In an art market governed largely by pretense and money, does a masterpiece have any intrinsic value? That question has emerged from a civil case brought by Sotheby’s chairman of Domenico de Sole and his wife, Eleanore, against Ann Freedman, former president of the Knoedler Gallery, the oldest and most respected gallery in New York until it closed in 2011 amidst a massive forgery scandal. Knoedler had sold some forty paintings claimed to be by abstract expressionists like Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, and Mark Rothko, all of which turned out to be forgeries created in Queens by a female artist...
