February 21, 2022 • 53 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 Glafira Rosales, a Long Island art dealer who allegedly supplied forged paintings to the Knoedler Gallery, tells her story. You don't want to miss her first and only public interview on the Knoedler Scandal. Listen to Art Fraud on the iHeartRadio App or wherever you get your podcasts.
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We just can't seem to catch a break. Huh. So
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Brought to you by the California Department of Public Health.
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,
(01:46):
what motivates you, What are your hopes, what are you
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
(02:09):
to see reflected back and not reality. Part of what
makes a con artists story so compelling is there's usually
a grain of truth that makes the lie more convincing.
So it was with Farra Rosalees and the story she
(02:31):
was spinning to Ann Friedman about a supposed Clifford Still painting.
It was a wild tale in which the painting was
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. Hey, it happened. Actually,
(02:52):
Carlos was preparing the pieces, and he was threaten them
with her dryers and putting them in coal and hat 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
(03:14):
is this planation? I'm going to give Carlos Tom It
will tell them this ironically, and Freedman would 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
(03:37):
the burned fragment typically appeared in authentic Clifford Still paintings,
a mishap that could have hindered the entire operation became
instead proof of the paintings Authenticityfra Rosalis is unquestionably the
most fascinating and elusive character in the story of the
(03:57):
Notler scandal. While many of the major players have sat
for interviews on camera or in print over the years,
Rosalez has only told her story privately to federal prosecutors
and investigators. Michael Schnayerson and I spoke with Fia Rosales
in early in a small conference room at the Lowell
(04:19):
Hotel in New York City. She was accompanied by her
daughter solely. Rosalez is a shy, diminutive woman with straight,
dark hair almost shoulder length, and glasses that make her
look rather academic. She speaks softly, apologizing for her English
these days. Rosalez lives with her daughter in a small
(04:42):
Upper east Side apartment, decades before the irresistible hustle of
New York City life would lure her to Knodlerfira Rosalez
was born and raised in Mexico. My 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 other in electricity. I grew up
(05:06):
with a very difficult father. My childhood. It was very,
very difficult. Your father was difficult, well, 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 mouth, clean places for the animals, gave
(05:29):
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 nurse. I became a nurse,
and then I was a studying 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.
(05:54):
At the school, they teach you about art, about the muralist,
the big mural list of the country, like the rivera
Frida Carlo full of them. By the age of nineteen,
Rosales had a boyfriend, a scruffy, unimpressive restaurateur in Mexico
City named Carlos Burgon Tinos. Carlos had come from Spain
(06:17):
to run a little eatery in Mexico's capital city. As
sister worked as 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
(06:40):
he was having problems. So I came to help him,
kind of rescue him, and from then he never leave
me alone. Despite their chaotic beginnings, bergen Tinos and Rosava's
stayed together and would eventually have a daughter together. It
was Burgon Tinos who first urged Gofra to come to
(07:01):
the United States. I never want to come here. I
never thought that it 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.
(07:26):
They lived there only 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 wuitress, bus girl taking care of
(07:51):
elderly people. From Houston, the couple eventually moved to New
York City. They arrived one night on a bus at
an authority. Walking past prostitutes and drug addicts, they carried
their bags to a shelter on Fourteenth Street, but were
turned away. They ended up that first night in a
(08:12):
hotel on West fourteenth Street with communal bathrooms so appalling
that A used a bucket to avoid them. Longing for
a more peaceful and safer community, Carlos and A settled
in Great Neck Long Island. One early business venture for
the pair was learning how to treat antique furniture, specifically
(08:34):
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 came to a gallery
(08:54):
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 too. Fira says she resisted the idea
(09:18):
but had no choice. Carlos pressure me. He pressured me,
he um abuse me physically and and verbally, and he
also threatened me to take my door away. He couldn't
go to galeries himself because he held that reputation, so
(09:41):
I had no choice. As it turned out, Carlos Bergantina'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 Michelle Pasquiat. Well, what happened
(10:01):
was that painting untitled 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. Baskia died. I think in seven
this painting was sold at auction in at Christie's and
(10:22):
it was consigned to Christie's by Bergon Tinos, and the
painting was sold as an authentic Bascia and it sold
for two hundred thousand dollars, and then Tony Shafrazie then
exhibited it at his gallery and a Bascia show back
in I think in those days Christie's didn't care about
(10:42):
verifying or confirming the information or they had a positive
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, how
he acquieted from the artist. They just took it on consignment,
(11:06):
put it on the auction floor, and sold it. It's
kind of amazing, 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, and they said, we've got this Baska.
We're not sure it's authentic and everything else. Go over
(11:27):
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. Baskia showed that even the most renowned
auction houses were willing to compromise for the sake of
a sale, and the con artists were all too ready
(11:50):
to nudge them along. Bergantino's tried another fast one at
Christie's in the early nine nineties, damaging whatever small reputation
he had. Burgundino's got into trouble in the early nineties,
you know, because he went to Christie's and he bid
fourred thousand dollars for a South American painting and then
ran out of the auction room. That's always great when
(12:11):
a bit of 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 Bosk yacht, 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 Carlos made a successful bid of
(12:32):
eighty five thou 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 Lapira was tight.
To make ends meet, sold Halloween pumpkins, she sold flowers.
(12:54):
At one point, she and Carlos even wholesale 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 Manhattan restaurants in the ambulance.
(13:19):
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 ambulances siren and raced through traffic, arriving
just in time. Gafe urged him not to use the
(13:39):
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 whaling. Eventually, Carlos was pulled over
by police. Did the ambulance workers need an escort? No,
Carlos said, no problem there. The cops grew suspicion us
(14:00):
what was he transporting? Sheepishly, Carlos pulled 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
(14:20):
fraud in a minute. We just can't seem to catch
a break. Huh. So many rough fire seasons, but we
made it through. And now there's another risk. All that
charred soil and burnt vegetation can lead to floods and
mud flow. I know, but you've got this too, and
one way to get this is to get this flood insurance.
(14:41):
There's no rest for the West, but with flood insurance
you can rest assured that you're ready for whatever else
nature throws at you protect the life you've built at
flood smart dot gov, slash Wildfires. Hey guys, this Briant Foot,
CEO of Humble and hosting the new Humble Nation podcast.
As a recently public company, we're seeing interest in blockchain,
mobile payments, ticketing, n f t s and more growing
(15:03):
faster than ever and what we call the digital economy.
So join me. Along with high profile gusts from the
world of pro sports, music, entertainment, and other industries. It
was we talked about how technologies like blockchain are shaping
their world ours in the decade ahead for all of
us in the digital economy only on Homble Nation. Speaking
of renaissance women, we are here with the great Dabby Thomas,
(15:25):
the newest rock star on the US track and field
and global track and field scene. And it's just amazing
what you're what you're contributing to your time on Earth.
It's just amazing. Academically, athletically as a person, you give
off a great vibe and you're obviously a good contributor
to society and people around you from all walks of life.
(15:45):
When you're passionate about the things that you're doing, it's like, yeah,
it becomes easy. And all maicron spreads faster than any
other COVID nineteen variant, so it's important for you to
mask up to limit the spread. In ninety nine and
KF ninety four masks offer the best fit and filtration.
Don't have these surgical masks or double masking with the
(16:07):
surgical and fabric mask can also offer great protection. So
there you go, mask vax and get boosted. Learn more
at COVID nineteen dot c a dot gov brought to
you by the California Department of Public Health. Forced to
participate in Carlos's art forgery scheme. Glafira began educating herself
(16:28):
in art. Carlos's mishaps had revealed the obvious. He needed
to stay in the Shadowsfra was now the front person.
The charmer were a surprisingly keen eye for art. Carlos
sent me to look for customers. I took courses, I
(16:50):
took sympossums, 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
abstract expressionists, Helen Frankenthaler, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, Robert Rauschenberg,
(17:13):
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 on street corners
to earn extra money. He met him in the village
on sixth Avenue. The painter was there doing portraits. I
(17:35):
believe people, and that's how I know that he met him.
Eager to make a market for himself, Kahan also painted
impressionist landscapes. Carlos could tell they were good, but where
was the potential for in the style of Impressionist paintings.
The originals were among the best known artworks in the world.
(17:55):
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.
He tried several artists and he came up with he
(18:17):
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 Kuan the genius. They
portrayed me, I am the billion but patient he could
not do that himself. Of course, he needed guidance. Quan's
(18:44):
later portrayal in the media as the genius artist would irkra.
She knew that Carlos's contribution to the paintings was just
as important as Kwans. Where would Quan be without Carlos's
idea to create these paintings in the style offa saw
how much work Quan put into each painting. But she
(19:06):
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 to Well? He gave him the materials, he prepared,
the materials, he signed for the pieces. The pieces. An
(19:30):
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 had
participated in a daring abstract art movement in Shanghai. At
(19:53):
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. Many
artists make a point of creating a sort of split
screen art, with a traditional painter's picture on one side
(20:15):
of the campus and a young artist's interpretation of it
on the other, armed with a student visa and his
own American dreams. Kuan had come to New York City
and moved into a tiny white cottage street in wood Haven.
Queen's surviving as an artist proved difficult, however, instead of
(20:39):
making his name in America, he had been forced to
take jobs in construction. Quan'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 over in China,
he would feel like a rock star. Gardener explained, because
when he walked out on the street, everybody knew, but
(21:01):
there was no way to make a living as an
artist in China in those post cultural revolutionary years. My
name is Jang Hunt, just Tennis Way put the family
name first, but you called me unto is perfect. I'm painter.
Came here in nineteen eighty two. Hang Tou med Quan
(21:21):
in the United States. They became friends and fellow artists
through the nineteen eighties. 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. Here he's
(21:45):
alone he feels so lonely, and then nobody recogned him,
nobody know his art, nobody especially his English was not
so good. Quan The played his art on a street
corner in Greenwich Village along with other Chinese artists who
had immigrated to America. But eventually he began to present
(22:09):
the sidewalk art scene. Hong too recalls his friends saying,
I'm not good to do that. There's a computation between
artists people lower repressed people sit there to make portrait,
some of it fifteen dollars four portrait, the other one
that ten dollars. He couldn't do that because he clearly
(22:30):
had some ambition, Yes, and he had ambition to be
a good artist. Yes. One day we have a common friend,
she wrote patient to MoMA. Patient was now down to
the floor at the front of four moneth waterlead painting,
and the cry cried like a baby, kneeling down that
(22:55):
day in tears. At the moment, Kuan's passion and his
desire to be a truly great artist was obvious to
everyone who knew him. One thing, I want to tell you,
that's what I feeled about American After a few years,
give you married American isn't never promise you that you
(23:16):
will become because or famous a rich artists, But this
country promise you you have the freedom to do your
art until the last day of your life. I think
that early in nineteen nine, many chance artists playing protrait
(23:39):
in the street. But in the same time and he's
still working on the street, but not like a street
portrait artists. He pinned some small landscape like still left
opinion in his studio, then his sale. Then he came
out to the streets and saw the lands. Yes, that's
what I heard. People fund him boyfriend. As they struggled
(24:06):
through the eighties and early nine nineties, Quan and hung
Too had much in common, though by outward appearances, hong
To was more successful. He found a gallery to represent
him both in New York and China. He rented a
sprawling studio space in Woodside, Queens. The subways overhead rumbled
loudly but were oddly soothing. Some of his work was winsome,
(24:31):
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 for Hong
to the immigrant experience on which he based his work
was ultimately uplifting. Not so for Kwan. One day, Carlos
(24:55):
and stopped to admire the paintings of a Chinese artist
to being Impressionist landscapes. So skilled was the artist that
Carlos introduced himself. He showed Kwan a book of various
artist work, including the Hudson River painters. Could Quan paint
a picture like one of these? Sure, Quan said. The
(25:17):
friendly couple offered to pay him one hundred dollars, and
Quan 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 per painting. Quan was creating pictures
(25:37):
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 Quan's. Working.
From the garage of his house in Queen's Quan began
turning out one dazzling knockoff after another. Carlos Inglephia noticed
(26:01):
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 Gophia in tow.
They marveled at how realistic the forgeries were. Incredibly At first,
(26:23):
Kwan and Bergantina's sold their fakes on the street. Kwan
was paid a 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 by bought his paintings or not. A
(26:44):
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. Later, he would tell ABC News,
(27:06):
my intent wasn't for 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 supplied him with old paints used
(27:29):
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 garage sales, and then treating them to look
(27:51):
as if they'd been resting intact for half a century
or more. Later, when authorities calmed his studio, they would
find among supplies an envelope labeled Rothko Nails. Edwin and
Mary Ann Gardner, Kwan's neighbors and queens began to notice
that a man in an expensive car would come to
(28:14):
Quan'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. Gardner
recalled of the mysterious visitor, but Kuan didn't volunteer any details,
and Gardner thought better than to ask. Into Quan's tiny
(28:36):
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 some money in his pocket, he decided
to celebrate. I wouldn't to a big party. He holds
(29:00):
it a big party at his house because his wife
moved to New York. Behoind him that's biggest things for
every everyone, so he can give a big party, and
asked him, Hey, what are you doing right now? He said,
I have some deal of representing my work that time,
what as we called the timeline. He already do the
(29:24):
fake paint. Qualm didn't tell Hong To or any of
his other guests what he was doing. He just turned
up the music. Well, we were sitting together together for
Chinese people, Chinese party. It's not it's unusual. Usually your
people just eating, just talking. Now later, when the truth
(29:49):
came out, the occasional right up would note that Chinese
artists often imitated the work of earlier masters, but it's
hung too noted there was a difference between an artistic
tribute signed by the accolytes name and a work where
only the original signature was appended, because this kind of
pained you. Other people's style with the signature, but that's
(30:12):
my study. Oh that's my copy. What you didn't do
was claim your own painting was someone else's work. That
declared hong To was a crime. If you'll copy other
people's work, you sell them. You got a manded from
the others work. Bergantino's would deny ever meeting Ann Friedman
(30:34):
or visiting the Knodler gallery. He said alone had duped
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. Was
the ambitious one. She had been motivated, he said, by
money and glamor. She loved fancy clothes and fancy parties.
(30:59):
Gpra has her own version, of course. She says Carlos
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 are part of the job. Without that polished appearance,
she might never have met him. Andrade and Anne Friedman
(31:20):
had a Soho art gallery opening in the early nine nineties.
One of the person who gave a lecture, she had
a gallery in the Soho area. She in bite 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
(31:43):
you to a Freedman? Yes? Why did I may introduce
you to Anne? Well? I told him that I have
access to some pieces of art, and so he introduced
you to Anne and then and said bring them in.
(32:03):
And that first one was a deep in Corn? Yes? Okay,
Now did pye Sean? Did he make that deep in
Corn with your help 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.
(32:26):
It was not just paying one thousand or five d No, you,
he 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?
(32:50):
Very scary? I no, you know that you knew the
painting was fake? Well, yes, I did so. It was
very scary, very stressful. What are you? Asked the pressure
by Carlos. It would be fair to say here that
(33:13):
a couple is skilled in prevarication, as Rosales and Bergantino's
may not have been entirely truthful in recounting their story.
At the same time, Forfra at least, the cost of
later lying to law enforcement investigators would have been severe. Indeed,
if discrepancies were discovered, we are inclined to believe that
(33:34):
the story she's told us is true. But it's worth
remembering that these are the words of a self confessed
con artist. Was very smart in targeting, and specifically, I
think that she had to understand the profile of the victims.
(33:55):
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
cement her reputation. That's Maria Kannakova again. Maria is the
author of The Confidence Game, Why We Fall Forward every Time?
(34:18):
A New Yorker staff writer and Harvard graduate. Maria devotes
a whole chapter of her book to the notlar forgeries,
bringing to bear her years of study of the practice
of deception and chance. In the relationship between Anne Friedman
and Gpe Rosalie, she saw classic signs of the con
artist at work and an all too willing victim. There
(34:41):
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
start from the very bottom. She's female. Most directors of
prominent art galleries are males. She's not yet established. People
(35:02):
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
not happenstance that she approached Anne and that she actually
zeroed in on someone who would be the most susceptible,
(35:24):
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
get the best of her. Of course they were genuine,
she told art world experts, how could they not be
(35:48):
amongst fellow staffers, experts, and collectors, and was adamant. Soon
she felt GPA and her client Mr. X Jr. Would
trust her enough to share their story with her, and
she was trustworthy, as Anne fervently told Lafa every time
she came in. In the meantime, Anne had to avoid
(36:10):
pushing too hard lest Mr x Junior reconsider and take
his paintings elsewhere. And so through the rest of the
nine nineties, the shy seller and the eager buyer kept
an uneasy balance. Two or three masterly paintings that sold
a great profit led to four and five paintings and
(36:32):
more none had any reasonable provenance. Naturally, Anne grew desperate
to hear more. Perhaps the first clue came over Lunch.
Lafar and Anne had become close enough to celebrate each
new painting from the Mr x Junior collection with a
high priced Upper East Side. Lunch was kind enough to
(36:53):
remember Anne's birthday and gave her a meaningful present each year,
an expensive pen, for example, and in turn would ask
Clephia about her daughter, who excelled in Violin. I saw
her as a well mannered woman, and later said of
Gafat to Vanity Fair, was it frustrating that I couldn't
learn more from her? Sure, but I always hoped every
(37:14):
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 Cpira and Mr x Jr.
She never said never, She just said I can't now.
Under gentle but persistent pressure, Rosales finally let slip The
(37:39):
Mister 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
them to make frequent art buying trips to New York.
Often on these trips, Gafa recounted they had been guided
by Alfonso Ossorio, an abstract expressionist painter whose own Philippine family,
(38:04):
like mister and Missus Xes, had grown wealthy from the
sugar trade. As Anne discovered in her research, Osorio was
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 water from
(38:26):
compound called the Creeks. It was at Pollock's urging that
Osorio bought the Creeks in the first place. As Anne
noted with growing excitement, Osorio had been known for acting
as an informal art adviser, putting buyers, especially Filipino buyers,
in touch with artists and their dealers. It was possible
(38:47):
that the paintings may have been bought directly from various
New York artists studios in cash, with no taxes paid.
From there, they would be smuggled back to the Philippines.
That would account for the collection's long disappearance and their
re emergence in Gfira's hands. Or so said Anne. It
(39:09):
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. It happened to be the best art
archive in America. That was the kind of archive hunting
that may have made Alfonso Ossario a key character in
the back story, at least in Anne Friedman's mind. Later,
(39:33):
Anne told me she had asked Lephia, did the name
Osario ring any bells with Mr x JRPA promised to
ask her mysterious client. We'll be back after this. He
loves me, he loves me not. He loves me. He
(39:55):
loves me not. He loves me not. So he returned
me because he had thirty days to do so, which
is plenty of time to discover you don't love someone
or in my case something, Because surprise, I'm a CarMax
car who is now back on the market thirty day
money back guarantee. It's car buying reimagined CARMACKSMIT. See carmacks
(40:19):
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you are, just like this radio ad. I want to
know what else is delivered where you are. We'll give
you a hint. It's shining, has a honk and comes
with special features that you get to personally pick out,
like leather or cloth, sunroof or moonroof, or four wheel
driver versus all wheel drive. Yeah a car, a CarMax car,
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buy online, get it delivered to you. It's car buying
Reimagined Carmacks available within a sixty mile radius of select stores.
See CarMax dot Com for details. Some restrictions apply. You know,
historical trading markets just don't come around that often. It's
a once in a lifetime thing. And you know, we
look back at the y I see and then then
(41:01):
the nineties dot com with the NAS back and I'm
going this is this is a new market. Hey guys.
This Brian Foote, CEO of Humble and hosting the new
Humble Nation podcast. As a recently public company, we're seeing
interest in blockchain, mobile payments, ticketing and f t s
and more growing faster than ever and what we call
the digital economy. So join me along with high profile
(41:22):
gas from the world of pro sports, music, entertainment and
other industries. It was we talked about how technologies like
blockchain are shaping their world ours in the decade ahead
for all of us in the digital economy, only on
Humble Nation. M hm. Sure enough, with FRA's next visit
(41:48):
came fascinating news and hunch was right. According to Mr
x Jr. His art buying parents had indeed dealt with
Alfonso Sorrio. Mossorio fit perfectly into the back story. Glafira
and Anne were now embroidering together. Mr and Mrs X
(42:09):
had purportedly died by the time Glafira Rosalez paid her
first visit to the Knodler. So had Alfonso Osorio, whose
ashes upon his death and were scattered over the grounds
of the creeks. Was it mere coincidence that artists, dealers,
(42:29):
and go betweens had a way of dying shortly before
the burgon 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 the backgrounds of those photographs might
(42:51):
offer clues, And was so into connoisseurship, improving that something
existed because we found some archival letter from Robert mother Well,
one former stafford says, by way of example, In fact,
they never found any direct evidence. Ever, Anne was very
sure of herself, the stafford added, if she believed, and
(43:13):
she could make others believe, well, you know the old saying,
you can't cheat an honest man, you know, that's what
the story is. That's Knodler artist Donald Sulton. She certainly
should have known the fact that she didn't know where
they came from was a tip off, because any reputable
(43:34):
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 cheat an honest man. You know, the whole nature
of a con person is to make you seem like
(43:56):
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 conning Glafira,
and in fact Lafa was conning her for Glafira and
(44:18):
Anne there was soon caused for another celebratory lunch. 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. Friedman
and her husband Robert decided to buy it themselves for
the relatively modest price of two hundred and eighty thousand
(44:39):
dollars 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,
Fear And invited me up for a tour of her apartment.
(45:02):
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 okay 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 by Anne,
(45:24):
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 misspelled
(45:45):
the name Pollock. And listening to her say that when
I talked to her was just mind boggling to Anne's
pride and delight with Fia brought her a second larger pollock,
a greenish rip style painting called untitled nine. The painting
was twelve by eighteen inches. It was small for a pollock,
(46:08):
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. Despitefra's
refusal to furnish any more personal details, Anne could hardly
complain about how her paintings were selling in the New millennium.
(46:29):
One couple, Murray and ca Bring, bought a 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 Klimb for four hundred seventy five thousand dollars and
(46:52):
a Rovko for six hundred fifteen thousand dollars. Soon after,
Hughes and Sheila Podocker bought a Franz Climbed 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
(47:12):
six hundred fifteen thousand dollars for a Rothco. The Levies
would eventually eclipse all other individual purchases to date, acquiring
a Jackson Pollock from the Knobler Gallery for two million dollars.
For some reason, Ga remained willing to accept modest prices
(47:34):
from the Kndler. These are prices far lower than the
works would have earned her at auction or even through
other dealers. Was just too shy to press Anne for more?
Or was Anne just that good of a negotiator. Perhaps
the latter since is and later put it with pride quote.
I never paid Gla a commission. I just gave her
(47:56):
the net price end quote, which was to say that
the two women agreed on a flat fee and just
took what she got and then set whatever retail price
she liked and sold him 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.
(48:16):
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 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
(48:37):
first Rothko to be real, weighing again on the Ndlers
new Pollock. Once again, he concluded the painting was real.
As experts go, Carmine 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
(48:59):
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 note that Carmine had rendered that judgment
only after signing on as a paid consultant to the
Ndler Gallery. If she didn't officially you get a contract
and hire him. She handed in the money, you know
(49:22):
what I mean? And also she used stories, and you
know she said, you know, e A. Carmine approved. This
doesn't mean he proved it. One Nodler staffer recalled, just
how vital a role Carmine was now playing in legitimizing
works from Gafa Rosales. One time we had a check
(49:46):
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. 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
(50:08):
his two million dollar Polock in late two thousand one.
The Levies had already bought three other mid century works
from Ndler that would turn out to be fake. With
that purchase of Untitled nine, they were in for over
four point three million dollars. Levy was an eager collector,
(50:30):
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. If i FAR approved the work,
he would happily accept the sale. If not, Noodler would
have to take the painting back and return two million
dollars to the Levies, and readily agreed. Later, she said
(50:56):
she had no doubt the painting was real. The cover
letter was certainly seen by Jack Leavy. We said we
cannot accept the work as a work by Jackson Pollock.
More from Sharon Flesher, executive director of I Far Next
time on Art Fraud, Jack Please Art Fraud is brought
(51:41):
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, available now. We're produced
(52:04):
by Brandon Morgan and Zach McNeice. Zach also edited and
mixed this episode. Lindsay Hoffman is our managing producer. Our
writer is Michael Schneerson. Have you ever wanted to learn
(52:26):
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We just can't seem to catch a break. Huh. So
many rough fire seasons, but we made it through. And
now there's another risk. All that charred soil and burnt
vegetation can lead to floods and mud flow. I know,
but you've got this too, And one way to get
this is to get this flood insurance. There's no rest
for the West, but with flood insurance you can rest
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assured that you're ready for whatever else nature throws at
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gov slash Wildfires. Hey guys, this Brian Foot, CEO of
Humble and hosting the new Humble Nation podcast. As a
recently public company, we're seeing interest in blockchain, mobile payments, ticketing,
n f t s and more growing faster than ever
and what we call the digital economy. So join me
(00:44):
along with high profile gas from the world of pro sports, music, entertainment,
and other industries. It was we talked about how technologies
like blockchain are shaping their world ours in the decade
ahead for all of us in the digital economy. Only
on Humble Nation, all macrons breay. It's faster than any
other COVID nineteen variant so it's important for you to
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mask up to limit the spread. In ninety five, K
ninety five and KF ninety four masks offer the best
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great protection. So there you go, mask vax and get boosted.
Learn more at COVID nineteen dot c A dot gov.
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Brought to you by the California Department of Public Health.
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,
(01:46):
what motivates you, What are your hopes, what are you
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
(02:09):
to see reflected back and not reality. Part of what
makes a con artists story so compelling is there's usually
a grain of truth that makes the lie more convincing.
So it was with Farra Rosalees and the story she
(02:31):
was spinning to Ann Friedman about a supposed Clifford Still painting.
It was a wild tale in which the painting was
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. Hey, it happened. Actually,
(02:52):
Carlos was preparing the pieces, and he was threaten them
with her dryers and putting them in coal and hat 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
(03:14):
is this planation? I'm going to give Carlos Tom It
will tell them this ironically, and Freedman would 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
(03:37):
the burned fragment typically appeared in authentic Clifford Still paintings,
a mishap that could have hindered the entire operation became
instead proof of the paintings Authenticityfra Rosalis is unquestionably the
most fascinating and elusive character in the story of the
(03:57):
Notler scandal. While many of the major players have sat
for interviews on camera or in print over the years,
Rosalez has only told her story privately to federal prosecutors
and investigators. Michael Schnayerson and I spoke with Fia Rosales
in early in a small conference room at the Lowell
(04:19):
Hotel in New York City. She was accompanied by her
daughter solely. Rosalez is a shy, diminutive woman with straight,
dark hair almost shoulder length, and glasses that make her
look rather academic. She speaks softly, apologizing for her English
these days. Rosalez lives with her daughter in a small
(04:42):
Upper east Side apartment, decades before the irresistible hustle of
New York City life would lure her to Knodlerfira Rosalez
was born and raised in Mexico. My 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 other in electricity. I grew up
(05:06):
with a very difficult father. My childhood. It was very,
very difficult. Your father was difficult, well, 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 mouth, clean places for the animals, gave
(05:29):
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 nurse. I became a nurse,
and then I was a studying 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.
(05:54):
At the school, they teach you about art, about the muralist,
the big mural list of the country, like the rivera
Frida Carlo full of them. By the age of nineteen,
Rosales had a boyfriend, a scruffy, unimpressive restaurateur in Mexico
City named Carlos Burgon Tinos. Carlos had come from Spain
(06:17):
to run a little eatery in Mexico's capital city. As
sister worked as 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
(06:40):
he was having problems. So I came to help him,
kind of rescue him, and from then he never leave
me alone. Despite their chaotic beginnings, bergen Tinos and Rosava's
stayed together and would eventually have a daughter together. It
was Burgon Tinos who first urged Gofra to come to
(07:01):
the United States. I never want to come here. I
never thought that it 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.
(07:26):
They lived there only 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 wuitress, bus girl taking care of
(07:51):
elderly people. From Houston, the couple eventually moved to New
York City. They arrived one night on a bus at
an authority. Walking past prostitutes and drug addicts, they carried
their bags to a shelter on Fourteenth Street, but were
turned away. They ended up that first night in a
(08:12):
hotel on West fourteenth Street with communal bathrooms so appalling
that A used a bucket to avoid them. Longing for
a more peaceful and safer community, Carlos and A settled
in Great Neck Long Island. One early business venture for
the pair was learning how to treat antique furniture, specifically
(08:34):
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 came to a gallery
(08:54):
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 too. Fira says she resisted the idea
(09:18):
but had no choice. Carlos pressure me. He pressured me,
he um abuse me physically and and verbally, and he
also threatened me to take my door away. He couldn't
go to galeries himself because he held that reputation, so
(09:41):
I had no choice. As it turned out, Carlos Bergantina'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 Michelle Pasquiat. Well, what happened
(10:01):
was that painting untitled 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. Baskia died. I think in seven
this painting was sold at auction in at Christie's and
(10:22):
it was consigned to Christie's by Bergon Tinos, and the
painting was sold as an authentic Bascia and it sold
for two hundred thousand dollars, and then Tony Shafrazie then
exhibited it at his gallery and a Bascia show back
in I think in those days Christie's didn't care about
(10:42):
verifying or confirming the information or they had a positive
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, how
he acquieted from the artist. They just took it on consignment,
(11:06):
put it on the auction floor, and sold it. It's
kind of amazing, 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, and they said, we've got this Baska.
We're not sure it's authentic and everything else. Go over
(11:27):
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. Baskia showed that even the most renowned
auction houses were willing to compromise for the sake of
a sale, and the con artists were all too ready
(11:50):
to nudge them along. Bergantino's tried another fast one at
Christie's in the early nine nineties, damaging whatever small reputation
he had. Burgundino's got into trouble in the early nineties,
you know, because he went to Christie's and he bid
fourred thousand dollars for a South American painting and then
ran out of the auction room. That's always great when
(12:11):
a bit of 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 Bosk yacht, 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 Carlos made a successful bid of
(12:32):
eighty five thou 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 Lapira was tight.
To make ends meet, sold Halloween pumpkins, she sold flowers.
(12:54):
At one point, she and Carlos even wholesale 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 Manhattan restaurants in the ambulance.
(13:19):
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 ambulances siren and raced through traffic, arriving
just in time. Gafe urged him not to use the
(13:39):
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 whaling. Eventually, Carlos was pulled over
by police. Did the ambulance workers need an escort? No,
Carlos said, no problem there. The cops grew suspicion us
(14:00):
what was he transporting? Sheepishly, Carlos pulled 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
(14:20):
fraud in a minute. We just can't seem to catch
a break. Huh. So many rough fire seasons, but we
made it through. And now there's another risk. All that
charred soil and burnt vegetation can lead to floods and
mud flow. I know, but you've got this too, and
one way to get this is to get this flood insurance.
(14:41):
There's no rest for the West, but with flood insurance
you can rest assured that you're ready for whatever else
nature throws at you protect the life you've built at
flood smart dot gov, slash Wildfires. Hey guys, this Briant Foot,
CEO of Humble and hosting the new Humble Nation podcast.
As a recently public company, we're seeing interest in blockchain,
mobile payments, ticketing, n f t s and more growing
(15:03):
faster than ever and what we call the digital economy.
So join me. Along with high profile gusts from the
world of pro sports, music, entertainment, and other industries. It
was we talked about how technologies like blockchain are shaping
their world ours in the decade ahead for all of
us in the digital economy only on Homble Nation. Speaking
of renaissance women, we are here with the great Dabby Thomas,
(15:25):
the newest rock star on the US track and field
and global track and field scene. And it's just amazing
what you're what you're contributing to your time on Earth.
It's just amazing. Academically, athletically as a person, you give
off a great vibe and you're obviously a good contributor
to society and people around you from all walks of life.
(15:45):
When you're passionate about the things that you're doing, it's like, yeah,
it becomes easy. And all maicron spreads faster than any
other COVID nineteen variant, so it's important for you to
mask up to limit the spread. In ninety nine and
KF ninety four masks offer the best fit and filtration.
Don't have these surgical masks or double masking with the
(16:07):
surgical and fabric mask can also offer great protection. So
there you go, mask vax and get boosted. Learn more
at COVID nineteen dot c a dot gov brought to
you by the California Department of Public Health. Forced to
participate in Carlos's art forgery scheme. Glafira began educating herself
(16:28):
in art. Carlos's mishaps had revealed the obvious. He needed
to stay in the Shadowsfra was now the front person.
The charmer were a surprisingly keen eye for art. Carlos
sent me to look for customers. I took courses, I
(16:50):
took sympossums, 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
abstract expressionists, Helen Frankenthaler, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, Robert Rauschenberg,
(17:13):
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 on street corners
to earn extra money. He met him in the village
on sixth Avenue. The painter was there doing portraits. I
(17:35):
believe people, and that's how I know that he met him.
Eager to make a market for himself, Kahan also painted
impressionist landscapes. Carlos could tell they were good, but where
was the potential for in the style of Impressionist paintings.
The originals were among the best known artworks in the world.
(17:55):
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.
He tried several artists and he came up with he
(18:17):
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 Kuan the genius. They
portrayed me, I am the billion but patient he could
not do that himself. Of course, he needed guidance. Quan's
(18:44):
later portrayal in the media as the genius artist would irkra.
She knew that Carlos's contribution to the paintings was just
as important as Kwans. Where would Quan be without Carlos's
idea to create these paintings in the style offa saw
how much work Quan put into each painting. But she
(19:06):
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 to Well? He gave him the materials, he prepared,
the materials, he signed for the pieces. The pieces. An
(19:30):
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 had
participated in a daring abstract art movement in Shanghai. At
(19:53):
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. Many
artists make a point of creating a sort of split
screen art, with a traditional painter's picture on one side
(20:15):
of the campus and a young artist's interpretation of it
on the other, armed with a student visa and his
own American dreams. Kuan had come to New York City
and moved into a tiny white cottage street in wood Haven.
Queen's surviving as an artist proved difficult, however, instead of
(20:39):
making his name in America, he had been forced to
take jobs in construction. Quan'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 over in China,
he would feel like a rock star. Gardener explained, because
when he walked out on the street, everybody knew, but
(21:01):
there was no way to make a living as an
artist in China in those post cultural revolutionary years. My
name is Jang Hunt, just Tennis Way put the family
name first, but you called me unto is perfect. I'm painter.
Came here in nineteen eighty two. Hang Tou med Quan
(21:21):
in the United States. They became friends and fellow artists
through the nineteen eighties. 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. Here he's
(21:45):
alone he feels so lonely, and then nobody recogned him,
nobody know his art, nobody especially his English was not
so good. Quan The played his art on a street
corner in Greenwich Village along with other Chinese artists who
had immigrated to America. But eventually he began to present
(22:09):
the sidewalk art scene. Hong too recalls his friends saying,
I'm not good to do that. There's a computation between
artists people lower repressed people sit there to make portrait,
some of it fifteen dollars four portrait, the other one
that ten dollars. He couldn't do that because he clearly
(22:30):
had some ambition, Yes, and he had ambition to be
a good artist. Yes. One day we have a common friend,
she wrote patient to MoMA. Patient was now down to
the floor at the front of four moneth waterlead painting,
and the cry cried like a baby, kneeling down that
(22:55):
day in tears. At the moment, Kuan's passion and his
desire to be a truly great artist was obvious to
everyone who knew him. One thing, I want to tell you,
that's what I feeled about American After a few years,
give you married American isn't never promise you that you
(23:16):
will become because or famous a rich artists, But this
country promise you you have the freedom to do your
art until the last day of your life. I think
that early in nineteen nine, many chance artists playing protrait
(23:39):
in the street. But in the same time and he's
still working on the street, but not like a street
portrait artists. He pinned some small landscape like still left
opinion in his studio, then his sale. Then he came
out to the streets and saw the lands. Yes, that's
what I heard. People fund him boyfriend. As they struggled
(24:06):
through the eighties and early nine nineties, Quan and hung
Too had much in common, though by outward appearances, hong
To was more successful. He found a gallery to represent
him both in New York and China. He rented a
sprawling studio space in Woodside, Queens. The subways overhead rumbled
loudly but were oddly soothing. Some of his work was winsome,
(24:31):
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 for Hong
to the immigrant experience on which he based his work
was ultimately uplifting. Not so for Kwan. One day, Carlos
(24:55):
and stopped to admire the paintings of a Chinese artist
to being Impressionist landscapes. So skilled was the artist that
Carlos introduced himself. He showed Kwan a book of various
artist work, including the Hudson River painters. Could Quan paint
a picture like one of these? Sure, Quan said. The
(25:17):
friendly couple offered to pay him one hundred dollars, and
Quan 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 per painting. Quan was creating pictures
(25:37):
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 Quan's. Working.
From the garage of his house in Queen's Quan began
turning out one dazzling knockoff after another. Carlos Inglephia noticed
(26:01):
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 Gophia in tow.
They marveled at how realistic the forgeries were. Incredibly At first,
(26:23):
Kwan and Bergantina's sold their fakes on the street. Kwan
was paid a 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 by bought his paintings or not. A
(26:44):
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. Later, he would tell ABC News,
(27:06):
my intent wasn't for 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 supplied him with old paints used
(27:29):
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 garage sales, and then treating them to look
(27:51):
as if they'd been resting intact for half a century
or more. Later, when authorities calmed his studio, they would
find among supplies an envelope labeled Rothko Nails. Edwin and
Mary Ann Gardner, Kwan's neighbors and queens began to notice
that a man in an expensive car would come to
(28:14):
Quan'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. Gardner
recalled of the mysterious visitor, but Kuan didn't volunteer any details,
and Gardner thought better than to ask. Into Quan's tiny
(28:36):
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 some money in his pocket, he decided
to celebrate. I wouldn't to a big party. He holds
(29:00):
it a big party at his house because his wife
moved to New York. Behoind him that's biggest things for
every everyone, so he can give a big party, and
asked him, Hey, what are you doing right now? He said,
I have some deal of representing my work that time,
what as we called the timeline. He already do the
(29:24):
fake paint. Qualm didn't tell Hong To or any of
his other guests what he was doing. He just turned
up the music. Well, we were sitting together together for
Chinese people, Chinese party. It's not it's unusual. Usually your
people just eating, just talking. Now later, when the truth
(29:49):
came out, the occasional right up would note that Chinese
artists often imitated the work of earlier masters, but it's
hung too noted there was a difference between an artistic
tribute signed by the accolytes name and a work where
only the original signature was appended, because this kind of
pained you. Other people's style with the signature, but that's
(30:12):
my study. Oh that's my copy. What you didn't do
was claim your own painting was someone else's work. That
declared hong To was a crime. If you'll copy other
people's work, you sell them. You got a manded from
the others work. Bergantino's would deny ever meeting Ann Friedman
(30:34):
or visiting the Knodler gallery. He said alone had duped
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. Was
the ambitious one. She had been motivated, he said, by
money and glamor. She loved fancy clothes and fancy parties.
(30:59):
Gpra has her own version, of course. She says Carlos
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 are part of the job. Without that polished appearance,
she might never have met him. Andrade and Anne Friedman
(31:20):
had a Soho art gallery opening in the early nine nineties.
One of the person who gave a lecture, she had
a gallery in the Soho area. She in bite 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
(31:43):
you to a Freedman? Yes? Why did I may introduce
you to Anne? Well? I told him that I have
access to some pieces of art, and so he introduced
you to Anne and then and said bring them in.
(32:03):
And that first one was a deep in Corn? Yes? Okay,
Now did pye Sean? Did he make that deep in
Corn with your help 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.
(32:26):
It was not just paying one thousand or five d No, you,
he 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?
(32:50):
Very scary? I no, you know that you knew the
painting was fake? Well, yes, I did so. It was
very scary, very stressful. What are you? Asked the pressure
by Carlos. It would be fair to say here that
(33:13):
a couple is skilled in prevarication, as Rosales and Bergantino's
may not have been entirely truthful in recounting their story.
At the same time, Forfra at least, the cost of
later lying to law enforcement investigators would have been severe. Indeed,
if discrepancies were discovered, we are inclined to believe that
(33:34):
the story she's told us is true. But it's worth
remembering that these are the words of a self confessed
con artist. Was very smart in targeting, and specifically, I
think that she had to understand the profile of the victims.
(33:55):
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
cement her reputation. That's Maria Kannakova again. Maria is the
author of The Confidence Game, Why We Fall Forward every Time?
(34:18):
A New Yorker staff writer and Harvard graduate. Maria devotes
a whole chapter of her book to the notlar forgeries,
bringing to bear her years of study of the practice
of deception and chance. In the relationship between Anne Friedman
and Gpe Rosalie, she saw classic signs of the con
artist at work and an all too willing victim. There
(34:41):
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
start from the very bottom. She's female. Most directors of
prominent art galleries are males. She's not yet established. People
(35:02):
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
not happenstance that she approached Anne and that she actually
zeroed in on someone who would be the most susceptible,
(35:24):
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
get the best of her. Of course they were genuine,
she told art world experts, how could they not be
(35:48):
amongst fellow staffers, experts, and collectors, and was adamant. Soon
she felt GPA and her client Mr. X Jr. Would
trust her enough to share their story with her, and
she was trustworthy, as Anne fervently told Lafa every time
she came in. In the meantime, Anne had to avoid
(36:10):
pushing too hard lest Mr x Junior reconsider and take
his paintings elsewhere. And so through the rest of the
nine nineties, the shy seller and the eager buyer kept
an uneasy balance. Two or three masterly paintings that sold
a great profit led to four and five paintings and
(36:32):
more none had any reasonable provenance. Naturally, Anne grew desperate
to hear more. Perhaps the first clue came over Lunch.
Lafar and Anne had become close enough to celebrate each
new painting from the Mr x Junior collection with a
high priced Upper East Side. Lunch was kind enough to
(36:53):
remember Anne's birthday and gave her a meaningful present each year,
an expensive pen, for example, and in turn would ask
Clephia about her daughter, who excelled in Violin. I saw
her as a well mannered woman, and later said of
Gafat to Vanity Fair, was it frustrating that I couldn't
learn more from her? Sure, but I always hoped every
(37:14):
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 Cpira and Mr x Jr.
She never said never, She just said I can't now.
Under gentle but persistent pressure, Rosales finally let slip The
(37:39):
Mister 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
them to make frequent art buying trips to New York.
Often on these trips, Gafa recounted they had been guided
by Alfonso Ossorio, an abstract expressionist painter whose own Philippine family,
(38:04):
like mister and Missus Xes, had grown wealthy from the
sugar trade. As Anne discovered in her research, Osorio was
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 water from
(38:26):
compound called the Creeks. It was at Pollock's urging that
Osorio bought the Creeks in the first place. As Anne
noted with growing excitement, Osorio had been known for acting
as an informal art adviser, putting buyers, especially Filipino buyers,
in touch with artists and their dealers. It was possible
(38:47):
that the paintings may have been bought directly from various
New York artists studios in cash, with no taxes paid.
From there, they would be smuggled back to the Philippines.
That would account for the collection's long disappearance and their
re emergence in Gfira's hands. Or so said Anne. It
(39:09):
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. It happened to be the best art
archive in America. That was the kind of archive hunting
that may have made Alfonso Ossario a key character in
the back story, at least in Anne Friedman's mind. Later,
(39:33):
Anne told me she had asked Lephia, did the name
Osario ring any bells with Mr x JRPA promised to
ask her mysterious client. We'll be back after this. He
loves me, he loves me not. He loves me. He
(39:55):
loves me not. He loves me not. So he returned
me because he had thirty days to do so, which
is plenty of time to discover you don't love someone
or in my case something, Because surprise, I'm a CarMax
car who is now back on the market thirty day
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(40:19):
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you a hint. It's shining, has a honk and comes
with special features that you get to personally pick out,
like leather or cloth, sunroof or moonroof, or four wheel
driver versus all wheel drive. Yeah a car, a CarMax car,
(40:41):
buy online, get it delivered to you. It's car buying
Reimagined Carmacks available within a sixty mile radius of select stores.
See CarMax dot Com for details. Some restrictions apply. You know,
historical trading markets just don't come around that often. It's
a once in a lifetime thing. And you know, we
look back at the y I see and then then
(41:01):
the nineties dot com with the NAS back and I'm
going this is this is a new market. Hey guys.
This Brian Foote, CEO of Humble and hosting the new
Humble Nation podcast. As a recently public company, we're seeing
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(41:22):
gas from the world of pro sports, music, entertainment and
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Humble Nation. M hm. Sure enough, with FRA's next visit
(41:48):
came fascinating news and hunch was right. According to Mr
x Jr. His art buying parents had indeed dealt with
Alfonso Sorrio. Mossorio fit perfectly into the back story. Glafira
and Anne were now embroidering together. Mr and Mrs X
(42:09):
had purportedly died by the time Glafira Rosalez paid her
first visit to the Knodler. So had Alfonso Osorio, whose
ashes upon his death and were scattered over the grounds
of the creeks. Was it mere coincidence that artists, dealers,
(42:29):
and go betweens had a way of dying shortly before
the burgon 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 the backgrounds of those photographs might
(42:51):
offer clues, And was so into connoisseurship, improving that something
existed because we found some archival letter from Robert mother Well,
one former stafford says, by way of example, In fact,
they never found any direct evidence. Ever, Anne was very
sure of herself, the stafford added, if she believed, and
(43:13):
she could make others believe, well, you know the old saying,
you can't cheat an honest man, you know, that's what
the story is. That's Knodler artist Donald Sulton. She certainly
should have known the fact that she didn't know where
they came from was a tip off, because any reputable
(43:34):
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 cheat an honest man. You know, the whole nature
of a con person is to make you seem like
(43:56):
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 conning Glafira,
and in fact Lafa was conning her for Glafira and
(44:18):
Anne there was soon caused for another celebratory lunch. 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. Friedman
and her husband Robert decided to buy it themselves for
the relatively modest price of two hundred and eighty thousand
(44:39):
dollars 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,
Fear And invited me up for a tour of her apartment.
(45:02):
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 okay 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 by Anne,
(45:24):
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 misspelled
(45:45):
the name Pollock. And listening to her say that when
I talked to her was just mind boggling to Anne's
pride and delight with Fia brought her a second larger pollock,
a greenish rip style painting called untitled nine. The painting
was twelve by eighteen inches. It was small for a pollock,
(46:08):
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. Despitefra's
refusal to furnish any more personal details, Anne could hardly
complain about how her paintings were selling in the New millennium.
(46:29):
One couple, Murray and ca Bring, bought a 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 Klimb for four hundred seventy five thousand dollars and
(46:52):
a Rovko for six hundred fifteen thousand dollars. Soon after,
Hughes and Sheila Podocker bought a Franz Climbed 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
(47:12):
six hundred fifteen thousand dollars for a Rothco. The Levies
would eventually eclipse all other individual purchases to date, acquiring
a Jackson Pollock from the Knobler Gallery for two million dollars.
For some reason, Ga remained willing to accept modest prices
(47:34):
from the Kndler. These are prices far lower than the
works would have earned her at auction or even through
other dealers. Was just too shy to press Anne for more?
Or was Anne just that good of a negotiator. Perhaps
the latter since is and later put it with pride quote.
I never paid Gla a commission. I just gave her
(47:56):
the net price end quote, which was to say that
the two women agreed on a flat fee and just
took what she got and then set whatever retail price
she liked and sold him 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.
(48:16):
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 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
(48:37):
first Rothko to be real, weighing again on the Ndlers
new Pollock. Once again, he concluded the painting was real.
As experts go, Carmine 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
(48:59):
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 note that Carmine had rendered that judgment
only after signing on as a paid consultant to the
Ndler Gallery. If she didn't officially you get a contract
and hire him. She handed in the money, you know
(49:22):
what I mean? And also she used stories, and you
know she said, you know, e A. Carmine approved. This
doesn't mean he proved it. One Nodler staffer recalled, just
how vital a role Carmine was now playing in legitimizing
works from Gafa Rosales. One time we had a check
(49:46):
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. 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
(50:08):
his two million dollar Polock in late two thousand one.
The Levies had already bought three other mid century works
from Ndler that would turn out to be fake. With
that purchase of Untitled nine, they were in for over
four point three million dollars. Levy was an eager collector,
(50:30):
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. If i FAR approved the work,
he would happily accept the sale. If not, Noodler would
have to take the painting back and return two million
dollars to the Levies, and readily agreed. Later, she said
(50:56):
she had no doubt the painting was real. The cover
letter was certainly seen by Jack Leavy. We said we
cannot accept the work as a work by Jackson Pollock.
More from Sharon Flesher, executive director of I Far Next
time on Art Fraud, Jack Please Art Fraud is brought
(51:41):
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, available now. We're produced
(52:04):
by Brandon Morgan and Zach McNeice. Zach also edited and
mixed this episode. Lindsay Hoffman is our managing producer. Our
writer is Michael Schneerson. Have you ever wanted to learn
(52:26):
about cryptocurrency but don't know where to start, Well, the
Coin Bureau podcast is here to help. My name is Guy.
I'm the host of the biggest crypto channel on YouTube,
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Host
Alec Baldwin
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