‘art & soul
THE FINE ART OF DECEPTION
There is scarcely a major museum in the world, which has not, at one time, or another, acquired a fake. It would seem that not all art is truth, writes
B. N. Goswamy
“Little Girl in Blue” by Amedeo Modigliani. Private collection, Paris
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In
the context of increasing concerns about faking in contemporary Indian
art—stories about frauds are floating around by the dozen in art
circles—consider these rather chilling facts.
In an informed
article in the New York Times, it was stated recently that
depending on the period and the artist, between 10 and 40 per cent of
paintings for sale at any one time are fraudulent, or so over-restored
as to make them the equivalent of fakes. Thomas Hoving, former
director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, stated that during his
tenure as director, 40 per cent of the artworks considered for
purchase by the museum were fraudulent or over-restored. Some
experts say that 60 per cent of the Swiss artist, Alberto Giacometti’s
paintings on the market are open to doubt, and 40 per cent of
paintings from the Russian avant-garde era are almost certainly
forgeries. There is scarcely a major museum in the world, which has
not, at one time, or another, acquired a fake, all the available
expertise notwithstanding. It would certainly seem that not all art is
truth. Three fake Mona Lisas
have been made and sold. The Tate Gallery in London discovered that
their archives were tampered with and false documents inserted to
"prove" fake works. Just recently, the Italian police
uncovered more than $10 million worth of fake art sales.
"It’s a nightmare", says one leading dealer, James
Roundell. Such is the lure of money that just about everyone appears
to become involved: from gallery owners and art experts to art
historians and heirs of artists. Sometimes even the artists
themselves.Why am I making this murky field the subject of this
piece? Because a small notice in a recent issue of The Art
Newspaper caught my attention. It was about Modigliani fakes,
nearly 1,000 of which appear to be circulating in the market at the
moment. This wonderful Italian painter and sculptor who led a
dissipate life—it is said of him that he created and destroyed
himself at the same time—till he died in 1920 of consumption at the
young age of 36, appears to be a favourite as far as faking is
concerned. For two excellent reasons. One, because he is much loved
as an artist not only for his melancholy portraits and languid nudes,
but also for his exquisite sense of colour. And, two, because his
work, especially his drawings which consist of just a few lines, is
easy to copy: frontal faces with wistful expressions, long necks, eyes
either out of alignment or as if covered with a film. The one man
who turned making Modiglianis fakes into an industry was the Hungarian
aristocrat, Elmyr de Hory, one of the last century’s most celebrated
forgers. To write about de Hory would claim much space—I might
return to him another time—but in his dubious enterprise of pushing
Modigliani fakes this gifted forger had uncommon assistance in the
form of the circumstances of Modigliani’s life. The drug-taking
alcoholic artist led a classic Bohemian lifestyle, constantly moving
as he was from woman to woman, and sometimes from house to house
handing out drawings to pay his debts. There is no clear record thus
of what he made, and where his works went. His mistress, Jeanne
Hebuterne, committed suicide the day after the artist’s funeral, at
which dealers were, according to one of Modigliani’s biographers,
already bartering with the mourners for paintings and drawings. The
family situation was a disaster, and it is of this disaster that
advantage was taken. Provenances were fabricated, fake documentation
created for Modigliani ‘originals’. But there is more to the
matter than this. Enter the ‘experts’ and the ‘art historians’.
The Art Newspaper article that I refer to speaks of a court in
France authorising the search of the archives of a museum in Paris.
This because some ‘Modiglianis’ with faked signatures of the
artist had turned up at some auction and one of the persons suspected
of ‘authenticating’ these— Christian Parisot—had given the
museum’s address as his own. For years, Parisot and a former
colleague, but now a rival, Marc Restellini, have been battling it out
as far as Modiglianis are concerned. M. Parisot claims he has the
right to authenticate the artist’s work, conferred on him by
Modigliani’s daughter. M. Restellini on the other hand stated
publicly that 80 per cent of the works in a ‘Modigliani’
exhibition curated by Parisot were fakes. A battle royal has been
going on between these two ‘experts’. The preparation of a
catalogue of Modigliani’s complete oeuvre, in which a Paris
institute has long been interested, has become one of the most
controversial subjects in the field, for nearly everything is
contested. It is a major minefield. The stakes are high, and enormous
amounts of money could be involved. At a recent sale, one Modigliani
painting went for $11 million, and a drawing fetched some
500,000. Every now and then someone makes an attempt to lift the veil
from the world of faking, a world of smoke and mirrors. Several
studies on fakes have been undertaken; case studies have been
published; scams and scandals have been exposed. In a show, "Fake
or Not Fake", a small museum ventured to draw attention to the
darker side of art restoration in the 20th century when
some great craftsmen stepped beyond the entrusted task of retouching
works and succumbed to what is called "hyper-restoration", a
polite term for sheer fakes. But nothing, studies and all, seems
really to succeed. Merrily, faking goes on everywhere. For it all
comes back to money in the end.
As the faker de Hory said once, the
forger’s greatest ally is greed.
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