February 28, 2022 • 45 mins
Art Fraud is investigative journey through one of the biggest cases of art fraud in US history done by The Knoedler Gallery written by VANITY REPORTER Michael Shnayerson and hosted by Alec Baldwin. On this episode The International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR) inspects a purported work by Jackson Pollock and finds major issues with its authenticity. Listen to Art Fraud on the iHeartRadio App or wherever you get your podcasts.
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or think you do. I've learned firsthand about our country shortcomings,
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Getting Eva on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast,
(01:32):
or wherever you get your podcast. I have to say
that when I learned that this was one person, I
was a little flabbergasted. I really was, because these artists, yes,
they're all around the same period, but their styles are very,
(01:55):
very different, and he did a good job. I mean,
there are other fakes in art history, and as I
used to like to joke when I gave talks, the
best fakes are still hanging on people's walls. You know
they don't even know or suspect that their fakes. By
two thousand two, an unlikely trio of con artists had
(02:18):
grown rich from their forgery Schemepra Rosalez had worked her
charms and unearthed a dazzling collection of abstract Expressionist paintings
destined for Ann Friedman to acquire for the Knodler Gallery,
and convinced herself that the works were genuine. She was
(02:39):
desperate to squeeze every dollar of profit she could from
the mysterious works works that had no provenance, and had
bought the paintings for unthinkably low prices and sold them
at sky high markups. The profit margin was so high
that the Knodler had come to rely on the mr
X Junior Collection for its very survival. Meanwhile, the fraudsters
(03:04):
were living the American dream. Carlos Bergantino's The Ideas man
Patient Kuon the artist and Glepa Rosalez, the resourceful salesperson,
had executed a scheme that was paying enormous dividends. Along
with rising profits, however, came increased risk. By two thousand two,
(03:26):
Jack and Fan Levy had spent upwards a four point
three million dollars acquiring master works from Knodler. The biggest
prize was a two million dollar Jackson pollock, identified simply
as untitled ninety nine. It had a greenish cast and
measured twelve by eighteen inches. It was small for a pollock,
(03:48):
but impressive all the same. Before the sale could be finalized, however,
Jack Levy insisted that the pollock be vetted by Eye
Far the International Foundation for Art rest Church. Up to
this point, none of the works brought in by Glafira
Rosalee had been subjected to forensic scrutiny, and Friedman was
(04:12):
so convinced of the works authenticity that she readily agreed
to the Leavi's terms. The work was already owned by
Jack Levey, so Noodler was not quote the client or
the person who submitted the work to eye FAR. There's
a lot of misunderstanding in the field about that. I
(04:34):
am Sharon Flesher. I'm executive director of the International Foundation
for Art Research, which is much better known under the
acronym by FAR. By far as experts provide a thorough
and impartial analysis of visual works of art through provenance
research and forensic testing. I FAR is also well known
(04:57):
for their pioneering work and art theft, having created the
first database of stolen art. I spoke with Sharon in
her corner office overlooking the New York Public Library. I FAR,
now a fifty year old institution, works with researchers and
forensics experts to help authenticate artwork submitted from all over
the world. Jack Levy purchased his pollock from the Knodler
(05:20):
with no inkling that it might be fake. Signing up
for an eye FAR analysis was a mere legal nicety,
or so he thought, despite the many pollocks that came
through I Far. Sharon too had no doubts that the
Levy pollock would prove to be right maas initial assumption was,
of course, this would be great, We're going to find
a new pollock, because it would never entered my mind
(05:44):
that a work that wouldn't be good would have been
sold through the no legality. Sharon was unaware of the
deal Jack Levy had struck with Ann Friedman and Knodler,
but to her, having the sale of the pollock be
contingent upon I Far determination of authenticity made a lot
of sense. My logic said to me that someone who
(06:08):
purchases a seventh figure work from a reputable gallery, if
the work turns out not to be what that person
hopes and expects it to be, that they will turn
right around to the gallery and try to get their
money back. Usually, when a buyer asks a gallery for
their money back, the gallery writes them a check instantly,
(06:30):
as a matter of course, reputations, after all, are at stake.
But what if the gallery insists the painting Israel and
refuses to give the buyer their money back. Acting on
her gut, Sharon took an extra measure to protect herself
and I Far I insisted that the node Le Gallery
sign an agreement saying they would not sue because there
(06:56):
would be nothing protecting us. Because if we didn't come
up with the positive review, I assumed we would. I
could just see exactly what would happen. It would be returned,
you'd get the money back, and then the gallery would say, well,
how can you prove that it's not you're defaming our name,
our character or whatever. It was just a vision I had,
(07:21):
and so I insisted that they signed something, and they did.
I Far began working on the Levy Pollock using the
same methods they would apply to any painting submitted for authenticity.
There are some steps that are consistent for every painting,
and then each project takes on a slight life of
its own. So we are very committed in general to
(07:45):
what I like to think of as a three pronged process,
which is scholarly research, connoisseurship, the expert eyes. We had
actually quite a few specialists who examined this work, in
some cases more than once, and the physical properties of
the work, which sometimes includes detailed lab examination forensic examination.
(08:10):
Right away, the scholarly research aspect of I far work
turned up red flags for starters. The paintings lack of
provenance was a problem for Sharon. We were sent the
skimpiest possible provenance information that one can be sent for
a work that is of a major artist and of
(08:31):
seven figure value, essentially nothing. And I actually personally called
Anne I Knew and and Culture to give them the
benefit of the doubt, saying we can be more helpful
on this project if you supply more information to us.
And at that time she actually said, you're researching the provenance,
(08:56):
as I said, of course, we always research the provenance.
What did you think? And she said, I thought you
would just bring experts together to look at the work
and say whether it's good. I said, we're doing that
as well. But of course we researched the provenance and
(09:18):
was in a predicament I far as work was thorough
and consistent, and because Jack Levy had officially submitted the
work to I Far, not Nodler, there was nothing Anne
could do to finesse her way out of the problem.
Sitting on Sharon's desk, the deeper I Far dug into
the history of the Levy Pollock the more nervous and
(09:39):
seemed to become for Sharon. The backstory just wasn't adding up.
It was just simply said and relayed to us. It
was acquired through Osorio. This was it. The Osorio story
conjured up by Gaelphrozalice had now made its way through
Ann Friedman to Sharon and I Far. Alfonso Osario had died,
(10:02):
but his longtime partner Ted Dragon was still alive. So
I contacted Dragon simply to find out, after he lived
with Osario from many years, could he provide information? Is
he familiar with this work? Is he aware of Osorio
ever having dealt with it? And what was Ted Dragon's reaction?
(10:24):
He had never seen the work. He didn't think there
was any connection whatsoever to Osario, because had there been,
given his intimate relationship with Osario over so many years
and particularly at that period, that he would have known
if there was a connection. And we did other research
(10:46):
as well, and we could find nothing to substantiate the
Osario connection. The Osorio provenance was crumbling under scrutiny from
I Far. The whole notion of Osorio serving as a
middleman between dealers and artists want nowhere. But what about
the painting itself. This particular work was canvas mountain on masonite,
(11:10):
which is a type of fiberboard. Paula did have canvases
mounted on masonite. In this case, it was mounted on
the rough side of the masonite. Most of the ones
of his that were mounted were mounted on the smooth
side of the masonite, but he also painted directly on masonite.
(11:32):
I can't tell you that one of the specialists to
examine this work immediately was upset. They felt that it
was mounted on that mason I just so that we
couldn't see the back of the canvas. That's why they're
doing it, you know, to hide this. I put here
(11:52):
on the cover of a detail of the painting. Sharon
was showing me the cover of one of i far
publications from two thousand sixteen, titled Hindsight Lessons from the
Notler Rosalee Affair. On the cover are two rectangular photos
of Jackson Pollock's signatures on paintings. Red arrows indicate that
(12:14):
one is an actual Pollock, the other a fake. The
photos are zoomed in to show the detail of the
signature itself and the canvas. Here's the signature Jackson Pollock
forty nine. That's signed on that painting. And this is
the bottom you can see here, here's the canvas, and
here's the masonite. When Pollock did it. First of all,
(12:36):
he did it on the other side of the masonite,
on the smooth side, and he put some sizing on it.
And over the fifty year period from nine to two thousand,
the masonite with his sizing had aged and colored completely
differently than the masonite in this work. How interesting. Wow,
(12:58):
So you really had there was maybe a first red flag,
for sure. It was more than the first red flag.
We already had some red flags, as I said earlier,
not just the provenance any connection whatsoever to Pollock. Are
their photo archives that show this work in the background.
Are their letters that mention a work that fits this description?
(13:19):
We did all of that. These were the kind of
telltale details that led I far to issue its shocking opinion.
We said we cannot accept the work as a work
by Jackson Pollock. It is the same as saying I'm
writing a catalog raison A and I'm not including your
(13:43):
work in the catalog raisin A. We've couched our words
because we couldn't hammer that nail in the coffin. Absolutely,
Anne was pretty ticked, was she not? Did she not
speak publicly and disparage by Far And she certainly spoke
privately and disparaged us to people, because it got back
(14:04):
to me all the time years later when she felt
free to talk about the Levy Pollock and I far
As rejection of it, and would blithely say, quote, there
was a recent history of bad feelings between I Far
and Knodler unquote Hi far as experts were biased and
implied that was why I far had nixed the painting,
(14:26):
where I felt she impugned our integrity by saying there
was a history of bad feelings. Therefore she wanted to
dismiss what we said. First of all, there was no
history of bad feelings that I knew of, and certainly
not during my tenure, and I had already been here
a few years. But more importantly, to assert that even
(14:47):
if there were bad feelings, it might change our report.
I was incredulous that anyone would make such a statement
because we only exist becau cause of our good name
and our reputation for integrity. We're not going to sully
it and I'm not going to let anyone else sully
(15:09):
it with Far's final judgment on the Levee pollic in
two thousand three, and took the painting back very discreetly.
She returned the two million dollars to Jack Levy contractually
she had no choice. Shortly after the sale was refunded
(15:29):
and called a Canadian collector, David Mervish, with news that
she had a wonderful deal for him and was absolutely sure.
She said that I Far had been wrong and that
the painting was legitimate to back up her claim and
suggested that she herself, by a one third interest in Untitled.
(15:52):
The gallery would buy a partial share, as would Mervish.
Certainly they would sell the painting at some point for
a fortune. Mervish agreed, and Untitled nineteen forty nine was
duly put aside for that future day. Its eye Far
status kept quiet, but the damage was done. As Anne
(16:13):
later said in Vanity Fair, quote, it was a backfire
because Ted Dragon went crazy. Ossorio would never have hidden
anything from me unquote. That cast a pall over the
painting and the whole story of Osorio as middleman for
mister and missus. X Anne asked Glyphya, could mister and
missus X have been wrong had they or their son
(16:36):
confused Osorio with someone else? Glyphya promised to address the
issue and then came back with a change in the story.
More in a minute. What grows in the forest? Trees? Sure? No?
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As it turned out and was right, Oh, Sorio had
been in the mix, but only marginally, Sofia said. The
dealer who had handled most of those paintings for Mr.
And Mrs X was actually an art handler named David Herbert.
(19:38):
She was so sorry for any confusion. This is one
of those IFFI moments in the story where you raised
out one but two eyebrows and think, wait a minute,
how were you not suspicious when the entire backstory suddenly shifted.
That's author Maria Kanakova. Again. It shows a few things
(20:02):
the part of the con artists, obviously, it shows great
ingenuity and once again listening because Anne inadvertently told them
what to say, because she said, these are the holes,
these are the things that people are suspicious of. And
she even had suggestions, right, maybe was it? This? Was
it that? So she threw out things that they could
(20:25):
then use once again the con artists here, your job
is to listen and to figure out, Okay, what do
I need to change, what are they reacting to, what's working,
what's not working? David Herbert working wonderful. Let's keep him
in and try to figure out, you know, how, how
we can change the story to the elements that aren't working,
(20:46):
to fill in the parts of the narrative that are
causing us problems. Now. The other element, of course, is
if you're an how in the world do you not
see this. One of the things that I've argued over
and over again is that it's impossible to judge from
the outside, because from the outside your objective. From the inside,
(21:09):
once you're already in the middle of it, once you're
already emotionally involved, your objectivity is gone. It's really difficult.
It takes a very specific, strong person who probably would
not have gotten into the situation to begin with, to
be able to see clearly in the heat of the moment,
and most people just cannot do that. I think that
(21:30):
she was already so deep in the con that it
didn't strike her as weird. It just struck her as
we're getting more information. It's on an need to know basis,
as I need to know more. They tell me more.
Whereas for us, when we're looking at this, we're shaking
our heads and thinking wait, no, no, you're not allowed
to change the story. If you're and you're thinking, oh, okay,
(21:52):
that makes sense, great, wonderful. David Herbert, now the key
figure in the back story, was a brilliant choice. He
was a real person whose modest life and times fit
the larger story, a dealer many in the art world
(22:12):
had known. Almost certainly, Anne had heard about Herbert through
Heimi Andrade, since Herbert had been Andrade's best friend for decades.
Also convenient, David Herbert had died just seven years prior,
in nineteen ninety five, his executor, none other than Heimi Andrade.
(22:34):
Into Andrade's hands went all of Herbert's files upon his death.
Possibly those files contained bits that might embellish Clyfeara's story
of Mister and Missus X. From what Anne now understood,
David Herbert had been more than a middleman between downtown
artists and mister X, setting up sales and taking commissions.
(22:57):
Herbert had been mister X's lover during long periods in
the nineteen fifties in New York. Once again, for Anne,
the result was the opportunity to access newly discovered masterpieces.
One key link between David Herbert and the art world
he inhabited was the legendary dealer Sydney Janis. After a
(23:20):
humble start in the garment industry, Janie had made his
fortune by inventing a two pocket men's Oxford shirt. His
true passion, however, was contemporary art that led him to
become a dealer, eventually representing many of the mid century greats.
In ninety eight, he opened a fifth floor gallery on Street,
(23:40):
down the hall from another emerging and important dealer, Betty Parsons,
Much to parsons indignation, by nineteen fifty two, some of
her top artists had left her stable and moved down
the hall to Sydney Janis. She was more of an
artist than a dealer. She couldn't quite sell any of
the works of the artists. That that that was the problem.
(24:03):
That's Carol Janis, one of Sydney Janis's two sons, who
worked in the gallery with his father for years. One
of the artists who came down the hall from Betty
Parsons was Jackson Pollock. Carol's father liked Pollock's work. He
was also sympathetic to the struggles that came with being
an artist. He bought a little painting from him during
(24:24):
that year forty four. He told me that he bought
it because poll was so poor that he just felt
that he should buy something to Betty Parsons lifelong fury.
Pollock would move to the Sydney Janis Gallery for the
remainder of his career. Mark Rothko came down the hole too.
(24:46):
After issuing a modest plea. He told Sydney Janis that
he had to earn seventy dollars a year to support
his family. Could the Janis Gallery promise him that much?
Janis thought it was possible. In the first year he
made and that was big money in nineteen fifty two,
(25:10):
over thousand dollars. Today, most downtown artists survived on a
lot less, some so strapped that they sold paintings out
of the back door, as it were, privately without the
involvement of their dealer. That was how David Herbert played
into the story. Herbert was no figment of Ann Friedman's imagination.
(25:34):
He was an art insider who at different times in
the nineteen fifties worked for both Betty Parsons and Carol's father,
Sidney Janice. Herbert. Brought clients to various artists studios, introduced
those clients to the artists, and handled the occasional back
door selling of paintings to help them scrape by in
tough times. He was about five nine. I think he
(25:57):
had a little mustache. Worked with Betty for a couple
of years, I suppose partly as an arm handler and
partly to taught the clients coming in. He was not
very successful with Betty, but Betty came over and somehow
talked my dad into giving him a job, which he
did give him. He was also gregarious and liked to
(26:21):
talk to the clients. Everybody started to do was to
take clients to artist studios and tried to sell them
works out of the studios. At first, Sydney Jannis didn't mind.
It was something he was doing and as long as
he was doing it with any of the hundreds of
(26:43):
artists in New York who were not with the gallery
and didn't say anything. Unfortunately, David Herbert's eagerness to help
these far flung artists and perhaps to profit from them
led to a bad end. All recalls Herbert handling money
for one very important artist who was in fact a
(27:04):
Janis artist, Willem Dacooning, gave to dead and asked him
for an advance for his studio. He had gave him
what he asked for, fifty thou dollars. Then the next
year he came and he asked again for none of
fifty and then that was quite a lot in those days.
They told him that he wouldn't lend into him, so
(27:27):
that meant cooning at the start, selling out of his
studio because he needed the money to pay for the gallery. Yeah,
and the handling that directly because he loved the cooning
and Decooning love of the gallery. And now they were
at Aspacaules. He was selling out of his studio but
(27:47):
not giving the gallery its commission, and David Herbert was
in the thick of it, paying Daconing for works the
painter was selling for money he desperately needed. Herbert had
to go about Mannie well, he let him go immediately.
(28:07):
It was easy to imagine how Anne Friedman could have
believed the story of a feckless art handler who bowed
and sold works on his own. By the nineteen seventies
and eighties, almost everyone in the art world knew of
David Herbert. He remained a droll character from the same
Demi Mond as Alfonso Ossorio and Haim Andrade. Painter Bill
(28:30):
Draper would give two day parties, as one dealer says,
and Herbert would be there along with his dear friends
Jime Andrade and Richard brown Baker. There too would be
brook Aster, Mayor John Lindsay, an art Maven Marian Javits.
It was an indulgent and freer time. By then, Herbert
(28:51):
had begun to struggle. He threw in with the distinguished
dealer Richard Fiken for a short lived venture no managerial
skills at Piken later grumbled. Despite his lack of funds,
Herbert never lost his sense of humor. He would come
into the Knoedler and pretend he was a collector. It
calls a Knodler staffer. Herbert would say, I'm furious that
(29:15):
Kndler has not delivered my art for three months. I've
been calling. I've paid for it already unquote. He was funny,
says the staffer. By the time David Herbert died, he'd
become almost a destitute. He had a very hard last
couple of years, recalls a friend from his gallery. He
(29:36):
was basically living on friends and really had no retirement money.
As long as David Herbert was alive, these paintings weren't
going to come out. And Friedman said in vanity fair quote,
the fear was that if the paintings came out while
Herbert was alive, Herbert might have been extremely upset and
he might have revealed the identity of the owner. There's
(29:58):
no question that the paintings would have been paid for
with cash, taxes not paid, assets not declared, and you
can go to jail for that end quote. So sure
was Anne about the newly modified back story that she
even gave a new name to the paintings coming from
Glafira Rosalis. The paintings, she said, now constituted that David
(30:21):
Herbert collection. Once David Herbert passed away, and said, that's
when Mr x Jr. Felt he could release these paintings.
More than one k Nodler staffer saw a victim in retrospect,
him Andrade. Perhaps Andrade had told Anne stories of his
old friend David Herbert. Maybe he had acknowledged that Herbert
(30:45):
might have sold some of these paintings on the Slyde. Still,
if he had colluded with Anne and Glyphia, where was
the profit in it for him? Himie did not profit
from it. He never got a commission, so there's nothing
on him, says an ex Ndler staffer. He was horrified
by all that happened. The staffer adds, I feel very
sorry for him. He's a gentleman of the older kind.
(31:09):
And now all and Ratty had was a ghostly cobweb
department filled with South American art next door to the
gallery he loved so much. As for David Herbert, he
too seemed a victim, even if a posthumous one. It's
very easy to put something on him because he's not
around to dispute it, said Herbert's friend from the gallery.
(31:33):
What should have been early red flags at the Knoedler Gallery,
those early Deep and Corn drawings, that brilliant Rothko and
now the returned Levy Pollock instead remained art world secrets.
For now. None of them stirred any attention because sales
of the works remained confidential. As it turned out, the
(31:53):
Levy Pollock that I far had judged to be not
a legitimate work, was actually one of several to Apollox
that Ann Friedman would eventually snatch up from a Rosales
(32:14):
more art fraud in a minute, Look for your children's
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They see the wrinkled face of a wizard with arms
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(32:35):
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(34:00):
The local sheriff believes there may be more than one killery.
It's been four days since those bodies were found and
there's no arrest as it this morning. They were afraid
he's face it out in that area, what if they
come back or whatever. It scared me to death, like
it scared me. I was very, very intimidating to live here.
Crazy to think you go to sleep one night, maybe
snuggling with your loved one, and never wake up, or
(34:22):
maybe you wake up in a struggle for your life,
which you lose. Joint host David Radamant as he explores
one fateful night when evil descended upon small town, Ohio
killed eight members of an Ohio family in a pre
planned execution. The family was targeted, most of them targeted
while they were sleeping. Follow the Pink Moon murders on
the I Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you
(34:45):
get your podcasts, no one knew the true story of
the Knodler Galleries finances. Later, when the galleries money manager
testified at trial, he would say that the paintings of
the David Herbert collection were not merely helpful to the
galleries bottom line, they were essential. Without those sales, the
(35:10):
k Noodler would have been losing big money by two
thousand four, Thanks to a paintings the Ndler was at
least getting by Joe Stephens, the noted is long serving
art handler since the true state of the gallery, when
he was abruptly fired after nearly forty five years on
the job. My heart and soul was in that place.
(35:31):
I loved work in there, and I was good at it.
To be honest, I wanted to kill her. I hated
her guts and I don't hate anybody, but she made
life miserable for me and the girls by keeping him there. Everything.
She walked three blocks and she's home. I think she
(35:53):
knew that. I knew things were going on. That's probably
why I got dumped. I don't know for sure. Can
we put it that way as your suspicion? And was
now squarely focused on selling works from the David Herbert collection,
and that was becoming a very dangerous enterprise. By two
(36:16):
thousand five, the contemporary art market had soared thanks to
a fivefold increase in new billionaires since the nineteen eighties.
And the billionaires loved contemporary art. They loved the status
it conferred to. Most of all, they loved the profits
many contemporary artists were generating. The new meme was art
(36:39):
as an asset. The market was now more than a
place to buy and sell art, It was a lifestyle.
Wealthy collectors jetted to art fares around the world, greeting
each other like old friends. They attended glittering parties held
by the biggest and most powerful dealers at the Venice
Bionale at Art Basel in Switzerland and at the Freeze
(37:00):
Fairs in London, l A and New York. Entree to
the club didn't require old money or expertise in art,
not anymore. All you needed to join the club with
money and a willingness to spend it. Art has become
the status symbol, as dealer Gavin Brown put it, the
lingua franca of the wealthy. At some point in the
(37:22):
early two thousand's, Clafira and Carlos attempted to open their
own gallery in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City.
It was aloft on nineteen Street. Carlos called it King's
Fine Art. Records suggest he staged exactly one opening a
trio of Cuban American artists who went Nowherefra found the
(37:46):
gallery ridiculous. You know, he was a show off, and
he wants to presume that he was a businessman. Of course,
did you work with him at that gallery or no?
They will not really like I said so occasionally in
and and she was the one who was putting it together.
(38:07):
The Chelsea Loft that Carlos opened was a bush league
effort to join the art market in earnest serious dealers.
Those who, for starters, dealt in authentic art were in
a whole other world, one that Carlos and could only
dream of. By now, the best abstract expressionist works were
(38:28):
all but impossible to acquire unless she were willing to
pay stratospheric prices. Hedge fund manager Ken Griffin would become
famous for buying a Dacooning and a Pollock in a
package deal for five hundred million dollars. With all this frenzy,
the contemporary art market rose from roughly twenty billion in
(38:50):
two thousand to sixty three billion in two thousand eight.
In the midst of this hyperactive market, Anne had begun
publicly showcasing works from the David Abert collection. The mecca
for New York art dealers was the annual Armory Show,
hosted by the Art Dealers Association of America or a
d a a. The Park Avenue Armory is a vast,
(39:13):
high vaulted space that once sheltered Union military troops and
their horses. Any dealer worth their salt was compelled to
rent a booth at the Armory Show, seemingly confident that
her latest works from the David Herbert collection were genuine,
and began displaying the paintings at each A D A
A show. Every time we got a painting from Glafira,
(39:36):
we'd hang it in the Knoedler's booth at the Armory,
and later told Vanity Fair had anyone found anything wrong,
she noted, believe me, I would have been told take
that down off the wall. She would never take more
than one of those to the Armory Show, notes one
ex staffer. It might be flanked by a great Milton
(39:56):
Avery landscape, or maybe a Robert Motherwell. So it was
surrounded by the Creme de la creme with impeccable provenance.
It wasn't some po dunk Pollock. Another ex staffer rolls
his eyes at that there was either a Pollock or
a Newman on display at the Nodler booth. The staff
are recalls of one year's display. People began whispering, you
(40:17):
have to go look, but don't say anything. Everyone knew
it was fake. Everyone was laughing about it. But as
Patricia Cohen of The New York Times notes, they were
all instructed by lawyers not to say anything, why the
fear of being sued. As those brilliant but baffling works
kept popping up, Freedman's fellow dealers made a blood sport
(40:40):
and speculating about which, if any, of the paintings in
the David Herbert collection were real, and why did Ann
Freedman keep promoting pictures one after another that had no
provenance As one Armory show followed another, and believed that
her paintings were acquiring provenance, I simply being exhibited. Dealers
(41:03):
found that absurd bullshit, that it's a building block towards authentication.
One dealer snorted, she kept trotting out this ship at
the Armory shows. I saw the Barnet Newman there, the
Rothco there, the Pollock there. All were fake, the dealer
muttered to his colleagues. Yet Anne seemed oblivious to their inauthenticity.
(41:26):
The dealer said, if you don't have an eye, and
you don't have the ability to discern differences in an
artist's work, you're lost. I don't care how much secondary
research you do, and left those Armory shows with a
sense of exultation. Her masterpieces had survived another gauntlet, A
few of her rival dealers even through her a word
(41:49):
of affirmation, a vague word or two, but enough for
Anne to go on the Levy. Pollock declared all but fake.
By e far had incensed Anne worse, and it jeopardized
the business she'd worked so hard to keep afloat. The
Nodler needed a miracle. Magically, Fra would conjure up at
(42:11):
Jackson Pollock painting so brilliant that no one would cast
doubt on its authenticity, one that would ultimately command the
highest price ever paid for a work. Emerging from patient
Kwan's garage in Queens must have been January two thou twenty,
and he started talking to me about the Nodler case.
(42:32):
He was running a tuxedo so as I was a
big formal wedding, and I said, well, somebody told me
that Pierre Le Grande was a really stupid person. I said,
I think that buying a painting for Man Friedman, he
must be a real dumb shit. He got screwed for
seventeen million dollars. And he looked at me and he said,
on Pierre le grand the seventeen million dollar Jackson Pollock,
(42:57):
that's next time on art Fraud Love laughs at a King.
Things don't be the thing on the Street of Dreams,
Dreams broken into can't be made like new on the
(43:20):
Street of Dreams. 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. Zach also
(43:41):
edited and mixed this episode. Lindsay Hoffman is our managing producer.
Our writer is Michael Schneerson. H Hi, this is Bill Clinton.
(44:18):
After years of being interviewed, I'm looking forward to doing
the interviewing. Please join me on Who Am I Telling
You This for conversations with some of the most fascinating
people I know. We'll share stories and talk about ideas
that deserve more attention and why we should be hopeful
and optimistic about our future. Listen to Why Am I
Telling You This on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
(44:40):
or wherever you get your podcasts. From Cavalry Audio, the
studio that brought you The Devil Within and The Shadow Girls,
comes a new true crime podcast, The Pink Moon murders.
The local sheriff believes there may be more than killer.
They were afraid he's face it out in that area.
(45:02):
The family was targeted, most of them targeted while they
were sleeping. Who could commit such horrible crimes and why
follow the Pink Moon murders On the I Heart radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, look for
your children's eyes and you will discover the true magic
of a forest. Find a forest near you and start
(45:24):
exploring it. Discover the forest dot org. Brought to you
by the United States Forest Service and the ad Council
Hey there, I'm Scott Rank, host of the podcast History
on plot Now. It really is a dream come true
to get paid to talk about history without all the stress,
while still being able to make a living. And I
did it with Spreaker from my Heart. Not only did
they make it super easy to monetize my podcast, but
at revenue is three to four times higher with Spreaker
than with any other host I've worked with. So if
you want to turn your passion into a podcast and
(00:21):
give this a try, visit spreaker dot com. That's sp
r e a k e r dot com. Get paid
to talk about the things you love. The Laundronouts a
potentially untrue tale based on actual events. A young boy
is shoved into a washing machine and vanishes. His friends
try to rescue him, only to discover a magical world
(00:44):
beyond the machine. Season one stars Ed Asner and Me,
John Cameron, Mitchell, Fine j D. Belzel and bring him
back home safely. Listen to The Laundronouts on the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or where where you get
your podcasts. Hi, I'm Anita Hill. You probably know me
(01:08):
or think you do. I've learned firsthand about our country shortcomings,
and despite it all, I still believe we can solve
society's biggest problems. My new podcast, Getting Eva is about
equality and what it takes to get there. Listen to
Getting Eva on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast,
(01:32):
or wherever you get your podcast. I have to say
that when I learned that this was one person, I
was a little flabbergasted. I really was, because these artists, yes,
they're all around the same period, but their styles are very,
(01:55):
very different, and he did a good job. I mean,
there are other fakes in art history, and as I
used to like to joke when I gave talks, the
best fakes are still hanging on people's walls. You know
they don't even know or suspect that their fakes. By
two thousand two, an unlikely trio of con artists had
(02:18):
grown rich from their forgery Schemepra Rosalez had worked her
charms and unearthed a dazzling collection of abstract Expressionist paintings
destined for Ann Friedman to acquire for the Knodler Gallery,
and convinced herself that the works were genuine. She was
(02:39):
desperate to squeeze every dollar of profit she could from
the mysterious works works that had no provenance, and had
bought the paintings for unthinkably low prices and sold them
at sky high markups. The profit margin was so high
that the Knodler had come to rely on the mr
X Junior Collection for its very survival. Meanwhile, the fraudsters
(03:04):
were living the American dream. Carlos Bergantino's The Ideas man
Patient Kuon the artist and Glepa Rosalez, the resourceful salesperson,
had executed a scheme that was paying enormous dividends. Along
with rising profits, however, came increased risk. By two thousand two,
(03:26):
Jack and Fan Levy had spent upwards a four point
three million dollars acquiring master works from Knodler. The biggest
prize was a two million dollar Jackson pollock, identified simply
as untitled ninety nine. It had a greenish cast and
measured twelve by eighteen inches. It was small for a pollock,
(03:48):
but impressive all the same. Before the sale could be finalized, however,
Jack Levy insisted that the pollock be vetted by Eye
Far the International Foundation for Art rest Church. Up to
this point, none of the works brought in by Glafira
Rosalee had been subjected to forensic scrutiny, and Friedman was
(04:12):
so convinced of the works authenticity that she readily agreed
to the Leavi's terms. The work was already owned by
Jack Levey, so Noodler was not quote the client or
the person who submitted the work to eye FAR. There's
a lot of misunderstanding in the field about that. I
(04:34):
am Sharon Flesher. I'm executive director of the International Foundation
for Art Research, which is much better known under the
acronym by FAR. By far as experts provide a thorough
and impartial analysis of visual works of art through provenance
research and forensic testing. I FAR is also well known
(04:57):
for their pioneering work and art theft, having created the
first database of stolen art. I spoke with Sharon in
her corner office overlooking the New York Public Library. I FAR,
now a fifty year old institution, works with researchers and
forensics experts to help authenticate artwork submitted from all over
the world. Jack Levy purchased his pollock from the Knodler
(05:20):
with no inkling that it might be fake. Signing up
for an eye FAR analysis was a mere legal nicety,
or so he thought, despite the many pollocks that came
through I Far. Sharon too had no doubts that the
Levy pollock would prove to be right maas initial assumption was,
of course, this would be great, We're going to find
a new pollock, because it would never entered my mind
(05:44):
that a work that wouldn't be good would have been
sold through the no legality. Sharon was unaware of the
deal Jack Levy had struck with Ann Friedman and Knodler,
but to her, having the sale of the pollock be
contingent upon I Far determination of authenticity made a lot
of sense. My logic said to me that someone who
(06:08):
purchases a seventh figure work from a reputable gallery, if
the work turns out not to be what that person
hopes and expects it to be, that they will turn
right around to the gallery and try to get their
money back. Usually, when a buyer asks a gallery for
their money back, the gallery writes them a check instantly,
(06:30):
as a matter of course, reputations, after all, are at stake.
But what if the gallery insists the painting Israel and
refuses to give the buyer their money back. Acting on
her gut, Sharon took an extra measure to protect herself
and I Far I insisted that the node Le Gallery
sign an agreement saying they would not sue because there
(06:56):
would be nothing protecting us. Because if we didn't come
up with the positive review, I assumed we would. I
could just see exactly what would happen. It would be returned,
you'd get the money back, and then the gallery would say, well,
how can you prove that it's not you're defaming our name,
our character or whatever. It was just a vision I had,
(07:21):
and so I insisted that they signed something, and they did.
I Far began working on the Levy Pollock using the
same methods they would apply to any painting submitted for authenticity.
There are some steps that are consistent for every painting,
and then each project takes on a slight life of
its own. So we are very committed in general to
(07:45):
what I like to think of as a three pronged process,
which is scholarly research, connoisseurship, the expert eyes. We had
actually quite a few specialists who examined this work, in
some cases more than once, and the physical properties of
the work, which sometimes includes detailed lab examination forensic examination.
(08:10):
Right away, the scholarly research aspect of I far work
turned up red flags for starters. The paintings lack of
provenance was a problem for Sharon. We were sent the
skimpiest possible provenance information that one can be sent for
a work that is of a major artist and of
(08:31):
seven figure value, essentially nothing. And I actually personally called
Anne I Knew and and Culture to give them the
benefit of the doubt, saying we can be more helpful
on this project if you supply more information to us.
And at that time she actually said, you're researching the provenance,
(08:56):
as I said, of course, we always research the provenance.
What did you think? And she said, I thought you
would just bring experts together to look at the work
and say whether it's good. I said, we're doing that
as well. But of course we researched the provenance and
(09:18):
was in a predicament I far as work was thorough
and consistent, and because Jack Levy had officially submitted the
work to I Far, not Nodler, there was nothing Anne
could do to finesse her way out of the problem.
Sitting on Sharon's desk, the deeper I Far dug into
the history of the Levy Pollock the more nervous and
(09:39):
seemed to become for Sharon. The backstory just wasn't adding up.
It was just simply said and relayed to us. It
was acquired through Osorio. This was it. The Osorio story
conjured up by Gaelphrozalice had now made its way through
Ann Friedman to Sharon and I Far. Alfonso Osario had died,
(10:02):
but his longtime partner Ted Dragon was still alive. So
I contacted Dragon simply to find out, after he lived
with Osario from many years, could he provide information? Is
he familiar with this work? Is he aware of Osorio
ever having dealt with it? And what was Ted Dragon's reaction?
(10:24):
He had never seen the work. He didn't think there
was any connection whatsoever to Osario, because had there been,
given his intimate relationship with Osario over so many years
and particularly at that period, that he would have known
if there was a connection. And we did other research
(10:46):
as well, and we could find nothing to substantiate the
Osario connection. The Osorio provenance was crumbling under scrutiny from
I Far. The whole notion of Osorio serving as a
middleman between dealers and artists want nowhere. But what about
the painting itself. This particular work was canvas mountain on masonite,
(11:10):
which is a type of fiberboard. Paula did have canvases
mounted on masonite. In this case, it was mounted on
the rough side of the masonite. Most of the ones
of his that were mounted were mounted on the smooth
side of the masonite, but he also painted directly on masonite.
(11:32):
I can't tell you that one of the specialists to
examine this work immediately was upset. They felt that it
was mounted on that mason I just so that we
couldn't see the back of the canvas. That's why they're
doing it, you know, to hide this. I put here
(11:52):
on the cover of a detail of the painting. Sharon
was showing me the cover of one of i far
publications from two thousand sixteen, titled Hindsight Lessons from the
Notler Rosalee Affair. On the cover are two rectangular photos
of Jackson Pollock's signatures on paintings. Red arrows indicate that
(12:14):
one is an actual Pollock, the other a fake. The
photos are zoomed in to show the detail of the
signature itself and the canvas. Here's the signature Jackson Pollock
forty nine. That's signed on that painting. And this is
the bottom you can see here, here's the canvas, and
here's the masonite. When Pollock did it. First of all,
(12:36):
he did it on the other side of the masonite,
on the smooth side, and he put some sizing on it.
And over the fifty year period from nine to two thousand,
the masonite with his sizing had aged and colored completely
differently than the masonite in this work. How interesting. Wow,
(12:58):
So you really had there was maybe a first red flag,
for sure. It was more than the first red flag.
We already had some red flags, as I said earlier,
not just the provenance any connection whatsoever to Pollock. Are
their photo archives that show this work in the background.
Are their letters that mention a work that fits this description?
(13:19):
We did all of that. These were the kind of
telltale details that led I far to issue its shocking opinion.
We said we cannot accept the work as a work
by Jackson Pollock. It is the same as saying I'm
writing a catalog raison A and I'm not including your
(13:43):
work in the catalog raisin A. We've couched our words
because we couldn't hammer that nail in the coffin. Absolutely,
Anne was pretty ticked, was she not? Did she not
speak publicly and disparage by Far And she certainly spoke
privately and disparaged us to people, because it got back
(14:04):
to me all the time years later when she felt
free to talk about the Levy Pollock and I far
As rejection of it, and would blithely say, quote, there
was a recent history of bad feelings between I Far
and Knodler unquote Hi far as experts were biased and
implied that was why I far had nixed the painting,
(14:26):
where I felt she impugned our integrity by saying there
was a history of bad feelings. Therefore she wanted to
dismiss what we said. First of all, there was no
history of bad feelings that I knew of, and certainly
not during my tenure, and I had already been here
a few years. But more importantly, to assert that even
(14:47):
if there were bad feelings, it might change our report.
I was incredulous that anyone would make such a statement
because we only exist becau cause of our good name
and our reputation for integrity. We're not going to sully
it and I'm not going to let anyone else sully
(15:09):
it with Far's final judgment on the Levee pollic in
two thousand three, and took the painting back very discreetly.
She returned the two million dollars to Jack Levy contractually
she had no choice. Shortly after the sale was refunded
(15:29):
and called a Canadian collector, David Mervish, with news that
she had a wonderful deal for him and was absolutely sure.
She said that I Far had been wrong and that
the painting was legitimate to back up her claim and
suggested that she herself, by a one third interest in Untitled.
(15:52):
The gallery would buy a partial share, as would Mervish.
Certainly they would sell the painting at some point for
a fortune. Mervish agreed, and Untitled nineteen forty nine was
duly put aside for that future day. Its eye Far
status kept quiet, but the damage was done. As Anne
(16:13):
later said in Vanity Fair, quote, it was a backfire
because Ted Dragon went crazy. Ossorio would never have hidden
anything from me unquote. That cast a pall over the
painting and the whole story of Osorio as middleman for
mister and missus. X Anne asked Glyphya, could mister and
missus X have been wrong had they or their son
(16:36):
confused Osorio with someone else? Glyphya promised to address the
issue and then came back with a change in the story.
More in a minute. What grows in the forest? Trees? Sure? No?
What else? Girls in the forest? Our imagination, a sense
(16:58):
of wonder and a family bonds grow too, because when
we disconnect from this and connect with this, we reconnect
with each other. The forest is closer than you think.
Find a forest near you and start exploring. I Discover
the Forest dot Org. Brought to you by the United
States Forest Service and the AD Council. Hey, hey, this
(17:23):
is John O'Brien, entrepreneur and a fellow builder just like you.
Thanks you to help with I Heart Radio and Prudential Financial.
I'd like to present to you my brand new podcast
is called Building a Good Life. For each week, a
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(18:31):
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(18:53):
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As it turned out and was right, Oh, Sorio had
been in the mix, but only marginally, Sofia said. The
dealer who had handled most of those paintings for Mr.
And Mrs X was actually an art handler named David Herbert.
(19:38):
She was so sorry for any confusion. This is one
of those IFFI moments in the story where you raised
out one but two eyebrows and think, wait a minute,
how were you not suspicious when the entire backstory suddenly shifted.
That's author Maria Kanakova. Again. It shows a few things
(20:02):
the part of the con artists, obviously, it shows great
ingenuity and once again listening because Anne inadvertently told them
what to say, because she said, these are the holes,
these are the things that people are suspicious of. And
she even had suggestions, right, maybe was it? This? Was
it that? So she threw out things that they could
(20:25):
then use once again the con artists here, your job
is to listen and to figure out, Okay, what do
I need to change, what are they reacting to, what's working,
what's not working? David Herbert working wonderful. Let's keep him
in and try to figure out, you know, how, how
we can change the story to the elements that aren't working,
(20:46):
to fill in the parts of the narrative that are
causing us problems. Now. The other element, of course, is
if you're an how in the world do you not
see this. One of the things that I've argued over
and over again is that it's impossible to judge from
the outside, because from the outside your objective. From the inside,
(21:09):
once you're already in the middle of it, once you're
already emotionally involved, your objectivity is gone. It's really difficult.
It takes a very specific, strong person who probably would
not have gotten into the situation to begin with, to
be able to see clearly in the heat of the moment,
and most people just cannot do that. I think that
(21:30):
she was already so deep in the con that it
didn't strike her as weird. It just struck her as
we're getting more information. It's on an need to know basis,
as I need to know more. They tell me more.
Whereas for us, when we're looking at this, we're shaking
our heads and thinking wait, no, no, you're not allowed
to change the story. If you're and you're thinking, oh, okay,
(21:52):
that makes sense, great, wonderful. David Herbert, now the key
figure in the back story, was a brilliant choice. He
was a real person whose modest life and times fit
the larger story, a dealer many in the art world
(22:12):
had known. Almost certainly, Anne had heard about Herbert through
Heimi Andrade, since Herbert had been Andrade's best friend for decades.
Also convenient, David Herbert had died just seven years prior,
in nineteen ninety five, his executor, none other than Heimi Andrade.
(22:34):
Into Andrade's hands went all of Herbert's files upon his death.
Possibly those files contained bits that might embellish Clyfeara's story
of Mister and Missus X. From what Anne now understood,
David Herbert had been more than a middleman between downtown
artists and mister X, setting up sales and taking commissions.
(22:57):
Herbert had been mister X's lover during long periods in
the nineteen fifties in New York. Once again, for Anne,
the result was the opportunity to access newly discovered masterpieces.
One key link between David Herbert and the art world
he inhabited was the legendary dealer Sydney Janis. After a
(23:20):
humble start in the garment industry, Janie had made his
fortune by inventing a two pocket men's Oxford shirt. His
true passion, however, was contemporary art that led him to
become a dealer, eventually representing many of the mid century greats.
In ninety eight, he opened a fifth floor gallery on Street,
(23:40):
down the hall from another emerging and important dealer, Betty Parsons,
Much to parsons indignation, by nineteen fifty two, some of
her top artists had left her stable and moved down
the hall to Sydney Janis. She was more of an
artist than a dealer. She couldn't quite sell any of
the works of the artists. That that that was the problem.
(24:03):
That's Carol Janis, one of Sydney Janis's two sons, who
worked in the gallery with his father for years. One
of the artists who came down the hall from Betty
Parsons was Jackson Pollock. Carol's father liked Pollock's work. He
was also sympathetic to the struggles that came with being
an artist. He bought a little painting from him during
(24:24):
that year forty four. He told me that he bought
it because poll was so poor that he just felt
that he should buy something to Betty Parsons lifelong fury.
Pollock would move to the Sydney Janis Gallery for the
remainder of his career. Mark Rothko came down the hole too.
(24:46):
After issuing a modest plea. He told Sydney Janis that
he had to earn seventy dollars a year to support
his family. Could the Janis Gallery promise him that much?
Janis thought it was possible. In the first year he
made and that was big money in nineteen fifty two,
(25:10):
over thousand dollars. Today, most downtown artists survived on a
lot less, some so strapped that they sold paintings out
of the back door, as it were, privately without the
involvement of their dealer. That was how David Herbert played
into the story. Herbert was no figment of Ann Friedman's imagination.
(25:34):
He was an art insider who at different times in
the nineteen fifties worked for both Betty Parsons and Carol's father,
Sidney Janice. Herbert. Brought clients to various artists studios, introduced
those clients to the artists, and handled the occasional back
door selling of paintings to help them scrape by in
tough times. He was about five nine. I think he
(25:57):
had a little mustache. Worked with Betty for a couple
of years, I suppose partly as an arm handler and
partly to taught the clients coming in. He was not
very successful with Betty, but Betty came over and somehow
talked my dad into giving him a job, which he
did give him. He was also gregarious and liked to
(26:21):
talk to the clients. Everybody started to do was to
take clients to artist studios and tried to sell them
works out of the studios. At first, Sydney Jannis didn't mind.
It was something he was doing and as long as
he was doing it with any of the hundreds of
(26:43):
artists in New York who were not with the gallery
and didn't say anything. Unfortunately, David Herbert's eagerness to help
these far flung artists and perhaps to profit from them
led to a bad end. All recalls Herbert handling money
for one very important artist who was in fact a
(27:04):
Janis artist, Willem Dacooning, gave to dead and asked him
for an advance for his studio. He had gave him
what he asked for, fifty thou dollars. Then the next
year he came and he asked again for none of
fifty and then that was quite a lot in those days.
They told him that he wouldn't lend into him, so
(27:27):
that meant cooning at the start, selling out of his
studio because he needed the money to pay for the gallery. Yeah,
and the handling that directly because he loved the cooning
and Decooning love of the gallery. And now they were
at Aspacaules. He was selling out of his studio but
(27:47):
not giving the gallery its commission, and David Herbert was
in the thick of it, paying Daconing for works the
painter was selling for money he desperately needed. Herbert had
to go about Mannie well, he let him go immediately.
(28:07):
It was easy to imagine how Anne Friedman could have
believed the story of a feckless art handler who bowed
and sold works on his own. By the nineteen seventies
and eighties, almost everyone in the art world knew of
David Herbert. He remained a droll character from the same
Demi Mond as Alfonso Ossorio and Haim Andrade. Painter Bill
(28:30):
Draper would give two day parties, as one dealer says,
and Herbert would be there along with his dear friends
Jime Andrade and Richard brown Baker. There too would be
brook Aster, Mayor John Lindsay, an art Maven Marian Javits.
It was an indulgent and freer time. By then, Herbert
(28:51):
had begun to struggle. He threw in with the distinguished
dealer Richard Fiken for a short lived venture no managerial
skills at Piken later grumbled. Despite his lack of funds,
Herbert never lost his sense of humor. He would come
into the Knoedler and pretend he was a collector. It
calls a Knodler staffer. Herbert would say, I'm furious that
(29:15):
Kndler has not delivered my art for three months. I've
been calling. I've paid for it already unquote. He was funny,
says the staffer. By the time David Herbert died, he'd
become almost a destitute. He had a very hard last
couple of years, recalls a friend from his gallery. He
(29:36):
was basically living on friends and really had no retirement money.
As long as David Herbert was alive, these paintings weren't
going to come out. And Friedman said in vanity fair quote,
the fear was that if the paintings came out while
Herbert was alive, Herbert might have been extremely upset and
he might have revealed the identity of the owner. There's
(29:58):
no question that the paintings would have been paid for
with cash, taxes not paid, assets not declared, and you
can go to jail for that end quote. So sure
was Anne about the newly modified back story that she
even gave a new name to the paintings coming from
Glafira Rosalis. The paintings, she said, now constituted that David
(30:21):
Herbert collection. Once David Herbert passed away, and said, that's
when Mr x Jr. Felt he could release these paintings.
More than one k Nodler staffer saw a victim in retrospect,
him Andrade. Perhaps Andrade had told Anne stories of his
old friend David Herbert. Maybe he had acknowledged that Herbert
(30:45):
might have sold some of these paintings on the Slyde. Still,
if he had colluded with Anne and Glyphia, where was
the profit in it for him? Himie did not profit
from it. He never got a commission, so there's nothing
on him, says an ex Ndler staffer. He was horrified
by all that happened. The staffer adds, I feel very
sorry for him. He's a gentleman of the older kind.
(31:09):
And now all and Ratty had was a ghostly cobweb
department filled with South American art next door to the
gallery he loved so much. As for David Herbert, he
too seemed a victim, even if a posthumous one. It's
very easy to put something on him because he's not
around to dispute it, said Herbert's friend from the gallery.
(31:33):
What should have been early red flags at the Knoedler Gallery,
those early Deep and Corn drawings, that brilliant Rothko and
now the returned Levy Pollock instead remained art world secrets.
For now. None of them stirred any attention because sales
of the works remained confidential. As it turned out, the
(31:53):
Levy Pollock that I far had judged to be not
a legitimate work, was actually one of several to Apollox
that Ann Friedman would eventually snatch up from a Rosales
(32:14):
more art fraud in a minute, Look for your children's
eyes to see the true magic of a forest. It's
a storybook world for them. You look and see a tree.
They see the wrinkled face of a wizard with arms
outstretched to the sky. They see treasure and pebbles. They
see a windy path that could lead to adventure, and
(32:35):
they see you. They're fearless. Guide. Is this fascinating world?
Find a forest near you and start exploring it. Discover
the forest dot org, brought to you by the United
States Forest Service and the ad Council. Hei there. I'm
Scott Rank, host of the podcast History Unplugged, and if
you're dreaming of being a full time podcaster someday, you
and I have a lot in common. I used to
(32:56):
teach history for a living, which was great, but I
wanted to thing more and maybe you know what I mean.
So I gave podcasting a try, and I did it
with spreaker from my heart. I could explain how it
works in about ninety seconds. But all you really need
to know now is that, in my experience, the AD
revenue with Spreaker has been three to four times higher
than it has been with any other host I've worked with.
(33:17):
Now I get to do what I'm passionate about, teach history,
but with more freedom and less stress, while still earning
a respectable salary. From just getting started and doing the
very basic stuff to taking your podcast in whatever direction
you want to take it, Spriaker has all sorts of
great tools. So if you want to turn your passion
into a podcast and give this a try, visit speaker
(33:37):
dot com. That's sp r e a k e r
dot com. Get paid to talk about the things you
love with Spreaker. From I Heart. From Cavalry Audio, the
studio that brought you The Devil Within and The Shadow Goes,
comes a new true crime podcast, The Pink Moon Wods.
(34:00):
The local sheriff believes there may be more than one killery.
It's been four days since those bodies were found and
there's no arrest as it this morning. They were afraid
he's face it out in that area, what if they
come back or whatever. It scared me to death, like
it scared me. I was very, very intimidating to live here.
Crazy to think you go to sleep one night, maybe
snuggling with your loved one, and never wake up, or
(34:22):
maybe you wake up in a struggle for your life,
which you lose. Joint host David Radamant as he explores
one fateful night when evil descended upon small town, Ohio
killed eight members of an Ohio family in a pre
planned execution. The family was targeted, most of them targeted
while they were sleeping. Follow the Pink Moon murders on
the I Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you
(34:45):
get your podcasts, no one knew the true story of
the Knodler Galleries finances. Later, when the galleries money manager
testified at trial, he would say that the paintings of
the David Herbert collection were not merely helpful to the
galleries bottom line, they were essential. Without those sales, the
(35:10):
k Noodler would have been losing big money by two
thousand four, Thanks to a paintings the Ndler was at
least getting by Joe Stephens, the noted is long serving
art handler since the true state of the gallery, when
he was abruptly fired after nearly forty five years on
the job. My heart and soul was in that place.
(35:31):
I loved work in there, and I was good at it.
To be honest, I wanted to kill her. I hated
her guts and I don't hate anybody, but she made
life miserable for me and the girls by keeping him there. Everything.
She walked three blocks and she's home. I think she
(35:53):
knew that. I knew things were going on. That's probably
why I got dumped. I don't know for sure. Can
we put it that way as your suspicion? And was
now squarely focused on selling works from the David Herbert collection,
and that was becoming a very dangerous enterprise. By two
(36:16):
thousand five, the contemporary art market had soared thanks to
a fivefold increase in new billionaires since the nineteen eighties.
And the billionaires loved contemporary art. They loved the status
it conferred to. Most of all, they loved the profits
many contemporary artists were generating. The new meme was art
(36:39):
as an asset. The market was now more than a
place to buy and sell art, It was a lifestyle.
Wealthy collectors jetted to art fares around the world, greeting
each other like old friends. They attended glittering parties held
by the biggest and most powerful dealers at the Venice
Bionale at Art Basel in Switzerland and at the Freeze
(37:00):
Fairs in London, l A and New York. Entree to
the club didn't require old money or expertise in art,
not anymore. All you needed to join the club with
money and a willingness to spend it. Art has become
the status symbol, as dealer Gavin Brown put it, the
lingua franca of the wealthy. At some point in the
(37:22):
early two thousand's, Clafira and Carlos attempted to open their
own gallery in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City.
It was aloft on nineteen Street. Carlos called it King's
Fine Art. Records suggest he staged exactly one opening a
trio of Cuban American artists who went Nowherefra found the
(37:46):
gallery ridiculous. You know, he was a show off, and
he wants to presume that he was a businessman. Of course,
did you work with him at that gallery or no?
They will not really like I said so occasionally in
and and she was the one who was putting it together.
(38:07):
The Chelsea Loft that Carlos opened was a bush league
effort to join the art market in earnest serious dealers.
Those who, for starters, dealt in authentic art were in
a whole other world, one that Carlos and could only
dream of. By now, the best abstract expressionist works were
(38:28):
all but impossible to acquire unless she were willing to
pay stratospheric prices. Hedge fund manager Ken Griffin would become
famous for buying a Dacooning and a Pollock in a
package deal for five hundred million dollars. With all this frenzy,
the contemporary art market rose from roughly twenty billion in
(38:50):
two thousand to sixty three billion in two thousand eight.
In the midst of this hyperactive market, Anne had begun
publicly showcasing works from the David Abert collection. The mecca
for New York art dealers was the annual Armory Show,
hosted by the Art Dealers Association of America or a
d a a. The Park Avenue Armory is a vast,
(39:13):
high vaulted space that once sheltered Union military troops and
their horses. Any dealer worth their salt was compelled to
rent a booth at the Armory Show, seemingly confident that
her latest works from the David Herbert collection were genuine,
and began displaying the paintings at each A D A
A show. Every time we got a painting from Glafira,
(39:36):
we'd hang it in the Knoedler's booth at the Armory,
and later told Vanity Fair had anyone found anything wrong,
she noted, believe me, I would have been told take
that down off the wall. She would never take more
than one of those to the Armory Show, notes one
ex staffer. It might be flanked by a great Milton
(39:56):
Avery landscape, or maybe a Robert Motherwell. So it was
surrounded by the Creme de la creme with impeccable provenance.
It wasn't some po dunk Pollock. Another ex staffer rolls
his eyes at that there was either a Pollock or
a Newman on display at the Nodler booth. The staff
are recalls of one year's display. People began whispering, you
(40:17):
have to go look, but don't say anything. Everyone knew
it was fake. Everyone was laughing about it. But as
Patricia Cohen of The New York Times notes, they were
all instructed by lawyers not to say anything, why the
fear of being sued. As those brilliant but baffling works
kept popping up, Freedman's fellow dealers made a blood sport
(40:40):
and speculating about which, if any, of the paintings in
the David Herbert collection were real, and why did Ann
Freedman keep promoting pictures one after another that had no
provenance As one Armory show followed another, and believed that
her paintings were acquiring provenance, I simply being exhibited. Dealers
(41:03):
found that absurd bullshit, that it's a building block towards authentication.
One dealer snorted, she kept trotting out this ship at
the Armory shows. I saw the Barnet Newman there, the
Rothco there, the Pollock there. All were fake, the dealer
muttered to his colleagues. Yet Anne seemed oblivious to their inauthenticity.
(41:26):
The dealer said, if you don't have an eye, and
you don't have the ability to discern differences in an
artist's work, you're lost. I don't care how much secondary
research you do, and left those Armory shows with a
sense of exultation. Her masterpieces had survived another gauntlet, A
few of her rival dealers even through her a word
(41:49):
of affirmation, a vague word or two, but enough for
Anne to go on the Levy. Pollock declared all but fake.
By e far had incensed Anne worse, and it jeopardized
the business she'd worked so hard to keep afloat. The
Nodler needed a miracle. Magically, Fra would conjure up at
(42:11):
Jackson Pollock painting so brilliant that no one would cast
doubt on its authenticity, one that would ultimately command the
highest price ever paid for a work. Emerging from patient
Kwan's garage in Queens must have been January two thou twenty,
and he started talking to me about the Nodler case.
(42:32):
He was running a tuxedo so as I was a
big formal wedding, and I said, well, somebody told me
that Pierre Le Grande was a really stupid person. I said,
I think that buying a painting for Man Friedman, he
must be a real dumb shit. He got screwed for
seventeen million dollars. And he looked at me and he said,
on Pierre le grand the seventeen million dollar Jackson Pollock,
(42:57):
that's next time on art Fraud Love laughs at a King.
Things don't be the thing on the Street of Dreams,
Dreams broken into can't be made like new on the
(43:20):
Street of Dreams. 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. Zach also
(43:41):
edited and mixed this episode. Lindsay Hoffman is our managing producer.
Our writer is Michael Schneerson. H Hi, this is Bill Clinton.
(44:18):
After years of being interviewed, I'm looking forward to doing
the interviewing. Please join me on Who Am I Telling
You This for conversations with some of the most fascinating
people I know. We'll share stories and talk about ideas
that deserve more attention and why we should be hopeful
and optimistic about our future. Listen to Why Am I
Telling You This on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
(44:40):
or wherever you get your podcasts. From Cavalry Audio, the
studio that brought you The Devil Within and The Shadow Girls,
comes a new true crime podcast, The Pink Moon murders.
The local sheriff believes there may be more than killer.
They were afraid he's face it out in that area.
(45:02):
The family was targeted, most of them targeted while they
were sleeping. Who could commit such horrible crimes and why
follow the Pink Moon murders On the I Heart radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, look for
your children's eyes and you will discover the true magic
of a forest. Find a forest near you and start
(45:24):
exploring it. Discover the forest dot org. Brought to you
by the United States Forest Service and the ad Council
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