieces of rolling paper smeared with blue paint.
Speaker 1: For one show, Dolly had the idea to do holograms
Speaker 1: of his own work, but he hadn't made them yet.
Speaker 1: Richardson explained, in order to do them, we had to
Speaker 1: find some original dollies. So Roland and I went down
Speaker 1: to the basement and we found a bunch of old
Speaker 1: nineteen century sculpture of no great distinction. We got someone
Speaker 1: to paint antlers on a loaf of bread and other
Speaker 1: surrealist cliches, and this crap sold. Dolly's only contribution was
Speaker 1: a huge signature, because that's all he could do anymore.
Speaker 1: It was, in its way a kind of art world fraud,
Speaker 1: except that the clay lumps and the blue painted paper
Speaker 1: and the holograms were at least touched and blessed by
Speaker 1: the artist, and buyers, foolish as they might be, more
Speaker 1: or less new what they were buying. Coincidentally, it was
Speaker 1: at a Salvador Dolly opening at the Knodler Gallery in
Speaker 1: Night where Philly Say first laid eyes on Roland Dalet.
Speaker 1: As she recalls, it was love at first sight. It
Speaker 1: was a Dolly opening I was representing Dolly at the
Speaker 1: time in the United States, and I went with his
Speaker 1: manager and his wife and we went to the gallery
Speaker 1: and as I walked in, I saw this man at
Speaker 1: the end of the gallery and I just thought to myself,
Speaker 1: my god, that's the man of my life. I was
Speaker 1: married at the time you were married. Yes, he was
Speaker 1: married without don know how many mistresses, and there were
Speaker 1: thirty eight years between you. Yes, he was so delightfully charming.
Speaker 1: This is European elegance like doesn't exist anymore, didn't even
Speaker 1: really exist then. It was five years later, in ninety three,
Speaker 1: when Philice Say was arriving at Michael Hammer's gallery to
Speaker 1: meet a client for lunch, when fate would bring the
Speaker 1: two back together, this time for good. I went to
Speaker 1: the gallery and we were up on the second floor
Speaker 1: and the elevator opened and then off the elevator came
Speaker 1: Roll on and I was like, oh my god, and
Speaker 1: I said, I've been in Paris for three months. If
Speaker 1: I can't pull this off today, there's something definitely wrong
Speaker 1: with me. At the end of lunch, we got up
Speaker 1: and rolland came over to me and he said, you know,
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed having lunch with you. I find you charming,
Speaker 1: but I would like it if we could have lunch
Speaker 1: just the two of us. Would you do that? And
Speaker 1: I said, just tell me when, And we had lunch
Speaker 1: the next day and really practically didn't separate from that moment. On.
Speaker 1: With the sale of Knodler to armand Hammer, Roland Ballet
Speaker 1: began organizing his exit. He married Philie Say she at
Speaker 1: he at sixty six, and the two moved to Paris.
Speaker 1: They lived like the newly weds. They were oblivious to
Speaker 1: their nearly four decade age difference until armand Hammer disrupted
Speaker 1: their idol. Hammer owed a third and final payment to
Speaker 1: Ballet to complete his purchase of the Ndler Gallery and
Speaker 1: simply refused to make it. Roland was appalled. He never
Speaker 1: thought armand Hammer would be so awful and such a crook,
Speaker 1: Phelice Say recalled later. A judge had to intervene. We
Speaker 1: were in Paris and we got this call from his
Speaker 1: lawyer that Almand Hamma was going to be in New
Speaker 1: York in two days and he wanted to settle it,
Speaker 1: and Roland, if he really wanted to do, they should
Speaker 1: come to New York. So we dropped everything and flew
Speaker 1: to New York. Roland went to court and Hamma was
Speaker 1: there and the thing was he said, yes, you know,
Speaker 1: I'll settle in. And Roland said, I I have to
Speaker 1: go back to France and I have things to do,
Speaker 1: and if you want to settle it, I want a
Speaker 1: bank check for it by the end of the day. Today.
Speaker 1: Hammer gave the check. By the end of the day,
Speaker 1: the bank check, and we went back to Paris. Sick
Speaker 1: of the art business, Roland Ballet resigned as Ndler's director
Speaker 1: and settled in to enjoy what would prove to be
Speaker 1: more years of conjugal bliss with his young and adoring wife.
Speaker 1: He owned one of the two buildings on East sevent Street,
Speaker 1: number twenty one, which would eventually pass to Philly Say
Speaker 1: and be sold by her in two thousand eleven for
Speaker 1: fifteen and a half million dollars, but he rarely came
Speaker 1: to the gallery anymore. So he almost certainly failed to
Speaker 1: notice a nine year old salesperson who joined Nodler in December.
Speaker 1: Her name was Ann Friedman, and her impact on the
Speaker 1: gallery would be both profound and tragic. Over many of
Speaker 1: its one fifty plus years, the Knoedler had been a living,
Speaker 1: breathing presence, a character in the story of twenty century art.
Speaker 1: Its fortunes had risen and sometimes dipped, but its reputation
Speaker 1: remained intact, and the employees who chose to work there
Speaker 1: for modest salaries were personally devoted to it. They would
Speaker 1: find in Ann Friedman a very different kind of gallerists,
Speaker 1: one much more focused on money that art. Over a
Speaker 1: fourteen year period, and Freedman oversaw the selling of more
Speaker 1: than sixty disputed paintings, reaping eighty million dollars for the gallery,
Speaker 1: a trio of forgers, and Freedman herself to the shock
Speaker 1: and scorn of the entire contemporary art market. She even
Speaker 1: managed to open a new gallery, Friedman Arts, on the
Speaker 1: third floor of a townhouse on East seventy third Street,
Speaker 1: next door to the chik Via Quadrono restaurant. She goes
Speaker 1: up and down those stairs every day, a free woman,
Speaker 1: but a shunned presence in this neighborhood of world renowned dealers.
Speaker 1: We're coming back from Frank Stella's studio and you got
Speaker 1: a call, and now he's boiling. He wants to kill her.
Speaker 1: That's next time on art Fraud. Come with me I'm
Speaker 1: you know, world of pure imagineation. Mhm. Take coll and
Speaker 1: you see into your imagination. Art Fraud is brought to
Speaker 1: you by iHeart Radio and Cavalry Audio. Our executive producers
Speaker 1: are Matt del Piano, Keegan Rosenberger, Andy Turner, myself, and
Speaker 1: Michael Snayerson. We're produced by Brandon Morgan and Zach McNeice.
Speaker 1: Zach also edited and mixed this episode. Lindsay Hoffman is
Speaker 1: our managing producer. Our writer is Michael Schneerson. If you
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