Negative Energy
In the late 1990s, Aaron paid $60,000 for what the seller said was an important work by David Alfaro Siqueiros, one of Mexico’s 20th-century masters. The seller provided documents of authenticity signed by members of the artist’s family. Upon closer inspection, Aaron has alleged in ongoing litigation in Mexico, this masterwork turned out to be a clever forgery. “I sensed it within several weeks of having it,” he says. “It’s an energy.”

After his experience with the Siqueiros, Aaron decided to take on the culture of complacency he often encounters in art and government circles. “I have gone into several expositions this year in museums, and I have sat down with the curators and said, ‘You have a serious problem,’” he explains. “This is an artist who is part of the patrimony of Mexico, and I have seen innumerable pieces that are false.” The exhibitions, he adds, “are legitimizing these forgeries and allowing organized criminals to recreate the history of the art of Mexico.” These problems are pervasive worldwide. Collectors are particularly vulnerable to frauds in overheated art markets like the one that exists today, according to Mary-Anne Martin, a New York gallery owner who founded the Latin American department at Sotheby’s.

To help stem the flood of fake Frida Kahlos, Martin recently formed an authentication committee with other Latin American art experts. The shelves in her New York gallery are stuffed with binders documenting forgeries she has been offered over the years. In one instance, she turned down a fake Kahlo in Mexico only to see it resurface for sale in Paris and then in Spain over the following months.

“Forgeries are a fact of the game in all fields of art, and have been since the Romans, if not before,” says James Oles, an assistant professor of art history at Wellesley College and an independent curator and art critic. No expert, he says, “can avoid being taken by the best forgeries, some of which hang undetected in museums today.” He knows the obvious signs of pieces to eschew: works with poor provenance, works that travel through a murky secondary market, works with too many “certificates of authenticity.” Oles has refused to exhibit many works with such baggage attached, “though owners insist they have the real thing.” He knows that a thorough examination takes time, and grows uneasy if he is rushed to make a decision to include or recommend something.

Tales Tip Scales
Philippe Garner, who heads Christie’s 20th-century decorative arts, design and photography department in London, has learned to be wary when he sees a surprising number of high-grade prints or paintings show up on the market in a way that defies logic and historic patterns. He is also tipped by elaborate tales from people who say they knew the artist.

Some of the most spectacular frauds of recent years exploit the weaknesses of the international art market: its reliance on the official reputation of a work of art and its dependence on experts who are sometimes reluctant to voice doubts about a possible forgery. Some schemes succeed because of seemingly unimpeachable documentation that accompanies the forgeries. Other plots go unchecked for far too long because dealers and collectors around the world remain silent about their suspicions, critics say.

Art dealer Ely Sakhai, arrested last spring outside his Manhattan gallery, is charged with perpetrating a multimillion dollar scheme that scammed collectors in Tokyo, London and New York during much of the 1990s. Sakhai had a practiced routine, authorities allege. He would, they say, purchase minor works by renowned Impressionist and Postimpressionist artists and then commission good forgeries of the works. He would sell the copies—often in Asia—accompanied by the authentic documentation. A few years later, he would dispose of the original painting at auction. Sakhai’s scam began to unravel in May 2000 when the same Paul Gauguin painting appeared in the May catalogs of both Christie’s and Sotheby’s in Manhattan. FBI agents eventually traced both paintings—the fake at Christie’s and the original at Sotheby’s—back to Sakhai.

Theoretical physicist Michael Mattis spurred the development of antifraud tools that are now widely used in the vintage photography arena. Mattis and his wife, Judith Hochberg, are among the foremost collectors of 20th-century American photography. Mattis’ detective work began in response to persistent rumors in the mid-1990s about the authenticity of the Lewis Hine photographs in his collection. “I am a scientist, and the pursuit of truth was what I did for a living,” says Mattis, who discovered that his allegedly vintage photographs had not been developed by Hine after all; the foremost expert on Hine and his former assistant fell under suspicion of having printed them from original negatives after the artist’s death. Although the expert has said he did not print the disputed photographs, he compensated Mattis with three vintage Strand photographs and subsequently settled out of court with six dealers.

With the help of a team of art conservators and paper specialists, Mattis developed new methods for assessing the age of a photograph. He has, in fact, left a career at Los Alamos Laboratory to devote himself full-time to curating shows, research and managing his collection.

Back to Main Article: The Specter of Spoils