[MSN] Copycat paintings concern artists. Technology, overseas factories add to rising tide of cheap knockoffs.

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Copycat paintings concern artists
Technology, overseas factories add to rising tide of cheap knockoffs 


BY GLENN SMITH
The Post and Courier


Charleston artist Eva Carter spent decades building her reputation as a
painter and honing a unique abstract style featuring bold collisions of
colors and shapes. 

Her works hang in museums, corporate collections and homes of aficionados.

A single painting commands $8,000 or more.

In recent years, however, some of Carter's work has been selling for $600 or
less in furniture outlets, decorating stores and on the Internet. The
problem is, these paintings aren't what they appear to be.

Without Carter's permission, companies in Canada and other countries lift
images from authorized posters of her artwork that sell for about $65.

They transfer the image to canvas, slap on a frame and jack up the
price.This cuts into her profits and hurts her reputation by flooding the
market with prints that can be mistaken for originals.

But so far, she hasn't been able to do a thing about it.

"I had no idea this was even happening until some clients saw these and
called to tell me," she said. "It makes me furious ... It cheapens fine art,
and it's humiliating."

The nation's art community is battling a tide of fraudulent paintings, cheap
knockoffs and adulterated works that have infiltrated the market in recent
years. Technology has made it much easier to steal, copy and misuse artwork.
Images can be plucked from the Internet or catalogues, copied and then sold
as original artwork. In countries such as China, bootlegging is a thriving
industry, with whole factories of low-paid artists churning out copies of
others' work.

Joshua Kaufman, a Washington, D.C. lawyer who is an authority on art
licensing and copyright law, said he can walk into almost any chain store in
the country and find some example of artwork that has been used without
permission to make prints, tapestries, towels and other items. China alone
produces millions of dollars worth of knockoffs each year and ships them to
the United States by the container-full, he said.

"It's a real cancer on the industry," he said.

Anthony Pompa owns a Montreal company that makes canvas prints from the
images on Carter's posters. He sees nothing wrong with his products, even if
they are made against the artist's wishes. He is not mass-producing
duplicates; he's simply moving images he has paid for from one surface to
another - a process allowed under Canadian law, he said. 

The way Pompa sees it, Carter should be thanking him for making more people
aware of her talent.

"I love Eva Carter's work. I really do," he said. "And this is such a proper
way of displaying her work. We're just doing her a favor. We're making her
look great."

Carter, who operates a gallery on East Bay Street, views the works as a
clear infringement on her copyrights and a threat to her livelihood. But the
practice continues just the same.

By and large, local gallery owners say they don't think copies have made
great inroads into Charleston's fine art scene. But the potential is
certainly there, as interest in Lowcountry art grows among tourists and
collectors alike. The city is home to more than 40 galleries, and a 2003
study estimated their economic impact at more than $25 million annually.

"Tens of millions of dollars pass through here," Joe Sylvan, president of
the Charleston Fine Art Dealers' Association, said. "It's got to the point
where a lot of people come to Charleston purely as an art destination."

Jerry Spencer, owner of Spencer Art Gallery on Broad Street, worries that
local artists will soon face unfair competition from overseas art factories
that ape their styles to mass produce similar works at discount prices. Too
many artists aren't paying attention to that threat, he said.

"They want to paint and that's it," he said. "But this is going to change
the art world."

A company based in the Chinese city of Xiamen contacted Spencer by e-mail in
September offering to produce any kind of oil paintings he needed, from
landscapes and portraits to copies of works by Van Gogh, Monet and other
famous artists. And Sylvan, the dealer association president, said his
gallery periodically receives calls from drive-thru dealers with truckloads
of Chinese-produced art for sale. Both galleries decline such offers.

Gerald Brommer, a renowned watercolor painter and author from California,
saw a Chinese art factory up close during a tour in the 1970s. He said the
scene was something out of a Charles Dickens novel, with hundreds of cheaply
paid artists painting away under dim light, copying the same pictures over
and over.

"They're just the greatest copiers in the world," he said. "But it was
really depressing, nothing you could call art at all."

Spencer picked up 30 low-budget paintings at a trade show in Las Vegas two
years ago. In the stack are various landscapes, a still life and an Art Deco
rendering of a couple out on the town. The cost: $10 each. He is sure most
are knockoffs, likely produced with inferior paints on a cheap canvas that
won't stand the test of time.

"Some of them are quite good, and I could turn around and sell them for two
to three hundred dollars, easily," Spencer said. "But it's just not fair to
the artists who own a copyright on those paintings."

Yang Guohua handles copyright infringement issues for the Chinese Embassy in
Washington. Piracy complaints come into China by the thousands, but Yang
insists his government is taking action to shut down the bootleggers.
Victims can pursue damages through China's civil courts or file complaints
with government agencies empowered to investigate piracy and levy fines, he
said.

Still, it is up to artists to pinpoint the forger, document the theft and
navigate a legal system in a communist country on the other side of the
planet - a daunting task by any measure.

Artists often have no way of knowing they've been ripped off or plagiarized
unless they spot their works in a catalogue or get tipped off by collectors.

A few years back, Charleston artist John Carroll Doyle caught a New Orleans
company duplicating a $27,000 painting he made of a blue marlin jumping from
the water. They painted a mirror image of the work and tried to pass it off
as original art. That stopped after he sent his attorney after them, he
said.

Doyle also had to go after a Georgia company that was using one of his
paintings for a T-shirt line. A graphic artist the company hired apparently
downloaded the image off the Internet and passed it off as his own, he said.

"From artists to collectors, you have to educate yourself and be very aware
of what's going on out there," he said.

 

Protecting artwork

FOR THE ARTIST

--Register copyrights and include an image of the work. This preserves your
legal options if an infringement occurs. Registration costs $45. Forms are
available through the U.S. Copyright Office at www.copyright.gov.

--Place watermarks or logo imprints on images of artwork used on tearsheets,
ads and other publications to hinder scanning for duplication.

--Use special software to prevent artwork from being illegally copied and
reproduced from Internet sites.

--Keep an eye on catalogues, art magazines and Web sites for knockoffs.

--Personalize original works with a dated signature on the back, and then
coat with a fixative or laminate. 

--Confront forgers and their agents. The threat of legal action may be
enough to make them stop. 

FOR THE BUYER

--Look for brush strokes, signatures and other telltale signs of original
work.

--Ask for certificates of authenticity on limited edition prints.

--Be dubious of rare or expensive works selling for a pittance. These
"originals" could well be copies or fakes.

 

Reach Glenn Smith at 937-5556 or gsmith at postandcourier.com.

http://www.charleston.net/