February 15, 2022 • 47 mins
Glafira Rosales tells her story. Her first and only public interview on 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.
Special thanks to composer Danielle Eva Schwob. The classical selections in this week's episode are from her new album "Out of the Tunnel" available now.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I think that con artists are effective because they are
incredible readers of human beings. What they do better than
almost anyone else is figure out what makes you personally tick,
what motivates you, What are your hopes, what are you
(00:21):
scared of you know? What are your fears, what are
your hang ups? How do you see the world, what
are the biases and the lenses through which you view reality?
And then what they do is sell that back to you.
They give you the vision of the world that you
already believe in, the vision of yourself that you want
to see reflected back and not reality. Part of what
(00:49):
makes a con artist story so compelling is there's usually
a grain of truth that makes the lie more convincing.
So it will with Rosales and the story she was
spinning to Anne Friedman about a supposed Clifford Still painting.
It was a wild tale in which the painting was
(01:11):
said to be photographed then stored in the trunk of
a car. Only the car's rear engine had caught fire,
leaving the painting badly burned and unsellable. And it happened.
Actually Carlos was preparing the pieces, and he was threaten
them with her dryers and putting them in coal and
(01:31):
hot temperatures, so that one got burned because he forgot
to turn the hair dryer of, and of course it
went in flames. And now Anne is waiting for the piece.
Then what is this planation I'm going to give Carlos
tom It would tell them this ironically, and Freedman would
(01:55):
later use a fragment of the burned painting as proof
the paintings must have been real. After all, what forgers
would intentionally burn their carefully crafted artwork. In fact, certain
materials in the burned fragment typically appeared in authentic Clifford
Still paintings, A mishap that could have hindered the entire
(02:15):
operation became instead proof of the paintings Authenticityfra Rosalee is
unquestionably the most fascinating and elusive character in the story
of the Knoler scandal. While many of the major players
have sat for interviews on camera or in print over
the years, Mosalez has only told her story privately to
(02:39):
federal prosecutors and investigators. Michael Schnayerson and I spoke with
Gfira rosales in early in a small conference room at
the Lowell Hotel in New York City. She was accompanied
by her daughter solely. Rosales is a shy, diminutive woman
with straight, dark hair almost shoulder length, and glasses that
(03:03):
make her look rather academic. She speaks softly, apologizing for
her English these days. Rosales lives with her daughter in
a small Upper east Side apartment, decades before the irresistible
hustle of New York City life would lure her to
Knodler Fra. Rosales was born and raised in Mexico. My
(03:27):
father had a lot of cows, all kind of animals,
and we have to help with everything, of course, so
it was a little runch so no water, no electricity.
I grew up with a very difficult father. My childhood,
it was very, very difficult. Your father was difficult, well,
(03:47):
he was abusive. You know. We have to get up
at four o'clock in the morning go and help him
to the farm. Also helped my mom clean places for
the animals, gave them food, carry water from kilometers away
because there was no water. And then I went to
Mexico City, so I studied there. I was a north
(04:09):
I became a Norse, and then I was a study
in medicine. It was my dream to be a doctor.
Despite her initial dreams of working in medicine, Rosalas was
intrigued by fine art as well. At the school, they
teach you about art, about the mural list, the big
(04:30):
mural list of the country, like the rivera Frida Carlo,
all of them. By the age of nineteen, rosals had
a boyfriend, a scruffy, an impressive restaurateur in Mexico City
named Carlos Bergantinos. Carlos had come from Spain to run
a little eatery in Mexico's capital. City's sister worked as
(04:53):
a waitress at the restaurant. One night, she called Glafira
in a panic. As it turned out, a relationship that
would be fraught with chaos started no less dramatically. She
was scared that something happened at the restaurant somebody, which
it was him. It was drunk and he was having problems.
So I came to help him, kind of rescue him,
(05:16):
and from then he never leave me alone. Despite their
chaotic beginnings, bergen Tinos and Rosawa's stayed together and would
eventually have a daughter together. It was bergen Tinos who
first urged Gofra to come to the United States. I
never want to come here. I never thought that it
(05:38):
was good to come here. I felt sorry for people
who came here and went through so much, so I
never thought to come here. But he convinced me to come.
He said that it was a land of opportunities. Carlos
and a first arrived in Chicago. They lived there only
(05:59):
for a short time before moving south to Houston, Texas,
where the couple worked many different low wage jobs to
support themselves. He was working as a waiter, he works
as a chef. I clean houses. I work as a guaitress,
(06:19):
bus girl, taking care of elderly people. From Houston, the
couple eventually moved to New York City. They arrived one
night on a bus at Port Authority, walking past prostitutes
and drug addicts. They carried their bags to a shelter
on Fourteenth Street, but were turned away. They ended up
(06:42):
that first night in a hotel on West fourteenth Street
with communal bathrooms so appalling that GFRA used a bucket
to avoid them. Longing for a more peaceful and safer community,
Carlos and Glaf settled in Great Neck Long Island. One
early business venture for the pair was learning how to
(07:03):
treat antique furniture, specifically, how to make new furniture look old.
There seemed to be some promise in that. Inside a
local art gallery, one day, Carlos Bergantino stumbled onto a
potentially more lucrative idea. We were selling antiquities and we
(07:24):
came to a gallery where they were selling art too,
and they say that this painting is on the style
of And from there is where Carlos got the idea
of off, if they could work with antiquities, why not
work with paintings making them look old. Tool Fira says
(07:47):
she resisted the idea, but had no choice. Carlos pressure me.
He pressured me, he um abuse me physically, and and
vali and um. He also threatened me to take my
door away. He couldn't go to galeries himself because he
(08:10):
held that reputation, so I had no choice. As it
turned out, Carlos Burgontina's was highly skilled at aging new
artworks and presenting them as old master works. He first
used his burgeoning talent to sell at least one fake
painting presented as a work by the artist Jean Michel Basquiat. Well,
(08:32):
what happened was that painting unentitled one is a fake
Basquiat painting that was sold by Christie's back in the
early nineties. That's Richard Gallop, a New York City attorney
who specializes in the art world. Basiad died I think
in seven. This painting was sold at auction in at
(08:53):
Christie's and it was consigned to Christie's by Burgontinos, and
the painting was sold as an authentic Baskia and it
sold for two hundred thousand dollars, and then Tony Shafrazie
then exhibited it at his gallery and a Basquia show
back in I think in those days Christie's didn't care
(09:13):
about verifying or confirming the information, or they had a
posity of information about the consigner. So the consigner didn't
have to give his social Security number, didn't have to
prove how he knew Bascia, didn't have to give any
kind of biographical history of the relationship between him and Baskia,
(09:33):
how he acquieted from the artist. They just took it
on consignment, put it on the auction floor, and sold
it well more than amazing. Before the Bascia was consigned
to Christie's. Christie's they had that painting on an easel
and they called up Gerard Basquia. Gerard was John Michelle's father,
(09:54):
and they said, we've got this Basquia. We're not sure
it's authentic and everything else. Go over and take a
look at it. And he went over to sixty seven
Street with a friend of his and they looked at
the painting and he didn't think it was right. They
nevertheless put it in the auction and they sold it.
Boskia showed that even the most renowned auction houses were
(10:16):
willing to compromise for the sake of a sale, and
that con artists were all too ready to nudge them along.
Burgundino's tried another fast one at Christie's in the early
nine nineties, damaging whatever small reputation he had. Burgund Tino's
got into trouble in the early nineties, you know, because
he went to Christie's and he bid four thousand dollars
(10:38):
for a South American painting and then ran out of
the auction room. That's always great when a bitter runs
out of the auction room. Afterward, they can't get his number.
Literally ran out of there, I guess, so yeah, and this,
of course at the same time as the boskiat right
right in and around the same time, they were buying
paintings all over the place and phonying up paintings all
over the place. On another occasion, around nineteen Carlos made
(11:02):
a successful bid of eighty five thousand dollars on a
nineteenth century Spanish painting, but then he failed to make
payment and take the work. Christie sued him as a result.
Because of these ham handed art deals, money for Carlos
and Glaphyra was tight. To make ends meet, Glypha sold
Halloween pumpkins. She sold flowers. At one point, she and
(11:27):
Carlos even wholesaled lobsters to New York restaurants. On Long
Island's north shore, Carlos had come to love fishing and
hung out with local fishermen. On a whim, he bought
an old ambulance and filled it with lobsters freshly caught
by his pals. Carlos would then deliver the lobsters to
(11:47):
Manhattan restaurants in the ambulance. One day, with lobsters on board,
bound for a local restaurant, Carlos found himself running late.
The restaurant owner threatened to fire him if he missed
his deadline. In desperation, Carlos turned on the ambulance's siren
and raced through traffic, arriving just in time. Glafia urged
(12:10):
him not to use the siren again, but Carlos wouldn't
hear of it. He continued his ambulance lobster deliveries, racing
down the streets of New York with the siren wailing. Eventually,
Carlos was pulled over by police. Did the ambulance workers
need an escort? No? Carlos said, no problem there. The
cops grew suspicious. What was he transporting? Sheepishly, Carlos pulled
(12:35):
out two lobsters and displayed them in the glare of
the spotlight. For a moment, the cops stood in stunned silence.
When Carlos explained his mission, the officers collapsed in laughter,
more art fraud. In a minute, forced to participate in
(12:57):
Carlos's art forgery scheme, of began educating herself in art.
Carlos's mishaps had revealed the obvious He needed to stay
in the shadows. Fra was now the front person, the
charmer with a surprisingly keen eye for art. Carlos sent
(13:17):
me to look for customers. I took courses, I took
sim possums, I took lectures. Carlos saw himself as something
of an artist. He even took classes at the Art
Student League on fifty seven Street in New York. For decades,
the league had drawn up and coming artists, including many
(13:39):
abstract expressionists, Helen Frankenthaler, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, Robert Rauschenberg,
and Moore. Among the students at the league was a
Chinese artist named Patian Quan, an immigrant artist taking classes
and in his spare time selling portraits own street corners
to earn extra money. He met him in the village
(14:02):
on sixth Avenue. The painter was there doing portraits. I
believe people, and that's how I know that he met him.
Eager to make a market for himself. Kaan also painted
Impressionist landscapes. Carlos could tell they were good, but where
was the potential for in the style of Impressionist paintings,
(14:24):
The originals were among the best known artworks in the world.
Forging a mone water lily painting would be like holding
up an American flag and claiming it was an original image.
But creating in the style of works by abstract expressionist
painters like Pollock, Decooning and the others would work as
long as Kwan was skilled enough to produce persuasive knockoffs.
(14:47):
He tried several artists, then he came up with he
was the best. Carlos tried several artists. Can I say
something about that? There is like that version I see
on the media that they portrayed Quan the genius. They
portrayed me, I am the billion but patient he could
(15:10):
not do that himself. Of course, he needed guidance. Quan's
later portrayal in the media as the genius artist would
irk Lafra. She knew that Carlos's contribution to the paintings
was just as important as Kuan's. Where would Quan be
without Carlos's idea to create these paintings in the style
(15:33):
of Lafia saw how much work Quan put into each painting,
but she also knew just how much of the process
was a true team effort. The help that I gave
it was to say if it was okay, if it
was not okay, I mean, And how about Carlos? What
help did he give them? Well? He gave him, the
(15:55):
materials he prepared, the materials he signed for the pieces.
An ambitious artist himself, Quan had grown up in China's
island city of Joshan and in Shanghai. Early on, he
had painted portraits of Chairman Mao for display in Chinese
workplaces and schools. But as the Cultural Revolution ebbed, he
(16:21):
had participated in a daring abstract art movement in Shanghai.
At the same time, Quan had begun copying the works
of well known Chinese artists. It's important to note that
in Chinese art there's no dishonor in copying others work.
It's an homage and for that matter, an historical tradition.
(16:42):
Many artists make a point of creating a sort of
split screen art, with a traditional painter's picture on one
side of the campus and a young artist's interpretation of
it on the other. Armed with a student visa and
his own American dreams, Quan had come to New York
City in one and moved into a tiny white cottage
(17:04):
street in wood Haven. Queen's Surviving as an artist proved difficult, however,
instead of making his name in America, he had been
forced to take jobs in construction. Kwan's neighbor across the street,
Edwin Gardner, recalled him as unhappy. Whenever he could, Quan
would go back to China to visit. When he was
(17:26):
over in China, he would feel like a rock star.
Gardener explained, because when he walked out on the street,
everybody knew him, but there was no way to make
a living as an artist in China in those post
cultural revolutionary years. My name is Jong Hun too, just
ten years away. Put a family name first, but you
called me perfect. I'm painter. Come here. In nineteen eighty two,
(17:53):
Hong Tu met Kuan in the United States. They became
friends and fellow artists. Through the night is patient is
very quiet person. And also I heard from other students. Uh.
He told me patient is very frustrated because his wife
during Shanghai, his own family, his wife, his children's during Shanghai.
(18:17):
Here he's alone. He feels so lonely, and nobody recogned him,
nobody know his art, nobody especially his English was not
so good. Quan displayed his art on a street corner
in Greenwich Village along with other Chinese artists who had
(18:38):
immigrated to America, but eventually he began to present the
sidewalk art scene. Hong too recalls his friends saying, I'm
not good to do that. There's a competition between artists.
People lower pressed people sit there to make portrait, some
fifteen dollars four portrait. The other one said ten dollars.
(18:59):
He gonna do that because he clearly had some ambition. Yes,
and he had ambition to be a good artist. Yes.
One day we have a common friend. She brought patient
to MoMA. Patient was now down to the floor at
the front of Monet Water, ready painting, and the crying
(19:24):
cried like a baby, kneeling down that day in tears.
At the moment, Quan's passion and his desire to be
a truly great artist was obvious to everyone who knew him.
One thing on the tellio, that's what I feeled about
American after a few years, and give you married American
(19:46):
even never promise you that you will become because of
or famous a rich artists, but this country promise you
have the freedom to do. You are undue the last
day of your lafe. I think that early nineteen ninety
(20:09):
many tense artists plaining portrait in the street, but in
the same time, and he's still working in the street,
but not like a street portrait artist. He pinned some
small like a landscape that still left opinion. Is his studio,
then his sail, and then he came out to the
streets and saw the lands. Yes, that's what I heard.
(20:32):
People find him rosela boyfriend. As they struggled through the
eighties and early nine nineties, Kuan and hung To had
much in common, though by outward appearances, hung Too was
more successful. He found a gallery to represent him both
in New York and China. He rented a sprawling studio
(20:55):
space and woodside queens. The subways overhead rumbled loudly but
were oddly soothing. Some of his work was winsome, even playful.
He made heavy bronze replicas of McDonald's packaging for French
fries and hamburgers. Other works, particularly at the Art Students League,
showed a darker side, but four hung to the immigrant
(21:19):
experience on which he based his work was ultimately uplifting,
not so for Quan. One day, Carlos and Glyphura stopped
to admire the paintings of a Chinese artist doing Impressionist landscapes.
So skilled was the artist that Carlos introduced himself. He
showed Kwan a book of various artist work, including the
(21:43):
Hudson River painters. Could Quan paint a picture like one
of these? Sure? Quan said. The friendly couple offered to
pay him one hundred dollars, and Kuan went off to
work on his new picture. When the trio met up
again in the village, Quan showed them his painting. It
was remarkable. Carlos doubled Kwan's compensation to two hundred dollars
(22:07):
per painting. Quan was creating pictures in the style of
These were interpretations of the original artist's work, with one
big difference. Carlos and Fia wanted the original artist's name
in the lower right corner, not Quans. Working from the
garage of his house in Queen's Quan began turning out
(22:30):
one dazzling knockoff after another. Carlos Lephira noticed that Kwan
was good at landscapes, but much better at abstract expressionist works.
That was convenient because the style of the works was
much more forgiving and subjective. Carlos would come by to
inspect Kwan's work with Gphia in tow they marveled at
(22:51):
how realistic the forgeries were. Incredibly At first, Kwan and
Bergantina's sold their fakes on the street. Kwan was paid
to pittance for his work, about seven dollars per canvas. Now,
Kwan said nothing to his buyers on the street about
whether the paintings were real or not. He used his
poor English to shrug off all questions. Either the passers
(23:14):
by bought his paintings or not. Surprising number did. Remarkably,
Quan proved so fascile that he could imitate not just
one mid century master, but nearly all of them. Experts
would be stunned that such a thing was even possible.
(23:36):
Later he would tell ABC News, my intent wasn't from
my fake paintings to be sold as the real thing.
They were just copies to put up in your home
if you like. Over time, Carlos grew more ambitious and
in his own way, just as skilled as Kwan. He
brought Kwan old canvases at flea markets and auctions, and
(23:59):
so applied him with old paints used specifically for forgery.
Carlos stained the canvases with tea bags to make them
look older. A blow dryer came in handy. He also
exposed the newly painted canvases to harsh weather. Carlos was
particularly good at frames, finding originals at flea markets and
(24:21):
garage sales, and then treating them to look as if
they'd been resting intact for half a century or more. Later,
when authorities calmed his studio, they would find among supplies
and envelope labeled Rothcoe Nails, Edwin and Mary Ann Gardner.
(24:41):
Kwan's neighbors and queens began to notice that a man
in an expensive car would come to Kwan's house fairly,
often carrying paintings too. Not from the house that was
likely Bergantino's Carlos would bring a painting in for him
to work on or fix up. Gardener recalled of the
mysterious visitor, but Quan didn't volunteer any details, and Gardner
(25:05):
thought better than to ask. Into Quan's tiny garage came
the paintings wrapped up. Out they went some days later.
Before long, Kuan's wife came to join him in the US.
The result of a complex and expensive process that his
fellow artists could hardly help but notice, and now with
(25:25):
some money in his pocket, he decided to celebrate. I
wouldn't to a big party. He holds it a big
party at his house because his wife moved to New York.
Beyind him that's biggest things for every everyone, so he
can give a big party. And after him, hey, what
(25:47):
are you doing right now? He said, I have some
deal of representing my work that time what ad we
called the timeline. He already do the fake painting. Quan
didn't tell Hong To or any of his other guests
what he was doing. He just turned up the music. Well,
(26:08):
we were sitting together for Chinese people, Chinese party. It's
not it's all usual usual people just eating, just tolking. No. Later,
when the truth came out, the occasional right up would
note that Chinese artists often imitated the work of earlier masters,
(26:28):
But as Hong too noted, there was a difference between
an artistic tribute signed by the acolytes name and a
work where only the original signature was appended. Because you
sell this kind of opinion other people's style with the signature.
But people, that's my study, Oh that's my copy. What
you didn't do was claim your own painting was someone
(26:50):
else's work. That, declared Hong to was a crime. If
you'll copy other people's work, you sell the mess you've
got a Bergantinos would deny ever meeting Ann Friedman or
visiting the Knodler gallery. He said Glypha alone had duped
(27:12):
the Ndler. He claimed Glypha had hired Kwan to turn
out the forged masters. I was never ambitious, Carlos told
The New York Times in a follow up article. Glyphra
was the ambitious one. She had been motivated, he said,
by money and glamor. She loved fancy clothes and fancy parties.
Glyphra has her own version, of course. She says Carlos
(27:36):
had grown more abusive and given her no choice but
to carry on as the front person in the scheme.
The fancy parties and the fancy clothes she may have
bought were part of the job. Without that polished appearance,
she might never have met him. Andrade and Ann Friedman
had a Soho art gallery opening in the early nineteen nineties.
(27:58):
One of the son who gave a lecture. She had
a gallery in the Soho area. She invite us to
go to her opening, and there is where I met Jimmy,
and he told me about he works at that gallery.
And did he say that he might introduce you to
a freedman? Yes? Why did I may introduce you to Anne? Well?
(28:24):
I told him that I have access to some pieces
of art, and so he introduced you to Anne. And
then Anne said bring them in. Wow. And that first
one was the Deep in Corn? Yes? Okay, Now did Pion?
Did he make that Deep in Corn with your help
(28:44):
and with Carlos's help? Yes, but it's not that he
just made one and wailah, it's nice, it's good. No,
he had to make many. He had and we and
we have to choose the best one. It was not
us pay in one thou or five? No, you, he
(29:06):
made many, but they were not good. So many efforts.
Finally you had a good Deep in Corn and you
took it in. And when you came in to the noddler,
how did you feel? I mean, wasn't it kind of scary?
Very scary? I? No, you know that you knew the
(29:30):
painting was fake? Well? Yes, I did so. It was
very scary, very stressful, but I was pressured by Carlos.
It would be fair to say here that a couple
is skilled in prevarication, as Rosales and Bergantino's may not
(29:51):
have been entirely truthful in recounting their story. At the
same time, for GPRA, at least, the cost of later
lying to lawnforcement investigators would have been severe. Indeed, if
discrepancies were discovered, we are inclined to believe that the
story she's told us is true. But it's worth remembering
that these are the words of a self confessed con artist.
(30:18):
Was very smart in targeting, and specifically, I think that
she had to understand the profile of the victims. She
was looking for someone who had everything to gain, someone
who needed to establish her name in the art world,
someone who was hungry and still needed something that would
(30:41):
cement her reputation. That's Maria Kannakova Again. Maria is the
author of The Confidence Game, Why We Fall Forward every Time?
A New Yorker staff writer and Harvard graduate. Maria devotes
a whole chapter of her book to the notal or forgeries,
bringing to bear her years of study of the practice
of deception and chance. In the relationship between Anne Friedman
(31:05):
and golf Rosalie, she saw classic signs of the con
artist at work and an all too willing victim. There
were a few things about Anne that I think really
stood out. She was new at her job, and she
started as a secretary, So someone who clearly starts with
a chip on her shoulder in some respects because you
(31:27):
start from the very bottom. She's female. Most directors of
prominent art galleries are males. She's not yet established. People
are kind of looking at her thinking, huh, you know,
is she going to be able to pull this off?
And so I'm guessing that made the rounds of the
art world, looked into different galleries and tried to figure
out who's going to be my ideal victim. It was
(31:50):
not happenstance that she approached Anne and that she actually
zeroed in on someone who would be the most susceptible,
who was most likely to believe this because she was
most motivated to believe this. So thrillingly vibrant were the
works and seemingly real that Anne Freeman let her passions
(32:12):
get the best of her. Of course they were genuine,
She told art world experts, how could they not be
amongst fellow staffers, experts, and collectors, and was adamant. Soon
she felt Glyphra and her client Mr x Jr. Would
trust her enough to share their story with her, and
(32:34):
she was trustworthy, as Anne fervently told every time she
came in. In the meantime, Anne had to avoid pushing
too hard lest Mr X Junior reconsider and take his
paintings elsewhere. And so through the rest of the nineties,
the shy seller and the eager buyer kept an uneasy balance.
(32:59):
Two or three masterly paintings that sold a great profit
led to four and five paintings and more none had
any reasonable provenance. Naturally, Anne grew desperate to hear more.
Perhaps the first clue came over lunch. Lafear and Anne
had become close enough to celebrate each new painting from
(33:20):
the Mr. X Junior collection with a high priced Upper
east Side. Lunch was kind enough to remember Anne's birthday
and gave her a meaningful present each year, an expensive
pen for example. Anne in turn would ask Kaphia about
her daughter, who excelled in violin. I saw her as
a well mannered woman, and later said of Gape at
(33:41):
a vanity fair. Was it frustrating that I couldn't learn
more from her? Sure? But I always hoped every time
I was with her that she would reveal more, and
that I would come closer to knowing more Stone by
overturned stone. She knew that some day I expected to
meet him, and added of fear and Mr X Jr.
(34:01):
She never said never, She just said I can't now.
Under gentle but persistent pressure, Rosales finally let slip the
Mr X and his wife, The parents of her client,
had been a wealthy couple from the Philippines. Their fortune
had come from the sugar business, and it had allowed
(34:22):
them to make frequent art buying trips to New York.
Often on these Tripsfa recounted they had been guided by
Alfonso Osorio, an abstract expressionist painter whose own Philippine family,
like Mr. And Mrs Exes, had grown wealthy from the
sugar trade. As Anne discovered in her research, Osorio was
(34:45):
close to many abstract expressionist painters, none more so than
Jackson Pollock. Often in the nineteen fifties, Osorio entertained the
Hampton's art crowd at his sixty acre Easthampton waterfront compound
called The Creeks. It was at Pollock's urging that Osorio
bought The Creeks in the first place. As Anne noted
(35:08):
with growing excitement, Osorio had been known for acting as
an informal art advisor, putting buyers, especially Filipino buyers, in
touch with artists and their dealers. It was possible that
the paintings may have been bought directly from various New
York artists studios in cash, with no taxes paid. From there,
(35:30):
they would be smuggled back to the Philippines. That would
account for the collection's long disappearance and their re emergence
in Cora's hands. Or so said Anne. It was art
world sleuthing, one clue leading to the next. Anne and
her staffers spent a lot of time poring over the
noted archives, going all the way back to the nineteen thirties.
(35:52):
It happened to be the best art archive in America.
That was the kind of archive hunting that may have
made Alfonso Ossare a key character in the back story,
at least in Anne Friedman's mind. Later, Anne told me
she had asked Glafira, did the name Osario ring any bells?
With Mr X Jr. Promised to ask her mysterious client.
(36:21):
We'll be back after this sure enough. With as next
visit came fascinating news. As hunch was right. According to
Mr X Jr. His art buying parents had indeed dealt
with Alfonso Osoriosorio fit perfectly into the back story. Glafira
(36:43):
and Anne were now embroidering together. Mr. And Mrs X
had purportedly died by the time Glafira Rosale's paid her
first visit to the Ndler. So had Alfonso Osorio, whose
ashes upon death were scattered over the grounds of the creeks.
(37:05):
Was it mere coincidence that artists, dealers, and go betweens
had a way of dying shortly before the burgn Tino's
team started tweaking their legacies as they sifted through the archives,
and and her staffers also searched for photographs taken in
the studios of mid century artists. Perhaps the paintings in
(37:27):
the backgrounds of those photographs might offer clues, and was
so into connoisseurship, improving that something existed because we found
some archival letter from Robert Motherwell, one former staffer says,
by way of example, in fact, they never found any
direct evidence ever, and was very sure of herself. The
(37:50):
staffer added, if she believed, and she could make others believe, well,
you know the old saying, you can't cheat an honest man.
You know that what the story is, that's nobler artist
Donald Supton. She certainly should have known the fact that
she didn't know where they came from was a tip off,
(38:12):
because any reputable dealer would not deal with that. And
then the other part of it is that if she
thought they were real, she thought that she was getting
them from this woman at a cheap price. So basically
she thought she was conning the woman. So you know
what I'm saying, you can't shet an honest man. You know,
the whole nature of a con person is to make
(38:33):
you seem like you can't trust them, right, So that
she her idea was to make them feel like, you know,
they're very lucky to know someone like you who's trustworthy,
whereas they may not be, and you know, so and
so forth. So basically Anne was conning and thought she
was conningfa and in fact Lifa was conning her for
(38:56):
Golfia and Anne they was soon caused for another celebratory punch.
It was the day that first brought in a Jackson pollock.
It was a classic drip painting, unusually small, but a
pollock it was, or so it seemed to be Freedman
and her husband, Robert, decided to buy it themselves for
the relatively modest price of two hundred and eighty thousand dollars.
(39:20):
In buying it together, Anne and her husband may have
hoped to establish themselves as pollock dealers. Interestingly, Anne and
Robert Friedman may also have chosen to keep the small
pollock for themselves because of how it was signed. One day,
while I was working on my story for Vanity Fair,
Anne invited me up for a tour of her apartment.
(39:41):
On the walls hung a small Jackson pollock that was
about the size of a magazine cover. Oddly, its signature
was misspelled as p O L l O K. The
sea was missing. It would remain in the Freedman's personal
collection all through the saga that ensued. The curious misspelling
of pollock would come up later and even be disputed
(40:02):
by Anne, written off as a slip of the pen.
Maria Kannakova recalls this debacle. She started describing how, oh, well,
probably you know the pen skipped or this or that.
She made up excuses for it. Rather than say, okay,
but this is a problem, she said, See, it's definitely
not a fake because a fake Pollock would never have
(40:24):
misspelled the name Pollock, and listening to her say that
when I talked to her was just mind boggling. To
Anne's pride and delight, Lafia brought her a second, larger Pollock,
a greenish drip style painting called untitled nine. The painting
was twelve by eighteen inches. It was small for a Pollock,
(40:48):
but impressive looking all the same. This time the artist's
name was spelled correctly. It was the first of at
least four Pollocks that would pass through the Ndler, despite
his refusal to furnish any more personal details, and could
hardly complain about how her paintings were selling in the
New Millennium. One couple, Murray and cab Bring, bought a
(41:11):
Deep and Corn for ninety four thousand dollars. Richard Gilson
bought a Deep and Corn for one hundred forty eight
thousand dollars. The Michelle Rosenfeld Gallery bought a Rothko for
a three hundred twenty five thousand dollars. The Kemper Museum
bought a Franz Climb for four hundred seventy five thousand
dollars and a Rothko for six hundred fifteen thousand dollars.
(41:35):
Soon after, Hughes and Schilla Podocker bought a Franz climb
themselves for five hundred thirty five thousand dollars. Jack and
fran Levy paid seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars for
a Clifford, still, five hundred and sixty thousand for a
Franz Climb, and six hundred fifteen thousand dollars for a Rothko.
The Leavis would eventually eclipse all other individual purchases to date,
(42:00):
acquiring a Jackson Pollock from the Knodler Gallery for two
million dollars. For some reason, remained willing to accept modest
prices from the Ndler. These are prices far lower than
the works would have earned her at auction or even
through other dealers. Was a just too shy to press
(42:23):
Anne for more? Or was Anne just that good of
a negotiator? Perhaps the latter, since is Anne later put
it with pride quote, I never paid Gla a commission.
I just gave her the net price end quote, which
was to say that the two women agreed on a
flat fee, and GPA just took what she got and
(42:44):
then set whatever retail price she liked and sold them
to the buyer. That there was not percentage. To me,
there was a payment. Carlos told me asked her for
this much. I got that much. I don't know how
much she got and never told Gilfia what the retail
price would be. Anything over that flat fee was Ndlers
(43:04):
to keep with Anne pocketing whatever commission she chose to take.
E A. Carmine, an expert in both Pollock and Rothko,
who had previously declared as first Rothko to be real,
weighed in again on the Knodlers new Pollock. Once again,
he concluded the painting was real. As experts go, Carmine
(43:27):
was the genuine article. He had served as the National
Galleries founding curator of Contemporary Art in Washington, d C.
So when Carmine determined the Pollock was legitimate, it carried
a lot of weight. It wasn't the same as true provenance,
but it was a good start. Later other experts would
(43:48):
note that Carmine had rendered that judgment only after signing
on as a paid consultant to the Knodler Gallery. If
she didn't officially you get a contract and hire him,
she and it in the money. You know what I mean?
And also she used stories, and you know she said,
you know, e A. Carmine approved. This doesn't mean he
(44:12):
proved it. One Nodler staffer recall just how vital a
role Carmine was now playing in legitimizing works from Fa rosales.
One time we had a check going out to e. A. Carmine,
the staffer recall, only the check hadn't been cut yet,
and Anne was furious. He wrote appraisals that helped sell work,
(44:35):
The colleague recalls and saying, he really just got us
out of a jam. We need to get him a
check right away. Jack Levy, co chairman of Mergers and
Acquisitions at Goldman Sachs, bought his two million dollar poblic
in late two thousand one. The Levies had already bought
three other mid century works from Ndler that would turn
(44:56):
out to be fake. With that per of Untitled ninety nine,
they were in for over four point three million dollars.
Levy was an eager collector, but a careful one too.
Before taking possession of his Pollock, he demanded it be
vetted by the International Foundation for Art Research or i FAR.
(45:20):
If I FAR approved the work, he would happily accept
the sale. If not, no Oldler would have to take
the painting back and return two million dollars to the leads,
and readily agreed. Later, she said she had no doubt
the painting was real. The cover letter was certainly seen
by Jack Levy. We said we cannot accept the work
(45:45):
as a work by Jackson Pollock. More from Sharon Flesher,
executive director of I Far next time on Art Fraud.
(46:19):
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. Special thanks
to composer Danielle Ava Schwab. The classical selections in this
week's episode are from her new album Out of the Tunnel,
(46:41):
available now. We're produced by Brandon Morgan and Zach McNeice.
Zach also edited and mixed this episode. Lindsay Hoffman is
our managing producer. Our writer is Michael Schneerson.
I think that con artists are effective because they are
incredible readers of human beings. What they do better than
almost anyone else is figure out what makes you personally tick,
what motivates you, What are your hopes, what are you
(00:21):
scared of you know? What are your fears, what are
your hang ups? How do you see the world, what
are the biases and the lenses through which you view reality?
And then what they do is sell that back to you.
They give you the vision of the world that you
already believe in, the vision of yourself that you want
to see reflected back and not reality. Part of what
(00:49):
makes a con artist story so compelling is there's usually
a grain of truth that makes the lie more convincing.
So it will with Rosales and the story she was
spinning to Anne Friedman about a supposed Clifford Still painting.
It was a wild tale in which the painting was
(01:11):
said to be photographed then stored in the trunk of
a car. Only the car's rear engine had caught fire,
leaving the painting badly burned and unsellable. And it happened.
Actually Carlos was preparing the pieces, and he was threaten
them with her dryers and putting them in coal and
(01:31):
hot temperatures, so that one got burned because he forgot
to turn the hair dryer of, and of course it
went in flames. And now Anne is waiting for the piece.
Then what is this planation I'm going to give Carlos
tom It would tell them this ironically, and Freedman would
(01:55):
later use a fragment of the burned painting as proof
the paintings must have been real. After all, what forgers
would intentionally burn their carefully crafted artwork. In fact, certain
materials in the burned fragment typically appeared in authentic Clifford
Still paintings, A mishap that could have hindered the entire
(02:15):
operation became instead proof of the paintings Authenticityfra Rosalee is
unquestionably the most fascinating and elusive character in the story
of the Knoler scandal. While many of the major players
have sat for interviews on camera or in print over
the years, Mosalez has only told her story privately to
(02:39):
federal prosecutors and investigators. Michael Schnayerson and I spoke with
Gfira rosales in early in a small conference room at
the Lowell Hotel in New York City. She was accompanied
by her daughter solely. Rosales is a shy, diminutive woman
with straight, dark hair almost shoulder length, and glasses that
(03:03):
make her look rather academic. She speaks softly, apologizing for
her English these days. Rosales lives with her daughter in
a small Upper east Side apartment, decades before the irresistible
hustle of New York City life would lure her to
Knodler Fra. Rosales was born and raised in Mexico. My
(03:27):
father had a lot of cows, all kind of animals,
and we have to help with everything, of course, so
it was a little runch so no water, no electricity.
I grew up with a very difficult father. My childhood,
it was very, very difficult. Your father was difficult, well,
(03:47):
he was abusive. You know. We have to get up
at four o'clock in the morning go and help him
to the farm. Also helped my mom clean places for
the animals, gave them food, carry water from kilometers away
because there was no water. And then I went to
Mexico City, so I studied there. I was a north
(04:09):
I became a Norse, and then I was a study
in medicine. It was my dream to be a doctor.
Despite her initial dreams of working in medicine, Rosalas was
intrigued by fine art as well. At the school, they
teach you about art, about the mural list, the big
(04:30):
mural list of the country, like the rivera Frida Carlo,
all of them. By the age of nineteen, rosals had
a boyfriend, a scruffy, an impressive restaurateur in Mexico City
named Carlos Bergantinos. Carlos had come from Spain to run
a little eatery in Mexico's capital. City's sister worked as
(04:53):
a waitress at the restaurant. One night, she called Glafira
in a panic. As it turned out, a relationship that
would be fraught with chaos started no less dramatically. She
was scared that something happened at the restaurant somebody, which
it was him. It was drunk and he was having problems.
So I came to help him, kind of rescue him,
(05:16):
and from then he never leave me alone. Despite their
chaotic beginnings, bergen Tinos and Rosawa's stayed together and would
eventually have a daughter together. It was bergen Tinos who
first urged Gofra to come to the United States. I
never want to come here. I never thought that it
(05:38):
was good to come here. I felt sorry for people
who came here and went through so much, so I
never thought to come here. But he convinced me to come.
He said that it was a land of opportunities. Carlos
and a first arrived in Chicago. They lived there only
(05:59):
for a short time before moving south to Houston, Texas,
where the couple worked many different low wage jobs to
support themselves. He was working as a waiter, he works
as a chef. I clean houses. I work as a guaitress,
(06:19):
bus girl, taking care of elderly people. From Houston, the
couple eventually moved to New York City. They arrived one
night on a bus at Port Authority, walking past prostitutes
and drug addicts. They carried their bags to a shelter
on Fourteenth Street, but were turned away. They ended up
(06:42):
that first night in a hotel on West fourteenth Street
with communal bathrooms so appalling that GFRA used a bucket
to avoid them. Longing for a more peaceful and safer community,
Carlos and Glaf settled in Great Neck Long Island. One
early business venture for the pair was learning how to
(07:03):
treat antique furniture, specifically, how to make new furniture look old.
There seemed to be some promise in that. Inside a
local art gallery, one day, Carlos Bergantino stumbled onto a
potentially more lucrative idea. We were selling antiquities and we
(07:24):
came to a gallery where they were selling art too,
and they say that this painting is on the style
of And from there is where Carlos got the idea
of off, if they could work with antiquities, why not
work with paintings making them look old. Tool Fira says
(07:47):
she resisted the idea, but had no choice. Carlos pressure me.
He pressured me, he um abuse me physically, and and
vali and um. He also threatened me to take my
door away. He couldn't go to galeries himself because he
(08:10):
held that reputation, so I had no choice. As it
turned out, Carlos Burgontina's was highly skilled at aging new
artworks and presenting them as old master works. He first
used his burgeoning talent to sell at least one fake
painting presented as a work by the artist Jean Michel Basquiat. Well,
(08:32):
what happened was that painting unentitled one is a fake
Basquiat painting that was sold by Christie's back in the
early nineties. That's Richard Gallop, a New York City attorney
who specializes in the art world. Basiad died I think
in seven. This painting was sold at auction in at
(08:53):
Christie's and it was consigned to Christie's by Burgontinos, and
the painting was sold as an authentic Baskia and it
sold for two hundred thousand dollars, and then Tony Shafrazie
then exhibited it at his gallery and a Basquia show
back in I think in those days Christie's didn't care
(09:13):
about verifying or confirming the information, or they had a
posity of information about the consigner. So the consigner didn't
have to give his social Security number, didn't have to
prove how he knew Bascia, didn't have to give any
kind of biographical history of the relationship between him and Baskia,
(09:33):
how he acquieted from the artist. They just took it
on consignment, put it on the auction floor, and sold
it well more than amazing. Before the Bascia was consigned
to Christie's. Christie's they had that painting on an easel
and they called up Gerard Basquia. Gerard was John Michelle's father,
(09:54):
and they said, we've got this Basquia. We're not sure
it's authentic and everything else. Go over and take a
look at it. And he went over to sixty seven
Street with a friend of his and they looked at
the painting and he didn't think it was right. They
nevertheless put it in the auction and they sold it.
Boskia showed that even the most renowned auction houses were
(10:16):
willing to compromise for the sake of a sale, and
that con artists were all too ready to nudge them along.
Burgundino's tried another fast one at Christie's in the early
nine nineties, damaging whatever small reputation he had. Burgund Tino's
got into trouble in the early nineties, you know, because
he went to Christie's and he bid four thousand dollars
(10:38):
for a South American painting and then ran out of
the auction room. That's always great when a bitter runs
out of the auction room. Afterward, they can't get his number.
Literally ran out of there, I guess, so yeah, and this,
of course at the same time as the boskiat right
right in and around the same time, they were buying
paintings all over the place and phonying up paintings all
over the place. On another occasion, around nineteen Carlos made
(11:02):
a successful bid of eighty five thousand dollars on a
nineteenth century Spanish painting, but then he failed to make
payment and take the work. Christie sued him as a result.
Because of these ham handed art deals, money for Carlos
and Glaphyra was tight. To make ends meet, Glypha sold
Halloween pumpkins. She sold flowers. At one point, she and
(11:27):
Carlos even wholesaled lobsters to New York restaurants. On Long
Island's north shore, Carlos had come to love fishing and
hung out with local fishermen. On a whim, he bought
an old ambulance and filled it with lobsters freshly caught
by his pals. Carlos would then deliver the lobsters to
(11:47):
Manhattan restaurants in the ambulance. One day, with lobsters on board,
bound for a local restaurant, Carlos found himself running late.
The restaurant owner threatened to fire him if he missed
his deadline. In desperation, Carlos turned on the ambulance's siren
and raced through traffic, arriving just in time. Glafia urged
(12:10):
him not to use the siren again, but Carlos wouldn't
hear of it. He continued his ambulance lobster deliveries, racing
down the streets of New York with the siren wailing. Eventually,
Carlos was pulled over by police. Did the ambulance workers
need an escort? No? Carlos said, no problem there. The
cops grew suspicious. What was he transporting? Sheepishly, Carlos pulled
(12:35):
out two lobsters and displayed them in the glare of
the spotlight. For a moment, the cops stood in stunned silence.
When Carlos explained his mission, the officers collapsed in laughter,
more art fraud. In a minute, forced to participate in
(12:57):
Carlos's art forgery scheme, of began educating herself in art.
Carlos's mishaps had revealed the obvious He needed to stay
in the shadows. Fra was now the front person, the
charmer with a surprisingly keen eye for art. Carlos sent
(13:17):
me to look for customers. I took courses, I took
sim possums, I took lectures. Carlos saw himself as something
of an artist. He even took classes at the Art
Student League on fifty seven Street in New York. For decades,
the league had drawn up and coming artists, including many
(13:39):
abstract expressionists, Helen Frankenthaler, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, Robert Rauschenberg,
and Moore. Among the students at the league was a
Chinese artist named Patian Quan, an immigrant artist taking classes
and in his spare time selling portraits own street corners
to earn extra money. He met him in the village
(14:02):
on sixth Avenue. The painter was there doing portraits. I
believe people, and that's how I know that he met him.
Eager to make a market for himself. Kaan also painted
Impressionist landscapes. Carlos could tell they were good, but where
was the potential for in the style of Impressionist paintings,
(14:24):
The originals were among the best known artworks in the world.
Forging a mone water lily painting would be like holding
up an American flag and claiming it was an original image.
But creating in the style of works by abstract expressionist
painters like Pollock, Decooning and the others would work as
long as Kwan was skilled enough to produce persuasive knockoffs.
(14:47):
He tried several artists, then he came up with he
was the best. Carlos tried several artists. Can I say
something about that? There is like that version I see
on the media that they portrayed Quan the genius. They
portrayed me, I am the billion but patient he could
(15:10):
not do that himself. Of course, he needed guidance. Quan's
later portrayal in the media as the genius artist would
irk Lafra. She knew that Carlos's contribution to the paintings
was just as important as Kuan's. Where would Quan be
without Carlos's idea to create these paintings in the style
(15:33):
of Lafia saw how much work Quan put into each painting,
but she also knew just how much of the process
was a true team effort. The help that I gave
it was to say if it was okay, if it
was not okay, I mean, And how about Carlos? What
help did he give them? Well? He gave him, the
(15:55):
materials he prepared, the materials he signed for the pieces.
An ambitious artist himself, Quan had grown up in China's
island city of Joshan and in Shanghai. Early on, he
had painted portraits of Chairman Mao for display in Chinese
workplaces and schools. But as the Cultural Revolution ebbed, he
(16:21):
had participated in a daring abstract art movement in Shanghai.
At the same time, Quan had begun copying the works
of well known Chinese artists. It's important to note that
in Chinese art there's no dishonor in copying others work.
It's an homage and for that matter, an historical tradition.
(16:42):
Many artists make a point of creating a sort of
split screen art, with a traditional painter's picture on one
side of the campus and a young artist's interpretation of
it on the other. Armed with a student visa and
his own American dreams, Quan had come to New York
City in one and moved into a tiny white cottage
(17:04):
street in wood Haven. Queen's Surviving as an artist proved difficult, however,
instead of making his name in America, he had been
forced to take jobs in construction. Kwan's neighbor across the street,
Edwin Gardner, recalled him as unhappy. Whenever he could, Quan
would go back to China to visit. When he was
(17:26):
over in China, he would feel like a rock star.
Gardener explained, because when he walked out on the street,
everybody knew him, but there was no way to make
a living as an artist in China in those post
cultural revolutionary years. My name is Jong Hun too, just
ten years away. Put a family name first, but you
called me perfect. I'm painter. Come here. In nineteen eighty two,
(17:53):
Hong Tu met Kuan in the United States. They became
friends and fellow artists. Through the night is patient is
very quiet person. And also I heard from other students. Uh.
He told me patient is very frustrated because his wife
during Shanghai, his own family, his wife, his children's during Shanghai.
(18:17):
Here he's alone. He feels so lonely, and nobody recogned him,
nobody know his art, nobody especially his English was not
so good. Quan displayed his art on a street corner
in Greenwich Village along with other Chinese artists who had
(18:38):
immigrated to America, but eventually he began to present the
sidewalk art scene. Hong too recalls his friends saying, I'm
not good to do that. There's a competition between artists.
People lower pressed people sit there to make portrait, some
fifteen dollars four portrait. The other one said ten dollars.
(18:59):
He gonna do that because he clearly had some ambition. Yes,
and he had ambition to be a good artist. Yes.
One day we have a common friend. She brought patient
to MoMA. Patient was now down to the floor at
the front of Monet Water, ready painting, and the crying
(19:24):
cried like a baby, kneeling down that day in tears.
At the moment, Quan's passion and his desire to be
a truly great artist was obvious to everyone who knew him.
One thing on the tellio, that's what I feeled about
American after a few years, and give you married American
(19:46):
even never promise you that you will become because of
or famous a rich artists, but this country promise you
have the freedom to do. You are undue the last
day of your lafe. I think that early nineteen ninety
(20:09):
many tense artists plaining portrait in the street, but in
the same time, and he's still working in the street,
but not like a street portrait artist. He pinned some
small like a landscape that still left opinion. Is his studio,
then his sail, and then he came out to the
streets and saw the lands. Yes, that's what I heard.
(20:32):
People find him rosela boyfriend. As they struggled through the
eighties and early nine nineties, Kuan and hung To had
much in common, though by outward appearances, hung Too was
more successful. He found a gallery to represent him both
in New York and China. He rented a sprawling studio
(20:55):
space and woodside queens. The subways overhead rumbled loudly but
were oddly soothing. Some of his work was winsome, even playful.
He made heavy bronze replicas of McDonald's packaging for French
fries and hamburgers. Other works, particularly at the Art Students League,
showed a darker side, but four hung to the immigrant
(21:19):
experience on which he based his work was ultimately uplifting,
not so for Quan. One day, Carlos and Glyphura stopped
to admire the paintings of a Chinese artist doing Impressionist landscapes.
So skilled was the artist that Carlos introduced himself. He
showed Kwan a book of various artist work, including the
(21:43):
Hudson River painters. Could Quan paint a picture like one
of these? Sure? Quan said. The friendly couple offered to
pay him one hundred dollars, and Kuan went off to
work on his new picture. When the trio met up
again in the village, Quan showed them his painting. It
was remarkable. Carlos doubled Kwan's compensation to two hundred dollars
(22:07):
per painting. Quan was creating pictures in the style of
These were interpretations of the original artist's work, with one
big difference. Carlos and Fia wanted the original artist's name
in the lower right corner, not Quans. Working from the
garage of his house in Queen's Quan began turning out
(22:30):
one dazzling knockoff after another. Carlos Lephira noticed that Kwan
was good at landscapes, but much better at abstract expressionist works.
That was convenient because the style of the works was
much more forgiving and subjective. Carlos would come by to
inspect Kwan's work with Gphia in tow they marveled at
(22:51):
how realistic the forgeries were. Incredibly At first, Kwan and
Bergantina's sold their fakes on the street. Kwan was paid
to pittance for his work, about seven dollars per canvas. Now,
Kwan said nothing to his buyers on the street about
whether the paintings were real or not. He used his
poor English to shrug off all questions. Either the passers
(23:14):
by bought his paintings or not. Surprising number did. Remarkably,
Quan proved so fascile that he could imitate not just
one mid century master, but nearly all of them. Experts
would be stunned that such a thing was even possible.
(23:36):
Later he would tell ABC News, my intent wasn't from
my fake paintings to be sold as the real thing.
They were just copies to put up in your home
if you like. Over time, Carlos grew more ambitious and
in his own way, just as skilled as Kwan. He
brought Kwan old canvases at flea markets and auctions, and
(23:59):
so applied him with old paints used specifically for forgery.
Carlos stained the canvases with tea bags to make them
look older. A blow dryer came in handy. He also
exposed the newly painted canvases to harsh weather. Carlos was
particularly good at frames, finding originals at flea markets and
(24:21):
garage sales, and then treating them to look as if
they'd been resting intact for half a century or more. Later,
when authorities calmed his studio, they would find among supplies
and envelope labeled Rothcoe Nails, Edwin and Mary Ann Gardner.
(24:41):
Kwan's neighbors and queens began to notice that a man
in an expensive car would come to Kwan's house fairly,
often carrying paintings too. Not from the house that was
likely Bergantino's Carlos would bring a painting in for him
to work on or fix up. Gardener recalled of the
mysterious visitor, but Quan didn't volunteer any details, and Gardner
(25:05):
thought better than to ask. Into Quan's tiny garage came
the paintings wrapped up. Out they went some days later.
Before long, Kuan's wife came to join him in the US.
The result of a complex and expensive process that his
fellow artists could hardly help but notice, and now with
(25:25):
some money in his pocket, he decided to celebrate. I
wouldn't to a big party. He holds it a big
party at his house because his wife moved to New York.
Beyind him that's biggest things for every everyone, so he
can give a big party. And after him, hey, what
(25:47):
are you doing right now? He said, I have some
deal of representing my work that time what ad we
called the timeline. He already do the fake painting. Quan
didn't tell Hong To or any of his other guests
what he was doing. He just turned up the music. Well,
(26:08):
we were sitting together for Chinese people, Chinese party. It's
not it's all usual usual people just eating, just tolking. No. Later,
when the truth came out, the occasional right up would
note that Chinese artists often imitated the work of earlier masters,
(26:28):
But as Hong too noted, there was a difference between
an artistic tribute signed by the acolytes name and a
work where only the original signature was appended. Because you
sell this kind of opinion other people's style with the signature.
But people, that's my study, Oh that's my copy. What
you didn't do was claim your own painting was someone
(26:50):
else's work. That, declared Hong to was a crime. If
you'll copy other people's work, you sell the mess you've
got a Bergantinos would deny ever meeting Ann Friedman or
visiting the Knodler gallery. He said Glypha alone had duped
(27:12):
the Ndler. He claimed Glypha had hired Kwan to turn
out the forged masters. I was never ambitious, Carlos told
The New York Times in a follow up article. Glyphra
was the ambitious one. She had been motivated, he said,
by money and glamor. She loved fancy clothes and fancy parties.
Glyphra has her own version, of course. She says Carlos
(27:36):
had grown more abusive and given her no choice but
to carry on as the front person in the scheme.
The fancy parties and the fancy clothes she may have
bought were part of the job. Without that polished appearance,
she might never have met him. Andrade and Ann Friedman
had a Soho art gallery opening in the early nineteen nineties.
(27:58):
One of the son who gave a lecture. She had
a gallery in the Soho area. She invite us to
go to her opening, and there is where I met Jimmy,
and he told me about he works at that gallery.
And did he say that he might introduce you to
a freedman? Yes? Why did I may introduce you to Anne? Well?
(28:24):
I told him that I have access to some pieces
of art, and so he introduced you to Anne. And
then Anne said bring them in. Wow. And that first
one was the Deep in Corn? Yes? Okay, Now did Pion?
Did he make that Deep in Corn with your help
(28:44):
and with Carlos's help? Yes, but it's not that he
just made one and wailah, it's nice, it's good. No,
he had to make many. He had and we and
we have to choose the best one. It was not
us pay in one thou or five? No, you, he
(29:06):
made many, but they were not good. So many efforts.
Finally you had a good Deep in Corn and you
took it in. And when you came in to the noddler,
how did you feel? I mean, wasn't it kind of scary?
Very scary? I? No, you know that you knew the
(29:30):
painting was fake? Well? Yes, I did so. It was
very scary, very stressful, but I was pressured by Carlos.
It would be fair to say here that a couple
is skilled in prevarication, as Rosales and Bergantino's may not
(29:51):
have been entirely truthful in recounting their story. At the
same time, for GPRA, at least, the cost of later
lying to lawnforcement investigators would have been severe. Indeed, if
discrepancies were discovered, we are inclined to believe that the
story she's told us is true. But it's worth remembering
that these are the words of a self confessed con artist.
(30:18):
Was very smart in targeting, and specifically, I think that
she had to understand the profile of the victims. She
was looking for someone who had everything to gain, someone
who needed to establish her name in the art world,
someone who was hungry and still needed something that would
(30:41):
cement her reputation. That's Maria Kannakova Again. Maria is the
author of The Confidence Game, Why We Fall Forward every Time?
A New Yorker staff writer and Harvard graduate. Maria devotes
a whole chapter of her book to the notal or forgeries,
bringing to bear her years of study of the practice
of deception and chance. In the relationship between Anne Friedman
(31:05):
and golf Rosalie, she saw classic signs of the con
artist at work and an all too willing victim. There
were a few things about Anne that I think really
stood out. She was new at her job, and she
started as a secretary, So someone who clearly starts with
a chip on her shoulder in some respects because you
(31:27):
start from the very bottom. She's female. Most directors of
prominent art galleries are males. She's not yet established. People
are kind of looking at her thinking, huh, you know,
is she going to be able to pull this off?
And so I'm guessing that made the rounds of the
art world, looked into different galleries and tried to figure
out who's going to be my ideal victim. It was
(31:50):
not happenstance that she approached Anne and that she actually
zeroed in on someone who would be the most susceptible,
who was most likely to believe this because she was
most motivated to believe this. So thrillingly vibrant were the
works and seemingly real that Anne Freeman let her passions
(32:12):
get the best of her. Of course they were genuine,
She told art world experts, how could they not be
amongst fellow staffers, experts, and collectors, and was adamant. Soon
she felt Glyphra and her client Mr x Jr. Would
trust her enough to share their story with her, and
(32:34):
she was trustworthy, as Anne fervently told every time she
came in. In the meantime, Anne had to avoid pushing
too hard lest Mr X Junior reconsider and take his
paintings elsewhere. And so through the rest of the nineties,
the shy seller and the eager buyer kept an uneasy balance.
(32:59):
Two or three masterly paintings that sold a great profit
led to four and five paintings and more none had
any reasonable provenance. Naturally, Anne grew desperate to hear more.
Perhaps the first clue came over lunch. Lafear and Anne
had become close enough to celebrate each new painting from
(33:20):
the Mr. X Junior collection with a high priced Upper
east Side. Lunch was kind enough to remember Anne's birthday
and gave her a meaningful present each year, an expensive
pen for example. Anne in turn would ask Kaphia about
her daughter, who excelled in violin. I saw her as
a well mannered woman, and later said of Gape at
(33:41):
a vanity fair. Was it frustrating that I couldn't learn
more from her? Sure? But I always hoped every time
I was with her that she would reveal more, and
that I would come closer to knowing more Stone by
overturned stone. She knew that some day I expected to
meet him, and added of fear and Mr X Jr.
(34:01):
She never said never, She just said I can't now.
Under gentle but persistent pressure, Rosales finally let slip the
Mr X and his wife, The parents of her client,
had been a wealthy couple from the Philippines. Their fortune
had come from the sugar business, and it had allowed
(34:22):
them to make frequent art buying trips to New York.
Often on these Tripsfa recounted they had been guided by
Alfonso Osorio, an abstract expressionist painter whose own Philippine family,
like Mr. And Mrs Exes, had grown wealthy from the
sugar trade. As Anne discovered in her research, Osorio was
(34:45):
close to many abstract expressionist painters, none more so than
Jackson Pollock. Often in the nineteen fifties, Osorio entertained the
Hampton's art crowd at his sixty acre Easthampton waterfront compound
called The Creeks. It was at Pollock's urging that Osorio
bought The Creeks in the first place. As Anne noted
(35:08):
with growing excitement, Osorio had been known for acting as
an informal art advisor, putting buyers, especially Filipino buyers, in
touch with artists and their dealers. It was possible that
the paintings may have been bought directly from various New
York artists studios in cash, with no taxes paid. From there,
(35:30):
they would be smuggled back to the Philippines. That would
account for the collection's long disappearance and their re emergence
in Cora's hands. Or so said Anne. It was art
world sleuthing, one clue leading to the next. Anne and
her staffers spent a lot of time poring over the
noted archives, going all the way back to the nineteen thirties.
(35:52):
It happened to be the best art archive in America.
That was the kind of archive hunting that may have
made Alfonso Ossare a key character in the back story,
at least in Anne Friedman's mind. Later, Anne told me
she had asked Glafira, did the name Osario ring any bells?
With Mr X Jr. Promised to ask her mysterious client.
(36:21):
We'll be back after this sure enough. With as next
visit came fascinating news. As hunch was right. According to
Mr X Jr. His art buying parents had indeed dealt
with Alfonso Osoriosorio fit perfectly into the back story. Glafira
(36:43):
and Anne were now embroidering together. Mr. And Mrs X
had purportedly died by the time Glafira Rosale's paid her
first visit to the Ndler. So had Alfonso Osorio, whose
ashes upon death were scattered over the grounds of the creeks.
(37:05):
Was it mere coincidence that artists, dealers, and go betweens
had a way of dying shortly before the burgn Tino's
team started tweaking their legacies as they sifted through the archives,
and and her staffers also searched for photographs taken in
the studios of mid century artists. Perhaps the paintings in
(37:27):
the backgrounds of those photographs might offer clues, and was
so into connoisseurship, improving that something existed because we found
some archival letter from Robert Motherwell, one former staffer says,
by way of example, in fact, they never found any
direct evidence ever, and was very sure of herself. The
(37:50):
staffer added, if she believed, and she could make others believe, well,
you know the old saying, you can't cheat an honest man.
You know that what the story is, that's nobler artist
Donald Supton. She certainly should have known the fact that
she didn't know where they came from was a tip off,
(38:12):
because any reputable dealer would not deal with that. And
then the other part of it is that if she
thought they were real, she thought that she was getting
them from this woman at a cheap price. So basically
she thought she was conning the woman. So you know
what I'm saying, you can't shet an honest man. You know,
the whole nature of a con person is to make
(38:33):
you seem like you can't trust them, right, So that
she her idea was to make them feel like, you know,
they're very lucky to know someone like you who's trustworthy,
whereas they may not be, and you know, so and
so forth. So basically Anne was conning and thought she
was conningfa and in fact Lifa was conning her for
(38:56):
Golfia and Anne they was soon caused for another celebratory punch.
It was the day that first brought in a Jackson pollock.
It was a classic drip painting, unusually small, but a
pollock it was, or so it seemed to be Freedman
and her husband, Robert, decided to buy it themselves for
the relatively modest price of two hundred and eighty thousand dollars.
(39:20):
In buying it together, Anne and her husband may have
hoped to establish themselves as pollock dealers. Interestingly, Anne and
Robert Friedman may also have chosen to keep the small
pollock for themselves because of how it was signed. One day,
while I was working on my story for Vanity Fair,
Anne invited me up for a tour of her apartment.
(39:41):
On the walls hung a small Jackson pollock that was
about the size of a magazine cover. Oddly, its signature
was misspelled as p O L l O K. The
sea was missing. It would remain in the Freedman's personal
collection all through the saga that ensued. The curious misspelling
of pollock would come up later and even be disputed
(40:02):
by Anne, written off as a slip of the pen.
Maria Kannakova recalls this debacle. She started describing how, oh, well,
probably you know the pen skipped or this or that.
She made up excuses for it. Rather than say, okay,
but this is a problem, she said, See, it's definitely
not a fake because a fake Pollock would never have
(40:24):
misspelled the name Pollock, and listening to her say that
when I talked to her was just mind boggling. To
Anne's pride and delight, Lafia brought her a second, larger Pollock,
a greenish drip style painting called untitled nine. The painting
was twelve by eighteen inches. It was small for a Pollock,
(40:48):
but impressive looking all the same. This time the artist's
name was spelled correctly. It was the first of at
least four Pollocks that would pass through the Ndler, despite
his refusal to furnish any more personal details, and could
hardly complain about how her paintings were selling in the
New Millennium. One couple, Murray and cab Bring, bought a
(41:11):
Deep and Corn for ninety four thousand dollars. Richard Gilson
bought a Deep and Corn for one hundred forty eight
thousand dollars. The Michelle Rosenfeld Gallery bought a Rothko for
a three hundred twenty five thousand dollars. The Kemper Museum
bought a Franz Climb for four hundred seventy five thousand
dollars and a Rothko for six hundred fifteen thousand dollars.
(41:35):
Soon after, Hughes and Schilla Podocker bought a Franz climb
themselves for five hundred thirty five thousand dollars. Jack and
fran Levy paid seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars for
a Clifford, still, five hundred and sixty thousand for a
Franz Climb, and six hundred fifteen thousand dollars for a Rothko.
The Leavis would eventually eclipse all other individual purchases to date,
(42:00):
acquiring a Jackson Pollock from the Knodler Gallery for two
million dollars. For some reason, remained willing to accept modest
prices from the Ndler. These are prices far lower than
the works would have earned her at auction or even
through other dealers. Was a just too shy to press
(42:23):
Anne for more? Or was Anne just that good of
a negotiator? Perhaps the latter, since is Anne later put
it with pride quote, I never paid Gla a commission.
I just gave her the net price end quote, which
was to say that the two women agreed on a
flat fee, and GPA just took what she got and
(42:44):
then set whatever retail price she liked and sold them
to the buyer. That there was not percentage. To me,
there was a payment. Carlos told me asked her for
this much. I got that much. I don't know how
much she got and never told Gilfia what the retail
price would be. Anything over that flat fee was Ndlers
(43:04):
to keep with Anne pocketing whatever commission she chose to take.
E A. Carmine, an expert in both Pollock and Rothko,
who had previously declared as first Rothko to be real,
weighed in again on the Knodlers new Pollock. Once again,
he concluded the painting was real. As experts go, Carmine
(43:27):
was the genuine article. He had served as the National
Galleries founding curator of Contemporary Art in Washington, d C.
So when Carmine determined the Pollock was legitimate, it carried
a lot of weight. It wasn't the same as true provenance,
but it was a good start. Later other experts would
(43:48):
note that Carmine had rendered that judgment only after signing
on as a paid consultant to the Knodler Gallery. If
she didn't officially you get a contract and hire him,
she and it in the money. You know what I mean?
And also she used stories, and you know she said,
you know, e A. Carmine approved. This doesn't mean he
(44:12):
proved it. One Nodler staffer recall just how vital a
role Carmine was now playing in legitimizing works from Fa rosales.
One time we had a check going out to e. A. Carmine,
the staffer recall, only the check hadn't been cut yet,
and Anne was furious. He wrote appraisals that helped sell work,
(44:35):
The colleague recalls and saying, he really just got us
out of a jam. We need to get him a
check right away. Jack Levy, co chairman of Mergers and
Acquisitions at Goldman Sachs, bought his two million dollar poblic
in late two thousand one. The Levies had already bought
three other mid century works from Ndler that would turn
(44:56):
out to be fake. With that per of Untitled ninety nine,
they were in for over four point three million dollars.
Levy was an eager collector, but a careful one too.
Before taking possession of his Pollock, he demanded it be
vetted by the International Foundation for Art Research or i FAR.
(45:20):
If I FAR approved the work, he would happily accept
the sale. If not, no Oldler would have to take
the painting back and return two million dollars to the leads,
and readily agreed. Later, she said she had no doubt
the painting was real. The cover letter was certainly seen
by Jack Levy. We said we cannot accept the work
(45:45):
as a work by Jackson Pollock. More from Sharon Flesher,
executive director of I Far next time on Art Fraud.
(46:19):
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. Special thanks
to composer Danielle Ava Schwab. The classical selections in this
week's episode are from her new album Out of the Tunnel,
(46:41):
available now. We're produced by Brandon Morgan and Zach McNeice.
Zach also edited and mixed this episode. Lindsay Hoffman is
our managing producer. Our writer is Michael Schneerson.
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