“Untitled” by Jackson Pollock was one of the forged works. How imitations of the most heralded Abstract Expressionists by a complete unknown could have fooled connoisseurs and clients remains a mystery.
Posted on 08/16/2013 5:30:32 AM PDT by dennisw
For 15 years, some of the art world’s most established dealers and experts rhapsodized about dozens of newly discovered masterworks by titans of Modernism. Elite buyers paid up to $17 million to own just one of these canvases, said to have been created by the hands of artists like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline and Robert Motherwell.
But federal prosecutors say that most, if not all, of the 63 ballyhooed works — which fetched more than $80 million in sales — were painted in a home and garage in Queens by one unusually talented but unknown artist who was paid only a few thousand dollars apiece for his handiworks.Authorities did not name or charge the painter and provided few identifying details except to say he had trained at a Manhattan art school in a variety of disciplines including painting, drawing and lithography. He was selling his work on the streets of New York in the early 1990s, they said, when he was spotted by a Chelsea art dealer who helped convert his work into one of the most audacious art frauds in recent memory.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
“Untitled” by Jackson Pollock was one of the forged works. How imitations of the most heralded Abstract Expressionists by a complete unknown could have fooled connoisseurs and clients remains a mystery.
It says something about the nature of modern art that the works this guy fabricated were by Pollock, de Kooning, Motherwell, et al.—that is, nothing with the complex technique of the great artists who were working prior to 1900.
The sleazy NYC art galleries made at least 12.5 million while the forger made much less maybe a few hundred thousand. The buyers spent 80 million or more buying this bogus art.
There is a movie on Netflix called The Forger. Exact same story.
NEW YORK (AFP).- An art dealer who allegedly duped two top New York galleries into buying counterfeit paintings she presented as works by Modernist masters has been indicted for fraud, money laundering and tax evasion. Prosecutors said Glafira Rosales, 56, will be arraigned in a Manhattan court Friday on charges of selling more than 60 fake works of art between 1994 and 2009 for a total of $33.2 million.
Rosales is also charged with concealing the proceeds of her sales by having much of the money sent to overseas bank accounts and filing false tax returns. She faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of fraud and money laundering, the two most serious of the seven counts on which she has been indicted. “The indictment depicts a complete circle of fraud perpetrated by Glafira Rosales — fake paintings sold on behalf of non-existent clients with money deposited into a hidden bank account,” said Preet Bharara, the US attorney in charge of the case.
According to prosecutors, Rosales managed to convince the galleries that some of the previously unknown works came from two clients — one based in Switzerland and one based in Spain — where she had set up bank accounts to receive the payments. Prosecutors say her Swiss client, presented as a wealthy individual who had inherited the art works, was a “a pure fiction” while the Spanish one was a real art collector but had never owned the paintings he was supposed to be selling or had any business relationship with Rosales.
Rosales’s most spectacular success came with the sale of a supposed Jackson Pollock painting known as “Untitled 1950” to the Knoedler & Company gallery, at the time the oldest gallery in New York. In 2007, Knoedler’s then president Ann Freedman sold the work to London collector Pierre Lagrange for $17 million. Lagrange subsequently discovered that two paints used in the work were not invented until after Pollock had died and launched a law-suit against Knoedler & Freedman in May.
More Information: http://artdaily.com/news/63859/New-York-dealer-Glafira-Rosales-who-duped-galleries-indicted-over-massive-art-fraud-#.Ug4cv23xHt8[/url]
Perenyi was featured on a CBS News segment.
Perenyi had a wonderful eye----found that a famous botanical artist used bird and plant stencils superimposed on forest scenes. Perenyi used a photo copier to replicate these works of art.
Why anyone would pay good money for junk like this is the really big mystery.
Pollock is probably the easiest to forge.
He did not use canvases——he bought lengths of sailcloth, dripped paint allover the cloth-—then cut them up into individual paintings.
Ah, yes. The drop cloth school of “art”.
“You call that art? I have a two year old grandkid that can do better than that!”
Actually, some guy with a garage in Queens.
Perenyi stenciled botanical "in the style of."
Um, I think that picture is upside down.
I don’t get this where one minute it’s a masterpiece by a famous painter, but then as soon as they find out it’s by a nobody, it’s crap?
The painting didn’t change. Either it’s good art, or it isn’t.
Yes, some of these abstract works are attractive and harmonious - but couldn’t anybody do something similar themselves?
Try reproducing something by the Old Masters - now that takes talent.
Mystery? Hardly.
My youngest, on a trip ro the Guggenheim, (he was 6 at the rime), pulled my Wife down...and said quietly...
“Mommy, theres a lot of scribbles in here”
If you guys really want a laugh, google Carl Andre.
On a trip to he Whitney, two security guards grabbed my daughter as she was abot to step on, the “art”
Lmao
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