March 15, 2022 • 45 mins
Alec Baldwin recounts his own brush with art fraud. Also, the story of the “Love” artist Robert Indiana. And finally, Alec and Michael Shnayerson offer their final thoughts on Ann Freedman, Glafira Rosales, and The Knoedler scandal.
Hosted by Alec Baldwin. Art Fraud is brought to you by iHeart Radio and Cavalry Audio. Our executive producers are Matt DelPiano, Keegan Rosenberger, Andy Terner, Alec Baldwin and Michael Shnayerson. We’re produced by Branden Morgan and Zach McNees. Zach also edited and mixed this episode. Music by Blue Dot Sessions. Lindsay Hoffman is our managing producer. Our writer is Michael Shnayerson.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
I didn't set out to immerse myself in the murky
realm of art fraud. In two thousand and ten, I
found myself waging legal war with a dealer who sold
me a painting that wasn't quite right, as they say
in the art world. As fate would have it, my
story was unfolding just as the Knoedler gallery scandal was
(00:26):
taking center stage under intense scrutiny from the press. As
an actor, I'm always looking for what defines a character.
All con artists have their own definitive markings, and Friedman
and Glyphira Rosales presented themselves as courtly, almost academic, Yet
(00:48):
behind their poise and professional demeanor, I always sensed an
undertone of loneliness, even despair. To my surprise, these same
traits are evident in both our stories in this final
episode of the season. Art fraud is an ever present phenomenon.
(01:13):
Not long ago, Intego Philbrick, a dapper, young London dealer,
managed to steal some seventy million dollars from his friends
and colleagues by selling fractional shares of paintings than trading
those shares like monopoly cards, oftentimes pieces of one painting
would be sold entirely twice over in what amounted to
(01:35):
a sort of art world Ponzi scheme. Intego was brilliant,
says his friend Kenny Shackter, a droll and beloved columnist
of the contemporary art market, even more than like Goo
Goozien or some of the dealers. He could tell you
the difference between a two million dollar Christopher Wall painting
and a two point two million He would really have
(01:58):
a cabal of people, Intego, that he would sell work to,
and then he would resell it amongst those participants, unwittingly
that we're buying and selling art through him. Shackter lost
one point seven five million dollars when Philbrick vanished, only
to be arrested on an island off the eastern coast
of Australia. Kenny was left to wonder what had motivated
(02:21):
his friend to commit such egregious acts of fraud, just
as I had wondered about my dealer, Mary Boone. I
suspect the motivation is almost always universal greed. We'll get
into my sordid story in a bit, but first I
(02:42):
want to tell you the story of artist Robert Indiana,
creator of the iconic love sculpture. The whole world knows
those four letters to over two that spell love with
its oh at a Debonair slant. Long ago, Indiana had
(03:04):
lived with artist Ellsworth Kelly on Cowenty's Slip, the Artists
Wharf in Lower Manhattan. But in the early eighties he'd
come to the coast of Maine and never left. His
home was a rambling Victorian lodge hall on the scruffy
island of vinyl Haven, about halfway up the coast of May,
near Rockland. There his career had stalled for Indiana refused
(03:27):
a trademark or copyright any of his work, and let
tacky commercial spinoffs of love define him. By the end
of the seventies, he had moved out of New York City,
moved to Maine, and moved to vinyl Haven, Maine, which
is an island an hour off the coast that you
can only get to by ferry or small engine plane.
(03:51):
And so he was as isolated as they can get.
That's Luke nichoas the lawyer who represented Ann Friedman in
the dissol trial, and I found himself fighting a perhaps
more noble campaign on behalf of the iconic artist Robert Indiana,
he was gone as far as the art world was concerned.
Throughout the eighties, he made works here and there, but
(04:14):
he wasn't a superstar anymore. He wasn't recognized, and by
the end of the eighties he might as well not
even have existed in terms of his presence in the
fine art world. That was when an art advisor named
Simon salamac Carro started knocking. Salama Carro had seen his
work and was interested in meeting with Indiana to talk
(04:36):
with him about rejuvenating his career. He saw a path.
He saw a path of reintroducing Indiana's work to art historians,
to museums. He saw a path of getting the infringing
use of Indiana's images under control. No more shoes, no
more trinkets, no more use that was outside of what
(04:59):
Simon thought would really bring the brand back. Sala mccarrow
steered his work away from schlocky spinoffs to sculptures in
what Indiana came to call admiringly the noble Materials. He
also extricated the artist from an unpaid six hundred thousand
dollars in taxes and leans on his home. Such guidance
(05:23):
didn't come for free. Sala mccarro worked for the Morgan
Art Foundation for profit that held the rights to produce
Indiana's best known works, but Indiana could see it had
promise Morgan would take the copyrights in the trademarks, would
give Indiana of revenue from the use of those images,
(05:45):
so it would be a split between them, and Morgan
would monitor and clean up the market for Indiana's images.
It went all over the world and started bringing infringement
suits season desist letters, and ultimately what that did was
it created the very clear message that Indiana's imagery could
not be exploited. At the same time, Morgan put millions
(06:08):
and millions and millions of dollars of funding behind the
fabrication of indiana sculptures, which are extremely expensive to fabricate,
difficult to fabricate. You need real facilities that Indiana did
not have. Ten years later, or so fifteen years, the
Whitney Museum in New York City had a major retrospective
of Indiana's work, and he was back on the map again,
(06:30):
extraordinarily successful. And then what happened. Michael mackenzie came into
the picture. In two thousand eight. Advisor Michael Mackenzie had
a brilliant idea, why not change Indiana's love to hope
and make it the banner for the surging Obama presidential campaign.
(06:53):
As Mackenzie deepened his relationship with Indiana over Hope, he
began expanding Hope Prince on canvas, more Hope sculptures, more
colors of Hope, Expand, Expand, Expand, and then he bought
a studio on Vinyl even near Indiana to have better
access to him. Soon other operators began swooping in. I
(07:18):
spoke with Bob Keys, a long time reporter for the
Portland Press Herald who just published a fascinating book titled
The Isolation Artist, Scandal, Deception, and the Last Days of
Robert Indiana. Keys described the circle of operators well. Jim
brann Is a long time attorney in Rockland, Maine. He
(07:39):
became much more closely involved in Indiana's affairs and in
six helped change Indiana's will that made him the executor
of the estate. And Jamie Thomas, who was then an
island caretaker, became much more involved in Indiana's personal affairs
and he became the power of attorney as well as
the healthcare power of attorney, And from that point on,
(08:01):
Indiana certainly lost control of much of the legal and
professional aspects of his life in terms of his legal representation,
and Jamie Thomas was authorized at that point to make
business decisions for him as power of attorney. That's when
we began to see much more work attributed to Mackenzie
start to come out of the UH Indiana studio at
(08:25):
a time when Indiana was definitely in failing health and
had not made new work in quite a while. Now,
is that to say that that it looked to you
and others as if what Mackenzie and um Thomas we're doing,
and perhaps Brandon as well, was forging. UH forging is
a legal term. I think what they were doing was
pushing the boundaries of what was authentic work. The work
(08:48):
was suspicious right away in the eyes of many people
who knew it. It didn't seem authentic. My reporting suggests
that Indiana probably was aware of its creation but not
involved with it, and and look the other way. And
that was fairly common during that point in his life.
(09:11):
And what did it mean that Thomas became beneficiary I
guess of the estate. I mean he had nothing to
do with making art. Why was he written into the will?
Thomas was written into the will because Indiana at some
point surrounded himself with people from the vinyl Haven community
who were loyal to him, and Thomas was in that camp.
Thomas had a relationship with Robert Indiana that went back
(09:34):
many decades. There is a lot of debate among people
who worked with Indiana how close they were, but it
is a fact. At as eightieth birthday party in two
thousand and eight, Indiana invited Jamie Thomas to it, and
that was a pretty personal affair, so they definitely had
a friendship. Jamie Thomas ultimately convinced Indiana to make him
the power of Attorney. And then we see Thomas's text
(09:58):
messages with Mackenzie up until the point Indiana died, where
they were texting back and forth about works that they
would create together. You can envision the text W I
N E and and so forth and so on, you know,
stacked four letter words. They were texting back and forth
that they should create on their own while Indiana was
(10:18):
on his deathbed. And so Mackenzie, deep in that relationship,
built it with Thomas. Thomas was on the inside. Thomas
became involved in Indiana's life at a time when his
health was failing, and many people on the island saw
him as coming in to help get Indiana out of
some more trouble. But there's no question that in so
(10:38):
doing he also isolated Indiana from all of his art
world contexts who could no longer reach him an interview
him and talk about things. And at the same time,
there was a large body of work coming out of
his studio and it had the mark of Mackenzie all
over it. Fine art friends like legendary Dartmouth art professor
(11:00):
John Wilmerding started knocking on the door of Indiana's Vinyl
Haven home and getting no response. John Wilmerging made at
least an annual trip to see Robert Indiana at the
Star of Hope every summer. I believe the last time
he saw Indiana was in the fall or late summer
of m d made a comment to Indiana that it
(11:21):
sort of looks like the School of Indiana, and Indiana
sort of shrugged and said, I guess in some ways
that it is. Wilmerding never saw him again. He tried
to reach him, He sent emails that were not returned.
He had ters responses from others in the Indiana camp
and basically was told you're no longer going to be
able to see him, and other people were peeled away
as well. By early two thousand eighteen, attorney Luke Nikas,
(11:45):
representing the Morgan Art Foundation, alleged that the trio of
art publisher Michael Mackenzie, caretaker Jamie Thomas, and local business
partner James W. Brannan had taken control of the eighty
eight year old artist Indiana lived in an old Mason's home.
Was a very old home, big beautiful home, tons of space,
(12:08):
but also in need of significant repair that wasn't kept
up over time, and so Indiana's bedroom was on the
top floor, and near the end of his life, they
took the staircase that went from his bedroom out of
the house down to his yard out of the house.
That completely removed it. We were told by studio assistants
(12:31):
that the locks were changed so they couldn't get in
to help Indiana, that windows were boarded up so that
he couldn't yell out or reach out for help, and
so this was total isolation in the extreme to prevent
Indiana from reaching out to the people he knew could
help him out of this situation. There was more. Luke
(12:55):
learned the Trio had taken over Indiana's email account, his
voice mail, and had completely controlled every aspect of his
life for the last several years. Not only did Morgan
allege Jamie Thomas stole money from Indiana and diverted opportunities
from Indiana, but Morgan alleged that Jamie Thomas and Michael
(13:16):
Mackenzie had conspired to forge works in Indiana's name. The
trio had even stolen images that the Morrigan Art Foundation
owned and sold those images as Indiana's even though they weren't.
We found a Instagram post a video of someone signing
(13:38):
in mackenzie studio Robert Indiana works with an auto pen
or a ghostwriter, and in the middle of the video,
the studio assistant said for jury and posted that Mackenzie,
her boss, was forcing her to forge paintings and if
the police came, she would quote unquote sing like a bird.
And so we we filed this lawsuit a edging that
(14:00):
Mackenzie had forged these paintings. The very next day, in
May of two thousand eighteen, Indiana died. Despite Indiana's death,
the case forged ahead. We jumped into discovery in the case,
(14:20):
got more information related to the works that were being made.
We have witnesses, We took testimony, and then throughout the
case Michael Mackenzie testified that he had absolutely no more
works by Indiana in his possession. He wasn't making any works.
The entire business was shut down in that respect. Two
weeks ago, I inspected Michael Mackenzie's property to look at
(14:43):
the works that were on the property, and it turns
out there were over a thousand works on the property
that we're supposedly by Robert Indiana. Stencils that he was
using with certain years two thousand fifteen, two thousand seventeen.
Stamped on the back of the paintings that were used
is Indiana signature. So I went to the judge and
I asked for more discovery given that we had been
(15:05):
denied information, and then was allowed to go out again
and inspect the entire studio. And when I was there,
I cataloged the entire blueprint of how Michael mackenzie operated.
The catalog resume of Robert Indiana's works was tabbed with
post it notes. He had a full composition notebook of
drawings of Indiana works he was creating, and so we
(15:28):
went back to the court and said he's forging works.
This is the blueprint, this is the forger's den. I
received a phone call from one of Michael Mackenzie's now
former friends and what he said was two things. Number One,
Michael Mackenzie still forging works. He just forged a hundred
(15:48):
and fifty in his studio. Here's a picture. He's stamping
the back of those works with two thousand fifteen stencils,
with two thousand seventeen stencils. He's selling them for a
lot of money all over the world. And production was
still ramping up when you came to the studio under
court order, allowed to inspect his property to see what
(16:12):
he had created. In the middle of the day and
night before you arrived, he shipped seven truckloads of art
off the property into a storage facility to prevent you
from seeing what he had done. Luke got a declaration
from Mackenzie under oath, detailing all of this, detailing the
(16:34):
forgeries he was making, detailing how he was using the stencil's,
detailing Mackenzie's proclivities towards guns and threats, and the way
he deals with people in his workplace, and so we
got that declaration under oath, went back to the judge,
and the judge is now opening up the whole other
phase in the case for violation of all of these
(16:55):
discovery orders that she's issued. In the summer of Luke
Nichols demonstrated the automatic signature machine that signed Indiana Prince
and showed the tropes of forgeries. With that, three of
the parties settled, the Morgan Art Foundation, the artist's Star
(17:17):
of Hope Foundation, and the estate itself. Perhaps now top
quality Indiana works could be sold again. Also participating in
the settlement where Jamie Thomas, the island caretaker, and Jim
Brannon the lawyer, left out was Michael Mackenzie, who said
he would work with both parties but implied the wrangling
(17:40):
wasn't done yet. Quote I can take this apart, he
warned his partners in The New York Times. The terms
were secret, which struck many as odd since the Star
of Hope is a nonprofit foundation. There are many people
who believe that settlement needs to be made public because
the Star of Hope Foundation is a public entity in Maine,
(18:01):
and it's uh the taxpayers and their citizens and residents
of Maine have vested interest in the outcome of it,
and it's worth maybe a million hundred million dollars the estate,
and UH as taxpayers, we have a right to know
at least what it says and and who's going to
benefit from the estate and where the artwork is going
to go. Indiana wanted his artwork on view and for
(18:26):
public consumption. That's what he cared most about. What I'm
struck by in this story is the efforts Indiana made
to get his name back and to get the valuation
of his work back. And he's successful, but then he
runs into these people and it just blows up in
(18:48):
his face. Ultimately, this is the story of a brilliant
but lonely man whose art may never have filled the
whole in his heart. Certainly he never had another long
term partner after Ellsworth Kelly asked for the Vinyl Haven community.
Despite welcoming the great artist in early the local fishermen
(19:11):
and their families had cut Indiana off amid shocking charges.
Indiana had been arrested for solicitation of prostitution in and
stood accused of paying minors for sex. One local boy
testified that he was twelve when the abuse began and
that it had continued for six years. Another accuser also
(19:36):
came forward. A legal proceeding acquitted Indiana of the charges.
In Indiana said he felt lucky to be acquitted, a
sentiment that left the Islanders outraged. I feel that Indiana
brought on a lot of the problems himself because of
his inability to resolve the conflicts. He suffered from a
(19:59):
lot of she was in terms of his youth and
his lack of trust and his inability to let people
close to him, and that really did affect him at
the end. I feel sorry for him because of his
lack of personal tools that one needs to navigate the world.
He didn't have a healthy youth grown up, and he
never figured out how to live in the world in
(20:20):
a partnered sort of way. All he was left within
the end was hope. After the break, Michael Shnayerson and
I will talk about Mary Boone Ross Bleckner and a
painting I loved and finally was able to purchase sort of.
(20:45):
In the movie gaslight Ingrid Bergmann found yourself wondering why
her possessions are moving and vanishing. Is she losing her mind.
I thought about that movie, Alec when I first heard
about your own personal brush with art fraud. So how
did that happen? Well, you know, for a long time
I had walked around with this mailing card that I
(21:07):
got from Mary Boone and Gallerie selling a painting by
Ross Bleckner, and I had it with me and you know,
kind of stared at it every now and then thought, Wow,
I wonder where that painting is. And I mean I
I wasn't someone who was keen on researching that and
chasing that down. First of all, let's talk about Bleckner
(21:28):
a minute and and sort of put him in context.
He had come up in the early eighties in a
group of young, very dramatic artists represented by the Mary
Boone Gallery. They were doing something new, you know, breaking
out of abstract and minimalist art that frankly most people
were tired of. And Mary saw that the market was
ready for big, bold paintings with a lot of color paintings,
(21:51):
you can understand. So by the early nineteen eighties she
had the hottest gallery in New York. Perhaps not by coincidence,
her artists were mostly ale, handsome, very dramatic They are
artists who actually looked and acted like artists. Painters like
Julian Schnabel with his broken plate paintings, Eric Fishel with
his paintings that showed a dark side of suburban life,
(22:13):
and David Sally, who painted sensuous women among various symbols,
and finally Ross Buckner. So what was it about Ross
Buckner that you liked, you know, more than those other artists.
I think just the colors. I mean, you know, my
own personal taste, you know, I think that picture just
kind of cast a little tiny spell on me, you
(22:36):
know what I mean? And I like, I said, I
wound up carrying that in a sheaf of papers that
I had, that a little binder. One day, as luck
would have it, I met Ross and a bunch of
other people for Ross's birthday, which coincided with another opening
he had at Mary Boone and I went, I saw
a painting I liked. I had to hustle out the
(22:56):
door because would relate to another appointment. I came back
the next day that painting was sold. You went into
that event one night, I think you said. In two right.
We went to the gallery because it was Ross's birthday
and we went to the opening and then we were
hustled out of the opening very quickly. I was like, well,
I'd like to spend some time or look at some
(23:17):
of the paintings, and they were like, what you know.
They weren't there to buy any of Ross's paintings as friends.
So I came back the next day and I said
to Mary, that's the painting I want. She said, well,
that's sold. And then you realize, well, of course it did,
and she said, when you come in and we can talk.
I go to a computer with her and I take
her to see in mirror the painting that I'd refer
(23:39):
to in the in the mailer that I carried around
the Holy Grail here if you will, of Ross's paintings
to me, I said that picture, I said, where is that?
She was, I think I can get that. I think
that guy will sell that painting. So that was the
picture that was literally the image that you had had
on your card that you were walking around with was
(24:00):
the painting Sea and Mirror from n She said, I
know who bought that, and she said, I think I
can get it fair. I presume you thought, well that
could be expensive if she's going to persuade someone to
sell the painting back to you. But you said, go
ahead and try your luck, you know, Mary, if you
can do it, great, and only the next day, if
(24:23):
not even that day. She called you back to say
what she said. I got the painting. Now, the paintings
that were contemporary, the paintings that were from that gallery
exhibit in and around that time, we're in the high
five figures. She then came to me and said, I
can get you this painting for a hundred and ninety
(24:44):
thousand dollars. And it was more than double the dollars
that Ross was getting for the other paintings, where they
were a five thousand dollar range. So what was her
rationale for why you should pay you know, more than
ice I was buying the nineties six painting. She was saying, how,
(25:05):
I'm buying it from this collector and that's what he wants.
He wants a hundred dollars for the painting. I said, great,
I'll take it. I was just completely completely overjoyed that
I could get the painting. Thrilled with the opportunity he
had been presented to finally own his own holy Grail
of paintings. Alec purchased ross Buck, Nurse c and Mirror
(25:29):
from Mary Boone for the agreed price of a hundred
and ninety thousand dollars. A short time later, the painting
arrived at Alex's office on the Upper West Side, so
we had them hang the painting. And when they hung
the painting, it reeked very strongly of some chemical like
paint thinner, turpentine, some astringent kind of chemical smell like that.
(25:51):
And then I called her and I said, that gauzy
feathered effect that is on display in this painting in
the N and six Sea and Mirror like no other.
I mean, it's probably one of his gaussiest series of paintings,
and very watery. It doesn't look like that at all.
It doesn't look like that at all. And I said,
what's going on? And it smells at this chemical? She said, well,
(26:13):
we took it off the stretcher and we cleaned it
because the previous owner was a heavy smoker and we
wanted to clean the painting. And I thought, uh huh, okay.
But and and even though clean, I thought cleaning wouldn't
affect the technique of the painting. It was almost like
she was suggesting that the cleaning of the painting had
(26:35):
altered the very nature of the painting. It was very
bright and very vivid. It wasn't at all like the
other paintings. I said, look like a bag of M
and M spilled on the floor. Was very bright and
very shiny. The colors weren't the same in the original
Sea and Mirror. There are really strong, the yellows are
very buttery. The reds are very maroon and very burgundy
(26:58):
and very strong. And these are my favorite colors. There's
violets that are just all the haunting colors. And then
the ones that he did for this picture. I mean,
I I sometimes wonder if he even painted this. It
was like some assistant or something, because it was really
nowhere at all remotely like the original painting. And she
said to me, well, we took it off the stretcher
(27:19):
in case we had to repair some cracks and stuff.
And later on I've consulted with someone else who tell
me that's nonsense. I just find it so fascinating that,
you know, you called Mary and she just had this
song and dance about how it was the real painting.
It was the painting that you had wanted, that you
(27:40):
had carried around a picture of all these years. You know,
she could have gone a whole other way here. She
could have said, you know, I couldn't get that painting,
but here's some others from the series. Well, I mean,
you know, I always live inside a world of alternatives.
You know what might have happened, what choices might people
have made. And one of the things that was just
(28:04):
clear to me was if you'd come to me and said,
I can't get the painting. The guy in California that
owns the se and mirror, I either can't find him
or he doesn't want to sell. My point is is
that if she come to me and said, I'll have
him paint you a copy, I'll have him paint you
another in a series of these types of paintings, I
(28:26):
would have said great. And it wasn't like I'm saying, oh,
when you're gonna charge me eight dollars to like like
I was obsessed about the price. The important thing is
I would have accepted a copy. Had they told me
it was a copy, we could have negotiated the price.
But instead she didn't say it was a copy. She
put the bin number of the painting on the back
of the painting she sold me. She put the date
(28:50):
six on the back of the painting she sold me.
All of it was just reeked of foul play, of speaking,
the fact that you're handing me the painting in two
thousand ten and you're putting the date nine and it
wasn't the painting from nine six. You put a fake
date on there. When all this went down and she
was confronted, legally, the statute of limitations had passed, but
(29:14):
she decided to go a completely different way. She insisted
that I knew it was a copy. I knew what
I was buying. She had never represented to me that
this was the original painting. She swore up and down
that I knew I was buying a copy of C
and Mirror From, not the original painting, which was not true.
(29:35):
And then we mo went back to the d A
and said she charged me the price. I just bought
two paintings from her that were freshly made, so to speak,
that were freshly baked, and they were in the high
five figures. Why would I pay a hundred and ninety
thousand dollars for a freshly baked ross? Now that was
exhibit A, if you will, And the other was the
(29:56):
date and the bin number. And when this thing was
on my war, I said to myself, and again, I
think it's an important point that it wasn't around me
all the time I travel uptown. I go to that
office and I go, oh, there it is, and I say,
so that means Ross is a fake. And Ross I
was kind of friendly with. And I thought, well, this
means Ross ripped me off. And I thought or not.
(30:19):
I mean, maybe Ross was told he's okay with a copy,
make him a copy, and I'm going to sell him
this copy. I believe she played both of us. I
believe she said Ross, he wants a copy of Sea
and Mirrors, and she said to me, I'm going to
get you the original Sea and Mirrors. He thought one thing,
I thought another thing. As it turned out, that's exactly
(30:45):
what happened. We reached out to Ross Bleckner for comment,
and he was gracious enough to respond, well, we don't
feel comfortable reading his response verbatim. We can say that
Ross's own recollection of the events is precisely what Alex expected.
That is to say, Mary Boone contacted Buckner and asked
him to paint a copy of C and mirror for
(31:05):
a client. He didn't hear from Mary Boone after that,
once she took possession of the painting. The moment we
subpoenaed her emails and she produced, and Ross produced a
bunch of emails, and she produced almost none. And the
judge said, if you don't give me these emails, if
you're saying you don't have emails of your exchange with
(31:25):
him that discussed this early on, you know, at the onset,
I was amazed at how firm the judge was and
how clear the judge was. The judge says, if you
don't do this, I'm going to assume you're hiding something.
I'm going to automatically assume there's something you're hiding. And
they were just shrieking up and down that they couldn't
wait to have that in the courtroom and over so
(31:46):
the stuff, and I thought, okay, okay. And then once
we subpoenaed all of her emails to any sales of
Ross Bleckner, because we knew deep down inside that she
didn't wake up one day and start doing this with
me that day. We wanted to check and see were
we in the territory of a class action suit with
(32:07):
a grouping of people who had been treated this way
in some way, and the moment we subpoenaed all of
her emails to discuss that, they settled and they wrote
me a check for a million dollars. I want you
to tell me about going to marry Ann Bowski. You
(32:29):
were going to see some paintings. She was going to
show you a Thornton dial and what happened. That became
a real turning point when I said to her that
Mary said, we took the painting off the stretcher in
order to repair it and clean it. I think she
said it needed to be repaired. Mary Ann said, well,
that's ridiculous. I said, what do you mean. She said,
(32:49):
she would never have taken the painting off the canvas
and repaired it and cleaned it without your permission. She
just took it upon herself. She's claiming to do that.
We just did that for you. And she said, it
never happens that way. She said, this is an all
likelihood of fake. It looks like a fake, and it
smells like a fake because it is a fake. Mary
(33:10):
Anne Bowski has been an art dealer for twenty five years.
She started her first gallery and her current gallery on
Two Street in New York has been opened since two
thousand six. Alec visited with Marianne recently at her gallery.
She recalled their original conversation about that ill fated painting.
You just said, is it strange that I would have gotten,
(33:33):
you know, a painting after I bought it and it
would look different than the image that it looked like,
And then was told that it was cleaned, and I
was like, that's definitely strange. And then we kind of
continued talking about it, and I, you know, I had
real empathy for you, but there was a terrible situation.
But if the painting comes off the stretcher to be
cleaned or repaired, that's something that you would affect the
(33:54):
value of the painting, not necessarily. So let's say I
had a leasi scavenge. Someone came back with a lazy
scavenge that I sold them in two thousand one and
it had some schmutz on it, right, What I would
do is I would have a conservator look at it
and recommend what needs to be done. Can it be
cleaned if you need to in pain? Is there damage?
(34:15):
Then I would call Lisa or her. If I didn't
know her personally, I would call s Warner and I
would say, I have this, and here's the situation. Does
Lisa want to look at it? And she would either
say yes or no, or they would say, um, you know,
she'd like to fix it herself. And if she fixes
it herself, it's not really going to be um any
(34:36):
kind of diminution in value because it's her, you know,
just making sure that her work is in good shape.
So or if she wanted to clean it, that's not
going to change anything except clean it. But if she's
then said, you know there's a terror in it and
it needs to be fixed, I recommend you go to
so and so to fix it because they're the best
of my work. So now I have this painting that
is on consignment and it's been torn and sown, and
(35:00):
Lisa has opined on who needs to fix it, and
we've gotten it fixed and we spent six thousand dollars
fixing it whatever it is. Then when I go to
offer that painting to someone, I have to tell them
you can't see it, but right here, if you look
on the back, you feel you I do, yes, there's
a little mark here. The artist has looked at it
(35:20):
the artist has approved the work that was done at
it and chose the person to do it. But transparency
more art fraud in a minute, Alec, what did you
think of that moment when Marianne first told you your
(35:43):
treasured Sea and Mere painting was at all likelihood of fake?
Because that was really the moment. So I gather that
this hits home. How did that hit you emotionally? Well?
I think two things. One is I had to kind
of sort out in my head what Ross's involvement was.
That was very concerned about that and in any civil litigation.
(36:03):
Now Ross wound up giving me uh that he found
up making me a fact simile of seeing mirror that
I have in my home. Now I have the honest copy.
I said, give me the copy of the painting that is,
and then he gave me another painting to settle our dispute,
if you will. You know, it's a funny situation because
(36:26):
I mean, yes, it was a fraud, but it was
a fraud enacted by the painter who painted the original.
See what's funny is when in the litigation he made
me the copy of C and mirror that I have
in my home, that is the genuine copy. Well, there
it is. It's true. When he wanted to put his
mind to it and get it right, he did. Yeah,
(36:49):
that's really bizarre. When the original painting arrives, it's not
even close. But when he's told to do it exactly
the copy, it's very close. It's it's pretty pretty spot on,
because you wonder how many more copies of it are
they're out there? If he could so handily render facsimiles
of Seeing Mirror than how many more were out there?
How many more people were told they were buying the
(37:10):
original painting? How many more canvases have written on the
back and the bin number that I had. But as
I said, once we wanted to open up a can
of worms, which would have discussed that, once we wanted
to speak in court about where else she might have
done this. They settled the case, you know, when all
(37:33):
this went down, and I had gone to the d
A to investigate our options and see what was going on.
You know, one aspect of it was that this was
also unnecessary. If I had been someone who had had
some difficult relationship with Mary, if there's been some friction
between us, especially in the art world, if wanting to
(37:56):
settle a score with me, get even with me. I
didn't really know Mary on a personal level, so there
was really nothing between us that engendered that kind of treatment.
I couldn't understand why she would do that to me.
That's that's what really really upset me. And then I
thought to myself, that's the whole point. You can walk
in as a very innocent person who just as a
(38:17):
lover of arts. I mean, I realized I'm not spending
tens of millions of dollars on a on a Polock.
It's not like the Lagrange case and and Friedman and
Noodler and all that kind of stuff. I'm a guy
walking in buying something in the high five figures the
low six figures. But I'm wondering, I'm assuming that some
of us are like some of the bread and butter
of that business. And and even if we aren't, what's
(38:40):
the amount of money I need to spend on the
painting for you to treat me fairly. If I walked
in the door and you said, let me just tell
you this privately, Mary would say, now I'm going to
sell you a knockoff of bogus painting for the amount
of money you're willing to spend. But if you spend
more money, if you're willing to give me more money,
I'll actually go get you the painting. You won't, I
(39:01):
won't rip you off, which which was what did I
need to do to deserve the fair treatment. I didn't
understand any of why this happened. I guess I'll never know. Alec.
(39:22):
We started working on this podcast a little over a
year ago, and I remember at the time you said
that you believed and Freedman. Your opinion was that she
didn't know the paintings were fake and she hadn't sold
them as fakes, and I said, I felt just the opposite.
And so I wonder, after a whole year of immersing
ourselves in this podcast and talking to over two dozen experts, artists, lawyers,
(39:45):
and journalists, have your beliefs held firm? Do you still
think an Freeman had no idea she was complicit in
the forgery scheme? Well, I think that what has changed
is this idea that something hinges on everybody doing something
they've never done before. Whenever people walk into a room
and there's a time honored process they have, there's a
(40:05):
protocol they have, and all of a sudden they throw
that out the window, to the tune of tens of
millions of dollars. I made seventy million dollars and fake
aren't that was sold here this gallery. There was no excuse.
These people have no excuse. And Friedman Hammer everybody involved
in this case, these were the top people in the field.
(40:26):
And what they didn't know. They summoned experts to come
in and aid them and to counsel them on what
to do. What I believe now is Anne knew she
shouldn't have done what she did, but she pressed forward. Well, then,
my friend, we are in agreement. I really believe that
people arrive at a place and they believe wrongly as
(40:48):
it turns out that there's no turning back. Turning back
in their mind was almost worse. They thought, let's see
what happens if we get away with it. And if
they got away with it, then everybody would be walking
around staring at a fake Rothco and everybody would be happy.
Who know, right? Really, the person I think who is
(41:10):
the hammer that just shatters the whole stone work of
this thing is Lagrange. When La Grange flies over here
and has an apoplectic fit against this woman, I mean
this is a guy who's just not going to be denied.
I agree with you. And then also just the sheer
number of fakes that began to come forward. You know,
you could believe a couple of them lacked provenance when
(41:30):
you're up to forty had all lacked provenace. This is
something that occurred to me when he came to speak
with us, and that is I thought, if this woman
had gone into Anne and she'd had the least bit
of a whiff of insincerity since of theater, or something
being fabricated or false about her when I met her,
(41:53):
it all fell into place. I thought, who could go
in and do this to Anne? Who could fool Anne?
Who wouldn't have to be enough to be somebody who
she's like a school teacher, She's like a kindergarten teacher. Yes,
I think that very day you said to me, you know,
I believe her. You didn't believe Anne, but you did
believe Cofira. One thing I know for sure there were
(42:20):
sixty or so fake painting sold by the Wiseman and
no Oldler galleries. And it leaves me with a haunting thought,
where are those paintings today? We know the dess fake
Rothko ended up in Attorney Luke Nichols office a story
to tell curious clients. Francis Babies. Fake Clifford still found
(42:44):
its way to the basement, only to get misplaced, and
Friedman's own fake Pollock with the misspelled signature was still
hanging in her home last we heard. We also know
a few of the paintings made their way into legal
proceedings from various law suits. But what about the fifty
or so others. How many of those fakes have been
(43:05):
sold very quietly by buyers eager to expunge the stain
of fraud from their walls, Buyers who may have recouped
their losses illegally. Of course, perhaps they even profited, as
Ann Friedman assured them they would with paintings from the
David Herbert collection. And that's it for art fraud. Most
(43:38):
of the listeners of this show will never purchase a
piece of fine art in their lives. We hope you've
enjoyed this show, nonetheless, And for those who are real collectors, remember,
if you can fool and Friedman, you can fool anyone
used today the sweetness and the sorrow wish me luck
(44:09):
the same to you, But I can't regret what I
did for love, What I did for love, Look my eyes.
(44:37):
Art Fraud is brought to you by I Heart Radio
and Cavalry Audio. Our executive producers are Matt del Piano,
Keegan Rosenberger, Andy Turner, myself, and Michael Shnayerson. We're produced
by Brandon Morgan and Zach McNeice. Zack also edited and
mixed this episode. Lindsay Hoffman is our managing producer. How
(44:59):
A here is Michael Shnayerson. All Love
I didn't set out to immerse myself in the murky
realm of art fraud. In two thousand and ten, I
found myself waging legal war with a dealer who sold
me a painting that wasn't quite right, as they say
in the art world. As fate would have it, my
story was unfolding just as the Knoedler gallery scandal was
(00:26):
taking center stage under intense scrutiny from the press. As
an actor, I'm always looking for what defines a character.
All con artists have their own definitive markings, and Friedman
and Glyphira Rosales presented themselves as courtly, almost academic, Yet
(00:48):
behind their poise and professional demeanor, I always sensed an
undertone of loneliness, even despair. To my surprise, these same
traits are evident in both our stories in this final
episode of the season. Art fraud is an ever present phenomenon.
(01:13):
Not long ago, Intego Philbrick, a dapper, young London dealer,
managed to steal some seventy million dollars from his friends
and colleagues by selling fractional shares of paintings than trading
those shares like monopoly cards, oftentimes pieces of one painting
would be sold entirely twice over in what amounted to
(01:35):
a sort of art world Ponzi scheme. Intego was brilliant,
says his friend Kenny Shackter, a droll and beloved columnist
of the contemporary art market, even more than like Goo
Goozien or some of the dealers. He could tell you
the difference between a two million dollar Christopher Wall painting
and a two point two million He would really have
(01:58):
a cabal of people, Intego, that he would sell work to,
and then he would resell it amongst those participants, unwittingly
that we're buying and selling art through him. Shackter lost
one point seven five million dollars when Philbrick vanished, only
to be arrested on an island off the eastern coast
of Australia. Kenny was left to wonder what had motivated
(02:21):
his friend to commit such egregious acts of fraud, just
as I had wondered about my dealer, Mary Boone. I
suspect the motivation is almost always universal greed. We'll get
into my sordid story in a bit, but first I
(02:42):
want to tell you the story of artist Robert Indiana,
creator of the iconic love sculpture. The whole world knows
those four letters to over two that spell love with
its oh at a Debonair slant. Long ago, Indiana had
(03:04):
lived with artist Ellsworth Kelly on Cowenty's Slip, the Artists
Wharf in Lower Manhattan. But in the early eighties he'd
come to the coast of Maine and never left. His
home was a rambling Victorian lodge hall on the scruffy
island of vinyl Haven, about halfway up the coast of May,
near Rockland. There his career had stalled for Indiana refused
(03:27):
a trademark or copyright any of his work, and let
tacky commercial spinoffs of love define him. By the end
of the seventies, he had moved out of New York City,
moved to Maine, and moved to vinyl Haven, Maine, which
is an island an hour off the coast that you
can only get to by ferry or small engine plane.
(03:51):
And so he was as isolated as they can get.
That's Luke nichoas the lawyer who represented Ann Friedman in
the dissol trial, and I found himself fighting a perhaps
more noble campaign on behalf of the iconic artist Robert Indiana,
he was gone as far as the art world was concerned.
Throughout the eighties, he made works here and there, but
(04:14):
he wasn't a superstar anymore. He wasn't recognized, and by
the end of the eighties he might as well not
even have existed in terms of his presence in the
fine art world. That was when an art advisor named
Simon salamac Carro started knocking. Salama Carro had seen his
work and was interested in meeting with Indiana to talk
(04:36):
with him about rejuvenating his career. He saw a path.
He saw a path of reintroducing Indiana's work to art historians,
to museums. He saw a path of getting the infringing
use of Indiana's images under control. No more shoes, no
more trinkets, no more use that was outside of what
(04:59):
Simon thought would really bring the brand back. Sala mccarrow
steered his work away from schlocky spinoffs to sculptures in
what Indiana came to call admiringly the noble Materials. He
also extricated the artist from an unpaid six hundred thousand
dollars in taxes and leans on his home. Such guidance
(05:23):
didn't come for free. Sala mccarro worked for the Morgan
Art Foundation for profit that held the rights to produce
Indiana's best known works, but Indiana could see it had
promise Morgan would take the copyrights in the trademarks, would
give Indiana of revenue from the use of those images,
(05:45):
so it would be a split between them, and Morgan
would monitor and clean up the market for Indiana's images.
It went all over the world and started bringing infringement
suits season desist letters, and ultimately what that did was
it created the very clear message that Indiana's imagery could
not be exploited. At the same time, Morgan put millions
(06:08):
and millions and millions of dollars of funding behind the
fabrication of indiana sculptures, which are extremely expensive to fabricate,
difficult to fabricate. You need real facilities that Indiana did
not have. Ten years later, or so fifteen years, the
Whitney Museum in New York City had a major retrospective
of Indiana's work, and he was back on the map again,
(06:30):
extraordinarily successful. And then what happened. Michael mackenzie came into
the picture. In two thousand eight. Advisor Michael Mackenzie had
a brilliant idea, why not change Indiana's love to hope
and make it the banner for the surging Obama presidential campaign.
(06:53):
As Mackenzie deepened his relationship with Indiana over Hope, he
began expanding Hope Prince on canvas, more Hope sculptures, more
colors of Hope, Expand, Expand, Expand, and then he bought
a studio on Vinyl even near Indiana to have better
access to him. Soon other operators began swooping in. I
(07:18):
spoke with Bob Keys, a long time reporter for the
Portland Press Herald who just published a fascinating book titled
The Isolation Artist, Scandal, Deception, and the Last Days of
Robert Indiana. Keys described the circle of operators well. Jim
brann Is a long time attorney in Rockland, Maine. He
(07:39):
became much more closely involved in Indiana's affairs and in
six helped change Indiana's will that made him the executor
of the estate. And Jamie Thomas, who was then an
island caretaker, became much more involved in Indiana's personal affairs
and he became the power of attorney as well as
the healthcare power of attorney, And from that point on,
(08:01):
Indiana certainly lost control of much of the legal and
professional aspects of his life in terms of his legal representation,
and Jamie Thomas was authorized at that point to make
business decisions for him as power of attorney. That's when
we began to see much more work attributed to Mackenzie
start to come out of the UH Indiana studio at
(08:25):
a time when Indiana was definitely in failing health and
had not made new work in quite a while. Now,
is that to say that that it looked to you
and others as if what Mackenzie and um Thomas we're doing,
and perhaps Brandon as well, was forging. UH forging is
a legal term. I think what they were doing was
pushing the boundaries of what was authentic work. The work
(08:48):
was suspicious right away in the eyes of many people
who knew it. It didn't seem authentic. My reporting suggests
that Indiana probably was aware of its creation but not
involved with it, and and look the other way. And
that was fairly common during that point in his life.
(09:11):
And what did it mean that Thomas became beneficiary I
guess of the estate. I mean he had nothing to
do with making art. Why was he written into the will?
Thomas was written into the will because Indiana at some
point surrounded himself with people from the vinyl Haven community
who were loyal to him, and Thomas was in that camp.
Thomas had a relationship with Robert Indiana that went back
(09:34):
many decades. There is a lot of debate among people
who worked with Indiana how close they were, but it
is a fact. At as eightieth birthday party in two
thousand and eight, Indiana invited Jamie Thomas to it, and
that was a pretty personal affair, so they definitely had
a friendship. Jamie Thomas ultimately convinced Indiana to make him
the power of Attorney. And then we see Thomas's text
(09:58):
messages with Mackenzie up until the point Indiana died, where
they were texting back and forth about works that they
would create together. You can envision the text W I
N E and and so forth and so on, you know,
stacked four letter words. They were texting back and forth
that they should create on their own while Indiana was
(10:18):
on his deathbed. And so Mackenzie, deep in that relationship,
built it with Thomas. Thomas was on the inside. Thomas
became involved in Indiana's life at a time when his
health was failing, and many people on the island saw
him as coming in to help get Indiana out of
some more trouble. But there's no question that in so
(10:38):
doing he also isolated Indiana from all of his art
world contexts who could no longer reach him an interview
him and talk about things. And at the same time,
there was a large body of work coming out of
his studio and it had the mark of Mackenzie all
over it. Fine art friends like legendary Dartmouth art professor
(11:00):
John Wilmerding started knocking on the door of Indiana's Vinyl
Haven home and getting no response. John Wilmerging made at
least an annual trip to see Robert Indiana at the
Star of Hope every summer. I believe the last time
he saw Indiana was in the fall or late summer
of m d made a comment to Indiana that it
(11:21):
sort of looks like the School of Indiana, and Indiana
sort of shrugged and said, I guess in some ways
that it is. Wilmerding never saw him again. He tried
to reach him, He sent emails that were not returned.
He had ters responses from others in the Indiana camp
and basically was told you're no longer going to be
able to see him, and other people were peeled away
as well. By early two thousand eighteen, attorney Luke Nikas,
(11:45):
representing the Morgan Art Foundation, alleged that the trio of
art publisher Michael Mackenzie, caretaker Jamie Thomas, and local business
partner James W. Brannan had taken control of the eighty
eight year old artist Indiana lived in an old Mason's home.
Was a very old home, big beautiful home, tons of space,
(12:08):
but also in need of significant repair that wasn't kept
up over time, and so Indiana's bedroom was on the
top floor, and near the end of his life, they
took the staircase that went from his bedroom out of
the house down to his yard out of the house.
That completely removed it. We were told by studio assistants
(12:31):
that the locks were changed so they couldn't get in
to help Indiana, that windows were boarded up so that
he couldn't yell out or reach out for help, and
so this was total isolation in the extreme to prevent
Indiana from reaching out to the people he knew could
help him out of this situation. There was more. Luke
(12:55):
learned the Trio had taken over Indiana's email account, his
voice mail, and had completely controlled every aspect of his
life for the last several years. Not only did Morgan
allege Jamie Thomas stole money from Indiana and diverted opportunities
from Indiana, but Morgan alleged that Jamie Thomas and Michael
(13:16):
Mackenzie had conspired to forge works in Indiana's name. The
trio had even stolen images that the Morrigan Art Foundation
owned and sold those images as Indiana's even though they weren't.
We found a Instagram post a video of someone signing
(13:38):
in mackenzie studio Robert Indiana works with an auto pen
or a ghostwriter, and in the middle of the video,
the studio assistant said for jury and posted that Mackenzie,
her boss, was forcing her to forge paintings and if
the police came, she would quote unquote sing like a bird.
And so we we filed this lawsuit a edging that
(14:00):
Mackenzie had forged these paintings. The very next day, in
May of two thousand eighteen, Indiana died. Despite Indiana's death,
the case forged ahead. We jumped into discovery in the case,
(14:20):
got more information related to the works that were being made.
We have witnesses, We took testimony, and then throughout the
case Michael Mackenzie testified that he had absolutely no more
works by Indiana in his possession. He wasn't making any works.
The entire business was shut down in that respect. Two
weeks ago, I inspected Michael Mackenzie's property to look at
(14:43):
the works that were on the property, and it turns
out there were over a thousand works on the property
that we're supposedly by Robert Indiana. Stencils that he was
using with certain years two thousand fifteen, two thousand seventeen.
Stamped on the back of the paintings that were used
is Indiana signature. So I went to the judge and
I asked for more discovery given that we had been
(15:05):
denied information, and then was allowed to go out again
and inspect the entire studio. And when I was there,
I cataloged the entire blueprint of how Michael mackenzie operated.
The catalog resume of Robert Indiana's works was tabbed with
post it notes. He had a full composition notebook of
drawings of Indiana works he was creating, and so we
(15:28):
went back to the court and said he's forging works.
This is the blueprint, this is the forger's den. I
received a phone call from one of Michael Mackenzie's now
former friends and what he said was two things. Number One,
Michael Mackenzie still forging works. He just forged a hundred
(15:48):
and fifty in his studio. Here's a picture. He's stamping
the back of those works with two thousand fifteen stencils,
with two thousand seventeen stencils. He's selling them for a
lot of money all over the world. And production was
still ramping up when you came to the studio under
court order, allowed to inspect his property to see what
(16:12):
he had created. In the middle of the day and
night before you arrived, he shipped seven truckloads of art
off the property into a storage facility to prevent you
from seeing what he had done. Luke got a declaration
from Mackenzie under oath, detailing all of this, detailing the
(16:34):
forgeries he was making, detailing how he was using the stencil's,
detailing Mackenzie's proclivities towards guns and threats, and the way
he deals with people in his workplace, and so we
got that declaration under oath, went back to the judge,
and the judge is now opening up the whole other
phase in the case for violation of all of these
(16:55):
discovery orders that she's issued. In the summer of Luke
Nichols demonstrated the automatic signature machine that signed Indiana Prince
and showed the tropes of forgeries. With that, three of
the parties settled, the Morgan Art Foundation, the artist's Star
(17:17):
of Hope Foundation, and the estate itself. Perhaps now top
quality Indiana works could be sold again. Also participating in
the settlement where Jamie Thomas, the island caretaker, and Jim
Brannon the lawyer, left out was Michael Mackenzie, who said
he would work with both parties but implied the wrangling
(17:40):
wasn't done yet. Quote I can take this apart, he
warned his partners in The New York Times. The terms
were secret, which struck many as odd since the Star
of Hope is a nonprofit foundation. There are many people
who believe that settlement needs to be made public because
the Star of Hope Foundation is a public entity in Maine,
(18:01):
and it's uh the taxpayers and their citizens and residents
of Maine have vested interest in the outcome of it,
and it's worth maybe a million hundred million dollars the estate,
and UH as taxpayers, we have a right to know
at least what it says and and who's going to
benefit from the estate and where the artwork is going
to go. Indiana wanted his artwork on view and for
(18:26):
public consumption. That's what he cared most about. What I'm
struck by in this story is the efforts Indiana made
to get his name back and to get the valuation
of his work back. And he's successful, but then he
runs into these people and it just blows up in
(18:48):
his face. Ultimately, this is the story of a brilliant
but lonely man whose art may never have filled the
whole in his heart. Certainly he never had another long
term partner after Ellsworth Kelly asked for the Vinyl Haven community.
Despite welcoming the great artist in early the local fishermen
(19:11):
and their families had cut Indiana off amid shocking charges.
Indiana had been arrested for solicitation of prostitution in and
stood accused of paying minors for sex. One local boy
testified that he was twelve when the abuse began and
that it had continued for six years. Another accuser also
(19:36):
came forward. A legal proceeding acquitted Indiana of the charges.
In Indiana said he felt lucky to be acquitted, a
sentiment that left the Islanders outraged. I feel that Indiana
brought on a lot of the problems himself because of
his inability to resolve the conflicts. He suffered from a
(19:59):
lot of she was in terms of his youth and
his lack of trust and his inability to let people
close to him, and that really did affect him at
the end. I feel sorry for him because of his
lack of personal tools that one needs to navigate the world.
He didn't have a healthy youth grown up, and he
never figured out how to live in the world in
(20:20):
a partnered sort of way. All he was left within
the end was hope. After the break, Michael Shnayerson and
I will talk about Mary Boone Ross Bleckner and a
painting I loved and finally was able to purchase sort of.
(20:45):
In the movie gaslight Ingrid Bergmann found yourself wondering why
her possessions are moving and vanishing. Is she losing her mind.
I thought about that movie, Alec when I first heard
about your own personal brush with art fraud. So how
did that happen? Well, you know, for a long time
I had walked around with this mailing card that I
(21:07):
got from Mary Boone and Gallerie selling a painting by
Ross Bleckner, and I had it with me and you know,
kind of stared at it every now and then thought, Wow,
I wonder where that painting is. And I mean I
I wasn't someone who was keen on researching that and
chasing that down. First of all, let's talk about Bleckner
(21:28):
a minute and and sort of put him in context.
He had come up in the early eighties in a
group of young, very dramatic artists represented by the Mary
Boone Gallery. They were doing something new, you know, breaking
out of abstract and minimalist art that frankly most people
were tired of. And Mary saw that the market was
ready for big, bold paintings with a lot of color paintings,
(21:51):
you can understand. So by the early nineteen eighties she
had the hottest gallery in New York. Perhaps not by coincidence,
her artists were mostly ale, handsome, very dramatic They are
artists who actually looked and acted like artists. Painters like
Julian Schnabel with his broken plate paintings, Eric Fishel with
his paintings that showed a dark side of suburban life,
(22:13):
and David Sally, who painted sensuous women among various symbols,
and finally Ross Buckner. So what was it about Ross
Buckner that you liked, you know, more than those other artists.
I think just the colors. I mean, you know, my
own personal taste, you know, I think that picture just
kind of cast a little tiny spell on me, you
(22:36):
know what I mean? And I like, I said, I
wound up carrying that in a sheaf of papers that
I had, that a little binder. One day, as luck
would have it, I met Ross and a bunch of
other people for Ross's birthday, which coincided with another opening
he had at Mary Boone and I went, I saw
a painting I liked. I had to hustle out the
(22:56):
door because would relate to another appointment. I came back
the next day that painting was sold. You went into
that event one night, I think you said. In two right.
We went to the gallery because it was Ross's birthday
and we went to the opening and then we were
hustled out of the opening very quickly. I was like, well,
I'd like to spend some time or look at some
(23:17):
of the paintings, and they were like, what you know.
They weren't there to buy any of Ross's paintings as friends.
So I came back the next day and I said
to Mary, that's the painting I want. She said, well,
that's sold. And then you realize, well, of course it did,
and she said, when you come in and we can talk.
I go to a computer with her and I take
her to see in mirror the painting that I'd refer
(23:39):
to in the in the mailer that I carried around
the Holy Grail here if you will, of Ross's paintings
to me, I said that picture, I said, where is that?
She was, I think I can get that. I think
that guy will sell that painting. So that was the
picture that was literally the image that you had had
on your card that you were walking around with was
(24:00):
the painting Sea and Mirror from n She said, I
know who bought that, and she said, I think I
can get it fair. I presume you thought, well that
could be expensive if she's going to persuade someone to
sell the painting back to you. But you said, go
ahead and try your luck, you know, Mary, if you
can do it, great, and only the next day, if
(24:23):
not even that day. She called you back to say
what she said. I got the painting. Now, the paintings
that were contemporary, the paintings that were from that gallery
exhibit in and around that time, we're in the high
five figures. She then came to me and said, I
can get you this painting for a hundred and ninety
(24:44):
thousand dollars. And it was more than double the dollars
that Ross was getting for the other paintings, where they
were a five thousand dollar range. So what was her
rationale for why you should pay you know, more than
ice I was buying the nineties six painting. She was saying, how,
(25:05):
I'm buying it from this collector and that's what he wants.
He wants a hundred dollars for the painting. I said, great,
I'll take it. I was just completely completely overjoyed that
I could get the painting. Thrilled with the opportunity he
had been presented to finally own his own holy Grail
of paintings. Alec purchased ross Buck, Nurse c and Mirror
(25:29):
from Mary Boone for the agreed price of a hundred
and ninety thousand dollars. A short time later, the painting
arrived at Alex's office on the Upper West Side, so
we had them hang the painting. And when they hung
the painting, it reeked very strongly of some chemical like
paint thinner, turpentine, some astringent kind of chemical smell like that.
(25:51):
And then I called her and I said, that gauzy
feathered effect that is on display in this painting in
the N and six Sea and Mirror like no other.
I mean, it's probably one of his gaussiest series of paintings,
and very watery. It doesn't look like that at all.
It doesn't look like that at all. And I said,
what's going on? And it smells at this chemical? She said, well,
(26:13):
we took it off the stretcher and we cleaned it
because the previous owner was a heavy smoker and we
wanted to clean the painting. And I thought, uh huh, okay.
But and and even though clean, I thought cleaning wouldn't
affect the technique of the painting. It was almost like
she was suggesting that the cleaning of the painting had
(26:35):
altered the very nature of the painting. It was very
bright and very vivid. It wasn't at all like the
other paintings. I said, look like a bag of M
and M spilled on the floor. Was very bright and
very shiny. The colors weren't the same in the original
Sea and Mirror. There are really strong, the yellows are
very buttery. The reds are very maroon and very burgundy
(26:58):
and very strong. And these are my favorite colors. There's
violets that are just all the haunting colors. And then
the ones that he did for this picture. I mean,
I I sometimes wonder if he even painted this. It
was like some assistant or something, because it was really
nowhere at all remotely like the original painting. And she
said to me, well, we took it off the stretcher
(27:19):
in case we had to repair some cracks and stuff.
And later on I've consulted with someone else who tell
me that's nonsense. I just find it so fascinating that,
you know, you called Mary and she just had this
song and dance about how it was the real painting.
It was the painting that you had wanted, that you
(27:40):
had carried around a picture of all these years. You know,
she could have gone a whole other way here. She
could have said, you know, I couldn't get that painting,
but here's some others from the series. Well, I mean,
you know, I always live inside a world of alternatives.
You know what might have happened, what choices might people
have made. And one of the things that was just
(28:04):
clear to me was if you'd come to me and said,
I can't get the painting. The guy in California that
owns the se and mirror, I either can't find him
or he doesn't want to sell. My point is is
that if she come to me and said, I'll have
him paint you a copy, I'll have him paint you
another in a series of these types of paintings, I
(28:26):
would have said great. And it wasn't like I'm saying, oh,
when you're gonna charge me eight dollars to like like
I was obsessed about the price. The important thing is
I would have accepted a copy. Had they told me
it was a copy, we could have negotiated the price.
But instead she didn't say it was a copy. She
put the bin number of the painting on the back
of the painting she sold me. She put the date
(28:50):
six on the back of the painting she sold me.
All of it was just reeked of foul play, of speaking,
the fact that you're handing me the painting in two
thousand ten and you're putting the date nine and it
wasn't the painting from nine six. You put a fake
date on there. When all this went down and she
was confronted, legally, the statute of limitations had passed, but
(29:14):
she decided to go a completely different way. She insisted
that I knew it was a copy. I knew what
I was buying. She had never represented to me that
this was the original painting. She swore up and down
that I knew I was buying a copy of C
and Mirror From, not the original painting, which was not true.
(29:35):
And then we mo went back to the d A
and said she charged me the price. I just bought
two paintings from her that were freshly made, so to speak,
that were freshly baked, and they were in the high
five figures. Why would I pay a hundred and ninety
thousand dollars for a freshly baked ross? Now that was
exhibit A, if you will, And the other was the
(29:56):
date and the bin number. And when this thing was
on my war, I said to myself, and again, I
think it's an important point that it wasn't around me
all the time I travel uptown. I go to that
office and I go, oh, there it is, and I say,
so that means Ross is a fake. And Ross I
was kind of friendly with. And I thought, well, this
means Ross ripped me off. And I thought or not.
(30:19):
I mean, maybe Ross was told he's okay with a copy,
make him a copy, and I'm going to sell him
this copy. I believe she played both of us. I
believe she said Ross, he wants a copy of Sea
and Mirrors, and she said to me, I'm going to
get you the original Sea and Mirrors. He thought one thing,
I thought another thing. As it turned out, that's exactly
(30:45):
what happened. We reached out to Ross Bleckner for comment,
and he was gracious enough to respond, well, we don't
feel comfortable reading his response verbatim. We can say that
Ross's own recollection of the events is precisely what Alex expected.
That is to say, Mary Boone contacted Buckner and asked
him to paint a copy of C and mirror for
(31:05):
a client. He didn't hear from Mary Boone after that,
once she took possession of the painting. The moment we
subpoenaed her emails and she produced, and Ross produced a
bunch of emails, and she produced almost none. And the
judge said, if you don't give me these emails, if
you're saying you don't have emails of your exchange with
(31:25):
him that discussed this early on, you know, at the onset,
I was amazed at how firm the judge was and
how clear the judge was. The judge says, if you
don't do this, I'm going to assume you're hiding something.
I'm going to automatically assume there's something you're hiding. And
they were just shrieking up and down that they couldn't
wait to have that in the courtroom and over so
(31:46):
the stuff, and I thought, okay, okay. And then once
we subpoenaed all of her emails to any sales of
Ross Bleckner, because we knew deep down inside that she
didn't wake up one day and start doing this with
me that day. We wanted to check and see were
we in the territory of a class action suit with
(32:07):
a grouping of people who had been treated this way
in some way, and the moment we subpoenaed all of
her emails to discuss that, they settled and they wrote
me a check for a million dollars. I want you
to tell me about going to marry Ann Bowski. You
(32:29):
were going to see some paintings. She was going to
show you a Thornton dial and what happened. That became
a real turning point when I said to her that
Mary said, we took the painting off the stretcher in
order to repair it and clean it. I think she
said it needed to be repaired. Mary Ann said, well,
that's ridiculous. I said, what do you mean. She said,
(32:49):
she would never have taken the painting off the canvas
and repaired it and cleaned it without your permission. She
just took it upon herself. She's claiming to do that.
We just did that for you. And she said, it
never happens that way. She said, this is an all
likelihood of fake. It looks like a fake, and it
smells like a fake because it is a fake. Mary
(33:10):
Anne Bowski has been an art dealer for twenty five years.
She started her first gallery and her current gallery on
Two Street in New York has been opened since two
thousand six. Alec visited with Marianne recently at her gallery.
She recalled their original conversation about that ill fated painting.
You just said, is it strange that I would have gotten,
(33:33):
you know, a painting after I bought it and it
would look different than the image that it looked like,
And then was told that it was cleaned, and I
was like, that's definitely strange. And then we kind of
continued talking about it, and I, you know, I had
real empathy for you, but there was a terrible situation.
But if the painting comes off the stretcher to be
cleaned or repaired, that's something that you would affect the
(33:54):
value of the painting, not necessarily. So let's say I
had a leasi scavenge. Someone came back with a lazy
scavenge that I sold them in two thousand one and
it had some schmutz on it, right, What I would
do is I would have a conservator look at it
and recommend what needs to be done. Can it be
cleaned if you need to in pain? Is there damage?
(34:15):
Then I would call Lisa or her. If I didn't
know her personally, I would call s Warner and I
would say, I have this, and here's the situation. Does
Lisa want to look at it? And she would either
say yes or no, or they would say, um, you know,
she'd like to fix it herself. And if she fixes
it herself, it's not really going to be um any
(34:36):
kind of diminution in value because it's her, you know,
just making sure that her work is in good shape.
So or if she wanted to clean it, that's not
going to change anything except clean it. But if she's
then said, you know there's a terror in it and
it needs to be fixed, I recommend you go to
so and so to fix it because they're the best
of my work. So now I have this painting that
is on consignment and it's been torn and sown, and
(35:00):
Lisa has opined on who needs to fix it, and
we've gotten it fixed and we spent six thousand dollars
fixing it whatever it is. Then when I go to
offer that painting to someone, I have to tell them
you can't see it, but right here, if you look
on the back, you feel you I do, yes, there's
a little mark here. The artist has looked at it
(35:20):
the artist has approved the work that was done at
it and chose the person to do it. But transparency
more art fraud in a minute, Alec, what did you
think of that moment when Marianne first told you your
(35:43):
treasured Sea and Mere painting was at all likelihood of fake?
Because that was really the moment. So I gather that
this hits home. How did that hit you emotionally? Well?
I think two things. One is I had to kind
of sort out in my head what Ross's involvement was.
That was very concerned about that and in any civil litigation.
(36:03):
Now Ross wound up giving me uh that he found
up making me a fact simile of seeing mirror that
I have in my home. Now I have the honest copy.
I said, give me the copy of the painting that is,
and then he gave me another painting to settle our dispute,
if you will. You know, it's a funny situation because
(36:26):
I mean, yes, it was a fraud, but it was
a fraud enacted by the painter who painted the original.
See what's funny is when in the litigation he made
me the copy of C and mirror that I have
in my home, that is the genuine copy. Well, there
it is. It's true. When he wanted to put his
mind to it and get it right, he did. Yeah,
(36:49):
that's really bizarre. When the original painting arrives, it's not
even close. But when he's told to do it exactly
the copy, it's very close. It's it's pretty pretty spot on,
because you wonder how many more copies of it are
they're out there? If he could so handily render facsimiles
of Seeing Mirror than how many more were out there?
How many more people were told they were buying the
(37:10):
original painting? How many more canvases have written on the
back and the bin number that I had. But as
I said, once we wanted to open up a can
of worms, which would have discussed that, once we wanted
to speak in court about where else she might have
done this. They settled the case, you know, when all
(37:33):
this went down, and I had gone to the d
A to investigate our options and see what was going on.
You know, one aspect of it was that this was
also unnecessary. If I had been someone who had had
some difficult relationship with Mary, if there's been some friction
between us, especially in the art world, if wanting to
(37:56):
settle a score with me, get even with me. I
didn't really know Mary on a personal level, so there
was really nothing between us that engendered that kind of treatment.
I couldn't understand why she would do that to me.
That's that's what really really upset me. And then I
thought to myself, that's the whole point. You can walk
in as a very innocent person who just as a
(38:17):
lover of arts. I mean, I realized I'm not spending
tens of millions of dollars on a on a Polock.
It's not like the Lagrange case and and Friedman and
Noodler and all that kind of stuff. I'm a guy
walking in buying something in the high five figures the
low six figures. But I'm wondering, I'm assuming that some
of us are like some of the bread and butter
of that business. And and even if we aren't, what's
(38:40):
the amount of money I need to spend on the
painting for you to treat me fairly. If I walked
in the door and you said, let me just tell
you this privately, Mary would say, now I'm going to
sell you a knockoff of bogus painting for the amount
of money you're willing to spend. But if you spend
more money, if you're willing to give me more money,
I'll actually go get you the painting. You won't, I
(39:01):
won't rip you off, which which was what did I
need to do to deserve the fair treatment. I didn't
understand any of why this happened. I guess I'll never know. Alec.
(39:22):
We started working on this podcast a little over a
year ago, and I remember at the time you said
that you believed and Freedman. Your opinion was that she
didn't know the paintings were fake and she hadn't sold
them as fakes, and I said, I felt just the opposite.
And so I wonder, after a whole year of immersing
ourselves in this podcast and talking to over two dozen experts, artists, lawyers,
(39:45):
and journalists, have your beliefs held firm? Do you still
think an Freeman had no idea she was complicit in
the forgery scheme? Well, I think that what has changed
is this idea that something hinges on everybody doing something
they've never done before. Whenever people walk into a room
and there's a time honored process they have, there's a
(40:05):
protocol they have, and all of a sudden they throw
that out the window, to the tune of tens of
millions of dollars. I made seventy million dollars and fake
aren't that was sold here this gallery. There was no excuse.
These people have no excuse. And Friedman Hammer everybody involved
in this case, these were the top people in the field.
(40:26):
And what they didn't know. They summoned experts to come
in and aid them and to counsel them on what
to do. What I believe now is Anne knew she
shouldn't have done what she did, but she pressed forward. Well, then,
my friend, we are in agreement. I really believe that
people arrive at a place and they believe wrongly as
(40:48):
it turns out that there's no turning back. Turning back
in their mind was almost worse. They thought, let's see
what happens if we get away with it. And if
they got away with it, then everybody would be walking
around staring at a fake Rothco and everybody would be happy.
Who know, right? Really, the person I think who is
(41:10):
the hammer that just shatters the whole stone work of
this thing is Lagrange. When La Grange flies over here
and has an apoplectic fit against this woman, I mean
this is a guy who's just not going to be denied.
I agree with you. And then also just the sheer
number of fakes that began to come forward. You know,
you could believe a couple of them lacked provenance when
(41:30):
you're up to forty had all lacked provenace. This is
something that occurred to me when he came to speak
with us, and that is I thought, if this woman
had gone into Anne and she'd had the least bit
of a whiff of insincerity since of theater, or something
being fabricated or false about her when I met her,
(41:53):
it all fell into place. I thought, who could go
in and do this to Anne? Who could fool Anne?
Who wouldn't have to be enough to be somebody who
she's like a school teacher, She's like a kindergarten teacher. Yes,
I think that very day you said to me, you know,
I believe her. You didn't believe Anne, but you did
believe Cofira. One thing I know for sure there were
(42:20):
sixty or so fake painting sold by the Wiseman and
no Oldler galleries. And it leaves me with a haunting thought,
where are those paintings today? We know the dess fake
Rothko ended up in Attorney Luke Nichols office a story
to tell curious clients. Francis Babies. Fake Clifford still found
(42:44):
its way to the basement, only to get misplaced, and
Friedman's own fake Pollock with the misspelled signature was still
hanging in her home last we heard. We also know
a few of the paintings made their way into legal
proceedings from various law suits. But what about the fifty
or so others. How many of those fakes have been
(43:05):
sold very quietly by buyers eager to expunge the stain
of fraud from their walls, Buyers who may have recouped
their losses illegally. Of course, perhaps they even profited, as
Ann Friedman assured them they would with paintings from the
David Herbert collection. And that's it for art fraud. Most
(43:38):
of the listeners of this show will never purchase a
piece of fine art in their lives. We hope you've
enjoyed this show, nonetheless, And for those who are real collectors, remember,
if you can fool and Friedman, you can fool anyone
used today the sweetness and the sorrow wish me luck
(44:09):
the same to you, But I can't regret what I
did for love, What I did for love, Look my eyes.
(44:37):
Art Fraud is brought to you by I Heart Radio
and Cavalry Audio. Our executive producers are Matt del Piano,
Keegan Rosenberger, Andy Turner, myself, and Michael Shnayerson. We're produced
by Brandon Morgan and Zach McNeice. Zack also edited and
mixed this episode. Lindsay Hoffman is our managing producer. How
(44:59):
A here is Michael Shnayerson. All Love
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