Courts
and collectors consider an artist to be the supreme expert in
determining if a work of art attributed to him is real or fake.
It
doesn’t always work out that way. There are stunning
exceptions, notably Italian Surrealist artist Giorgio DeChirico
(1888-1978), who repeatedly upset this traditional apple cart.
Giorgio DeChirico, Portrait of Guillaume Apollinaire, 1915.
If
an artist is dead, the hierarchy of expertise passes on to the
artist’s family and then to the artist’s principle
dealer, if he/she had one. An artist’s wife, mistress, model,
or children may have a usable understanding of the artist’s
work — or they may be abysmally ignorant. Yet most courts would
give these individuals the second-highest level of credence.
If
the family is gone, or has been discredited, the next line of
authority can become a minefield of dispute between dealers and
experts. Opinions may be based upon issues such as provenance (where
did the art come from?), esthetics (is that the way the artist
painted?), or scientific examination (what do the white-coat lab
analysts say?).
The
German painter Max Liebermann (1847-1935) was once described to me as
the artist who introduced Impressionism to Germany. He used inherited
money to acquire and show a substantial collection of Impressionist
paintings, but his own art was a far cry from his French
contemporaries, and of all the countries whose artists were smitten
with Impressionism, there was virtually no impact in Germany. In the
huge and comprehensive book World Impressionism (Norma Broude
Editor, New York, 1990) there is no chapter on German artists.
Liebermann,
however, made a wry observation about this question of authenticity.
“Critics are useful because they will tell the public our bad
pictures are fakes.”
The
Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) became so famous that
his visage is seen on Switzerland’s 100-franc notes. Yet he was
inept as a manager and careless as a record keeper. He lost track of
what plaster models he had cast, allowing different bronze foundries
to cast the same models. These in turn might become the gist for
unauthorized copies and forgeries. On occasion Giacometti was unable
to tell which bronzes were genuine and which were not, leaving the
question of authenticity in limbo.
This
dilemma passed on to the second level of authentication, his wife,
who created the Giacometti foundation (the third level) in Paris in
an effort to sort the good from the bad. The foundation’s task
has not been made easier by Robert Dressen, a wealthy German-born
failed painter turned art forger who now lives, untouchable, in
Thailand. Dressen claims to be responsible for 1300 fake Giacometti
castings.
DeChirico
was born in Greece of Italian parents. His father, like Whistler’s
father in Russia, was a builder of railroads. He died in 1905, and
the next year the boy moved to Munich, Germany and entered the
Academy of Fine Arts. In 1909,
he moved to Italy, and the next year he painted the first of the
metaphysical town-square paintings which would make him famous.
In
the summer of 1911,
he went to Paris to join his brother, who was on the jury for the
coveted Salon d’Automne.
With this connection, three of DeChirico’s paintings were
accepted for the Salon. For a decade his brooding metaphysical
paintings affected Paris. These were discovered by Surrealist
painter, writer André Breton in the gallery of dealer Paul
Guillaume, whom we met in my “Moments in Art” about
Albert Barnes. Breton accepted DeChirico into the Pantheon of
Surrealism.
But
DeChirico became dissatisfied. He became infected with a compulsion
to turn his art from the avante-garde to forgotten classicism. In the
eyes of those whose views mattered, DeChirico’s art went
downhill for the rest of his long life.
Giorgio DeChirico, La Piazza d’Italia, 1915.
DeChirico’s
response to this took a strange, conflicting duality. To get money,
he would forge his own works, paint something in his old style,
though he hated it, and then backdate it to make it seem from the
period of his acclaim. Or, he would attack a genuine older painting,
claiming he had never painted it, that it was a fake.
This
caused consternation in the art market.
Maurice
Grinspan was a successful Paris lawyer and a good friend. I was in
Paris to testify before the examining magistrate in the Algur
Meadows-Fernand Legros art forgery case I wrote about a few weeks
ago. Maurice knew there was an important trial going on in one of the
storied courtrooms that would interest me. He was so right.
DeChirico
had denied the authenticity of an important metaphysical painting
from his early period. His declaration destroyed the value of the
painting. The owner filed a lawsuit to force the artist to admit that
the painting was genuine. As defendant, DeChirico was in the
courtroom as his alleged duplicity, assembled by the examining
magistrate, was laid bare.
There
was overwhelming evidence, and the plaintiff defeated DeChirico. The
painting lost its tarnish and again became a genuine and accepted
work from the artist’s best period.
Lawrence Jeppson is an art consultant, organizer and curator of art exhibitions, writer, editor
and publisher, lecturer, art historian, and appraiser. He is America's leading authority on
modern, handwoven French tapestries. He is expert on the works of William Henry Clapp, Nat
Leeb, Tsing-fang Chen, and several French artists.
He is founding president of the non-profit Mathieu Matégot Foundation for Contemporary
Tapestry, whose purview encompasses all 20th-century tapestry, an interest that traces back to
1948. For many years he represented the Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapisserie and
Arelis in America.
Through the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, the American Federation of
Arts, the Museum of Modern Art, and his own Art Circuit Services he has been a contributor to
or organizer of more than 200 art exhibitions in the United States, Canada, Japan, and Taiwan.
He owns AcroEditions, which publishes and/or distributes multiple-original art. He was co-founder and artistic director of Collectors' Investment Fund.
He is the director of the Spring Arts Foundation; Utah Cultural Arts Foundation, and the Fine
Arts Legacy Foundation
Lawrence is an early-in-the-month home teacher, whose beat is by elevator. In addition, he has spent the past six years hosting and promoting reunions of the missionaries who served in the French Mission (France, Belgium, and Switzerland) during the decade after WWII.