[MSN] At the Bruce, the Art of Deception

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At the Bruce, the Art of Deception

BY MAUREEN MULLARKEY - Special to the Sun
May 10, 2007
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/54196

Faking it is as old as the recorded history of art. The fifth-century 
B.C.E. sculptor Phidias is said to have signed the work of talented 
students. Young Michelangelo purportedly added a false patina to a 
statue sold to Cardinal Riario, an astute collector of antiquities, as a 
genuine antique.

Fast-forward to 1999, when 28 Georgia O'Keeffe watercolors were removed 
from the canon. The suite had previously sold for $5 million after 
reported endorsement by the O'Keeffe Foundation and the National Gallery 
of Art. In 2000, Sotheby's and Christie's were embarrassed to learn they 
each held the one and only "Vase de Fleurs" by Gauguin. And consider 
those legions of small, unsigned works still beckoning scholars whose 
enthusiasm outweighs their discernment. The sheer scale of falsity 
prompted Newsweek's celebrated quip that of the 2,500 paintings Corot 
made in his lifetime, 7,800 were in America.

The Bruce Museum's "Fakes and Forgeries: The Art of Deception," opening 
Saturday, surveys the history of deceit in Western art with uncommon 
candor and lively scholarship. It is a rousing tour through intrigue, 
misattributions, copying, and creative acts of identity theft. It covers 
sleights of hand from forged documents and false provenance to technical 
procedures used to fabricate historical works.

Treating sculpture, manuscripts, Gothic ivories, decorative arts, 
painting, prints, and photographs, this feast of malfeasance holds as 
much for scholars and collectors as for the general public. The show is 
authoritative, instructive — and wicked fun. The earliest forged styles 
on view are Egyptian, Greek, and Assyrian, from which the show moves 
chronologically through historical periods to the modern era. The 
caliber and scope of counterfeits exhibited, most from prestigious 
collections, is startling.

 >From Piero to Pollock, brand names of every period are widely faked. 
But the forgery market also keeps pace with contemporary trends. Forgers 
are driven, like collectors, by high auction prices. Forgery extends 
even to artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, who are not traditional 
blue chips.

Hans van Meegeren's "Christ and His Disciples at Emmaus" (c.1936), 
painted in the style of Vermeer, is likely the most renowned forgery in 
the world. It is thrilling to have it here. Vermeer's output was so 
small that this "hitherto unknown painting," created a sensation when 
its discovery was announced in 1937 by art historian Abraham Bredius. 
Van Meegeren's saga, his disdain for the art market and his postwar 
trial for collaboration (selling a "Vermeer" to Hermann Göring) is a 
modern legend. His canon of forgeries — the works Vermeer should have 
painted — is not yet settled. Suddenly, Cynthia Ozick's phrase "the 
implausibility of originality" takes on real meaning.

A quasi folk hero among forgers, Eric Hebborn (1934–96), sometime 
protégé of scholar and spy Anthony Blunt, is represented by a faux 
Mantegna drawing owned by the Morgan Library. He inscribed "Andrea 
Mantegna" on the sheet and manufactured a provenance that included 
ownership by Sir Joshua Reynolds.

A convincing still life in the manner of Édouard Manet was exhibited in 
the 1913 Armory Show as an example of his contribution to the 
development of modern art. A deft "Giacometti" painting of a seated nude 
is by the versatile John Myatt (b. 1945), who gave up illegal forgery 
for the legitimate kind. Although he still signs each forgery on the 
front with the artist's signature, the back is now inscribed "Genuine Fake."

What van Meegeren was to Dutch Masters, Brígido Lara (b. 1940) is to 
pre-Columbian pottery, of which he claims to have created 40,000 
forgeries. He continues to sculpt in ancient styles but, chastened by 
arrest in 1974, now signs his work.

The Rospigliosi Cup from the Benjamin Altman collection, once attributed 
to Benvenuto Cellini, has been proven either a 19th-century copy or an 
outright fraud. Nevertheless, the Metropolitan Museum of Art still 
exhibits it, discreetly labeled, on grounds that it is beautiful.

Museums are reluctant to concede errors or embarrass donors. When large 
investments and reputations are on the line, open admission that someone 
has been misled risks suit for libel or product disparagement. Besides, 
if a museum is courting a certain collector to donate his Cézanne, 
should it bypass his dubious Cassatt being pressed on it for an upcoming 
exhibition?

More people are responsive to signatures — trademarks — and the cachet 
of possession than to art itself. Forgeries, then, will be with us 
forever. That is why this comprehensive, imaginative exhibition is 
compulsory for anyone who would understand the cultural politics and 
gamesmanship of authentication.

The issues involved have profound cultural implications that go beyond 
the monetary stakes to the credibility of experts and matters of public 
trust. Bruce director Peter Sutton summarizes the show's purpose: "[It] 
challenges museumgoers to ask fundamental questions about what 
constitutes authenticity and originality in a cynical and occasionally 
mendacious art world." Both the exhibition and its detailed catalog 
serve warning to the inexperienced and the credulous and invite extended 
discussion.

A scholar in his own right, Mr. Sutton contributed a major essay on 
connoisseurship to Robert Spencer's "The Expert Versus the Object" 
(2004), a book which cautioned that "truth in labeling does not always 
pertain to what changes hands in the present day art world." (A 
variation of that essay appears in the catalog.) Senior curator Nancy 
Hall-Duncan is frank: "In the late twentieth century, forgery, like art 
itself, became big business. . . . [and] the temptation to misrepresent 
art has become stronger and more lucrative."

Thoughtful viewers will come away more attentive to conflicts of 
interest among appraisers. The Art Dealers Association of America, for 
example, maintains a prominent appraisal service, contending that 
dealers are best equipped to establish value precisely because they make 
their living from the market. Viewers may have their own thoughts on 
whether this is a species of poacher-turned-gamekeeper.

With art the new bullion, the culture cannot afford to have its currency 
debased.

Hats off to the Bruce for a confident tutorial on why fakes matter.

Until September 9 (One Museum Drive, Greenwich, Conn., 203-869-6786).

URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/54196