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Kevin Callahan

8 Years Ago

Today I was watching yet another police procedural where the “bad guy” was a top level art forger. It made me think about the TV shows, movies, and books about fake masterpieces, both fiction and non-fiction. We are often told by those in the “know” that a large number of works hanging in museums around the world are, in fact, fakes. What about this un-provable factoid? If a work is so well done that it takes multiple testing by art firms, years of arguing and law suits to determine(?) that it is a clever fake… well. If what is claimed is true, then every museumgoer that has walked by “thinks” they have seen a masterpiece. What do YOU make of this? If anything at all.

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Ronald Walker

8 Years Ago

I knew a guy down in Missouri who would do fake masterpieces. He would buy old bolts of canvas from things like barn sales. He claimed there was a museum in the South West that owned a Remington he had painted. He said if they ever spent the money to test it they would discover it was done in Acrylic and not oil. Seemed like a lot of work to me making sure you had the correct weave of canvas or the correct type of panel to work on, and spending all the time and effort to copy a master's style.

 

Joy McKenzie

8 Years Ago

Hi Kevin! As you know, professional art conservators can tell, via various methods, whether a piece of art is the real thing or a forgery/fake. If I ever get to the Louvre, I would want that guarantee that what I'm looking at are actual originals by the stated masters. I think it's something a museum would have as a high priority...to make sure what they are displaying and claiming to be painted by so-and-so, actually is. It would be a total embarrassment otherwise, wouldn't it? People study for years to be able to tell real from fake, in so many areas of the arts and crafts, as there are so many forgeries out there....some of them very hard to tell for a layperson whether they are real or a forgery. I would imagine that any museum would have ways of checking: x-rays, CT scans, even cleaning of the work to make sure it's the real thing BEFORE they even consider displaying it.

I think for perhaps a group of people, if they viewed a fake vs. an original....an extremely good forgery...they would get just as much pleasure out of that viewing. For me...I want to see the real thing. Otherwise I'd go to the Museum of Fakes in Vienna :)

 

Lutz Baar

8 Years Ago

Good fakes might attract more visitors than boring originals in many museuums, like Getty in Los Angeles and the Picasso museum at Malaga, Spain.

 

Edward Fielding

8 Years Ago

This was a good doc: "Art and Craft"

"For nearly 30 years, art forger Mark Landis duped dozens of museums into accepting fakes into their collections. His stunts made headlines around the world. But Mark Landis never asked for money so he never went to jail."

http://www.npr.org/2014/09/27/351738720/art-craft-explores-how-one-forger-duped-more-than-45-museums

 

Floyd Snyder

8 Years Ago

"If I ever get to the Louvre, I would want that guarantee that what I'm looking at are actual originals by the stated masters. "

I would be ready to be picked up by who ever the policing agency is for the Louvre within a few days if not hours of asking for that guarantee. lol

 

Kevin Callahan

8 Years Ago

Thanks all, yes Edward I looked at that article before I posted. I am not advocating fake art. But one does wonder if I walked past a Cezanne, perhaps and really loved it AND it were a strict forgery would it matter? To me that is. I would most likely spend time telling those who would listen about the great work of art I saw in the ****.

While there are many good tests to determine validity they are not foolproof. And if a museum has to resort to several levels of testing then they are at least looking at a darned good painting, regardless. I know for the past several years there has been an ongoing controversy about Degas bronze molds (plasters) in France. Are they or aren't they. We may never really know, only that someone on an art board will make a determination.

Confusing uh? I'd be a bit upset if that $3 million dollar French landscape I purchased (theoretically) turned out to have been painting in Toledo, Ohio that is.

 

Dan Turner

8 Years Ago

I watch those movies. I read those books. Making a foolproof fake is an art. I especially like the guy who paints original work, carefully constructing and aging the substrate so it passes the 17th century test, then signs a famous artist's name to it -- an undiscovered masterpiece! He let Sotheby's auction them for over half a million each.

If a fake is that good I would get just as much enjoyment viewing it as the real thing. But if I was investing a few million into it, it needs to be the real thing!


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

 

Joe Burgess

8 Years Ago

I was reading recently about how many ancient Greek sculptures are only known to have existed due to the frequency at which Rome would copy them.
Those copies are much of what we see today.

 

Lisa Kaiser

8 Years Ago

I have a few people who want me to do masterpieces that are from the great artists of our times and past. When I go in to the study of every brush stroke, I'm certain that a work like that would take me a year or so.

And this reminds me...

I once redid a report card of mine that was all D's C's and F's. I was masterful enough to create a computer print-out that matched the real report card, but with A's, B's and mostly C's. It took a long time by hand with computer paper and black ink. My parents bought into it completely. They wanted so much to believe, and threw me a party, but not for academic compliance, more for trying and maybe caring. That wasn't my character.

Guess what the ole Universe had in store for me though? Yes I bragged about my achievement and the person who told on me was none other than the guy I was dating. Ha!

I'll never forget my dad's face when he got the real report card, the school counselor was amazed as well, but not in a good way.

Just so all of you don't have nightmares, my parents kept that report card along with fifteen notes I had written in my mom's handwriting that the reason I skipped school so much was due to my extreme dental problems.

So do I want to pretend I'm great or create something that doesn't belong to me, even if it makes me look great or creates sales?

No, because I learned at 13 to embrace what I am, who I am, and my art for what it is. I do appreciate the people who can copy and Yes, I can copy if I take a lot of time, but I would rather create.

 

Kevin Callahan

8 Years Ago

Wonderful story Lisa, made me laugh. Way back in 1971 the drinking age had not yet dropped to 18 in Iowa BUT drivers licenses were issued on paper. It was no mean feat for an artist with an xacto and a black pen to alter dates. Within a year I was legal anyway.

 

Lisa Kaiser

8 Years Ago

Oh Kevin, I'm glad you can relate. I think I was 14 in 1971 and the kids of today would never understand the adventures or rather parties we had without great media and computers.

 

Vincent Von Frese

8 Years Ago

Proves a point I always make that success as an artist is how much one is imitated or followed. Even Bob Ross has these fakers as they are bred by the trade.

Great art is like great stock on Wall Street as a result lower life forms and punks will work to make the evil money dishonestly as they are stinking jerks and have no imagination or talent of their own!

 

Vincent Von Frese

8 Years Ago

There are real fakes and then fake fakes but art conservation experts are not always able to figure out the truth in very old and antique works by Rembrandt for example.

 

Danl Art

8 Years Ago

A small artwork billed as a 19th-Century "Continental School" painting and titled "Triple Portrait with Lady Fainting" valued at just $500 to $800 broke free of that price range and raced to a final bid of $870,000 on September 22, sparking talk that the bidders who competed intensely for it believe it could be a Rembrandt.

A similar, though even more monumental Old Master coup was seen last year, when a buyer who acquired an unattributed painting at a Christie's auction for $5,000, cleaned it up, spent some time and money on authenticating it as a work by John Constable, and then sold it at Sotheby's for a whopping $5 million.

 

Edward Fielding

8 Years Ago

In Art and Craft the forgery artist posed as someone donating the art to a museum. Even had fake photos showing the art hanging in his "dear Mother's" living room. The scrutiny of a museum receiving a gift is less than if they were to purchase an piece - which doesn't happen much any more because the art is too expensive.

Mark Landis didn't come off as a "stinking jerk" in the documentary. He wasn't in it for the money it was more like performance art. The person who came off as a "stinky jerk" was the guy who discovered the fakes and then made it his obsession to track down Landis and end his life's passion.

 

Vincent Von Frese

8 Years Ago

Edward, interesting. In fact it must be said that people can change for the better like poachers now turned protectors and thieves now investigators. And it takes great amout of skilled craftsmanship to do any kind of forgery well enough to get away with it.

 

Suzanne Powers

8 Years Ago

I don't find duping people entertaining even if it sold for millions, it hurts the reputation of the seller. That's why most on this post are wondering about the authenticity of a museum piece.

 

Edward Fielding

8 Years Ago

In the case of Mark Landis, nothing was sold. The well educated "professionals" were too excited to get their hands on a freebie for the museum, they didn't do their jobs and authenticated the piece.

There must be tons of fakes in museum basements.

 

Kevin Callahan

8 Years Ago

Suzanne, I am with you in that I don't find it entertaining and it certainly does harm to investors (art buyers) if it becomes known and proven. One may sneer at the uber wealthy, and think well if they can afford it... The problem with that type of thinking is that then buyers, investors, museum boards get leery, and the museum going public will suffer for it. BUT my question really revolves around the idea that a forger can paint say a Cezanne so well that it passes muster and gets hung. If YOU walked by, saw it, admired it, but never knew, would it matter?

My point is that "art" and its elevation to veneration, can be a very tricky thing indeed.

 

Vincent Von Frese

8 Years Ago

Whats the word is "veneration" mean in your discussion Kev? Don't understand.
I looked it up and it meant "sainthood".

 

Dan Turner

8 Years Ago

"If YOU walked by, saw it, admired it, but never knew, would it matter?"

No, not at all. 'Knowing' is the missing ingredient to forming a different opinion. For instance, if someone close to you died last June but you didn't know about it, how could you be sad in June, July or August?


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

 

David Randall

8 Years Ago

There was a time years ago when I realized I could copy almost anything I could see given the time. Soon after that I realized that simple craft, crassly copying something although time consuming would never be nearly as satisfying to me as my own artistic expression. My personal take on things.

I want to feel connected to the work fully. In sports it is called getting into the, "zone." It is the most desirable state of being for me. It is holy. I'm not talking religion here although it's deeply spiritual. Time no longer exists and I'm energized by it. Making a forgery could never give me that. I feel sorry for them. Those who have this experience know what I'm talking about. If you have not experienced this while working all I can say is keep at it. Since there are so many photographers here I can only hope photographers get to this state as do many painters. If a forger has the facility to copy others so well they can just do their own thing otherwise it is a waste.

 

Dan Turner

8 Years Ago

"would never be nearly as satisfying to me as my own artistic expression"

Ken Perenyi goes into great detail about that in his book "Caveat Emptor: The Secret Life of an American Art Forger."

Being an A-level forger isn't a hobby, it's a life. For Ken, the painting was only a small and relatively easy part of the overall endeavor. Everything became the art, from procuring or fabricating authentic materials, doing the painting, aging the result, identifying the mark, collecting the money, covering his trail and keeping plates spinning on several fronts.

It takes a unique talent, ambition and chutzpah to play in the big leagues.


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

 

Kevin Callahan

8 Years Ago

Well Vincent I don't usually give grammar lessons but to venerate means to lift above all others, which is what museums do with art

 

Vincent Von Frese

8 Years Ago

My vehicles have both generators and alternators. I am convinced that what I need now is a venerator! This would raise up an emaculate solution to the electrical systems I now need! lOL

 

Kevin Callahan

8 Years Ago

God himself could not raise some of those vehicles you own. Ha!

 

Vincent Von Frese

8 Years Ago

Ha Ha yea for sure Kevin! Could not stop laughing.

Lucas(Lucas wiring systems) is reputed to be the"Prince of Darkness" and is well known for mysterious problems among British automobiles. God may be needed indeed to solve these electrical problems but then one has to humble down and pray. On one's knees or under the truck.
Mechanics are always praying. Could be why one sees little crosses dangling from mirrors on cars!

You going to the Plaza art show?

 

This discussion is closed.