[MSN] Police arrest Orloff art forgers

[Museum Security Network Mailing list]

Police arrest Orloff art forgers
JPost.com Staff, THE JERUSALEM POST     Jul. 16, 2007

Police have arrested two men who allegedly forged and sold artworks for 
a low price, Israel Radio reported Monday afternoon.

Curator and art expert Yoram Breier, CEO of Gemolab, a company doing 
estimates of property value allegedly collaborated with Ein Hod-based 
curator Shuli Yiluz in the forgery of the pieces.

The forgery was revealed after art experts notified Hana Orloff's 
granddaughter that pieces of her grandmother, usually sold for prices in 
the hundreds of thousands, were being sold in a Haifa auction by Yiluz 
for only several thousand dollars.

Allegedly Breier, who's estimates are highly regarded in the Israeli art 
scene, put prices on the pieces sold by Yiluz despite knowing they were 
forged.

Orloff, a Jewish sculptor born in Ukraine in 1888, came to Palestine 
with her parents as a child. She studied in Paris before the First World 
War and lived her life in France, but always had a strong bond to 
Palestine and later the Jewish state.

Her oeuvre encompasses the entire range of sculptural techniques and 
subjects, including public sculptures.

Among her well know pieces in Israel is the Dov Gruner monument in Ramat 
Gan, and a statue of mother and child in Ein Gev commemorating Israeli 
women's bravery during the Independence War.

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