December 19, 2000

Thousands of Works Allegedly by Salvador Dalí Retained in the Port of Barcelona; "The Moore Scandal"

BARCELONA.- The port of Barcelona is turning into a small Dali museum. There are two retained containers at the port that hold more than 6,700 works allegedly by Salvador Dali. These works were declared as original lithographies of the painter, property of John Peter Moore, one of his assistants. They are marked with the ridiculous price of $0.08 American cents. These containers hold the remains that Moore had of the "Dali Collection" in Switzerland. This collection has been immobilized for the last two years in a ware house located in the Zona Franca, and the Gala-Salvador Dali Foundation is working on this issue. Among the works, there were some that Moore had the permission to reproduce and of others he lacked the permission. Those works are: "Dalí Flower", "Surrealistic Flowers", "Cactus" and "Charles de Gaulle". Of the men that Dali trusted, only Enrich Sabater has been away from the scandal spotlight. Currently he is showing Dali's works at the America Hall of Vitoria an exhibit titled "Memoria dels somnis. Salvador Dalí 1904-1989". It gathers 250 pieces, many of them unpublished. It shows a tour through the different stages of Dali with his drawings, notes and scenes of his natal Figueres. Among the most important pieces, there are the illustrations of the book "Museum Works" written by Josep Pla and that are shown complete for the first time. At the Torrente Ballester of Ferrol Cultural Center, before the opening of an exhibit about the relationship of Gala, Dali and Lacroix, a book with Dali's drawings was stolen.
www.artdaily.com/

Faked modern masters found

FROM GILES TREMLETT IN MADRID
SPANISH police have impounded more than 3,000 fake prints worth £4 million that were being passed off as by Picasso, Miró and other artists and arrested seven people accused of organising a global art fraud. Police said that Operation Artist, which uncovered faked Dalí, Warhol and Lichtenstein works, was undertaken after a glut of Miró prints on the world market. Yesterday's arrests were made in Barcelona and Bilbao, but police admitted that they had only captured gang members who sold and distributed the works. "The forgers have not been found and are probably outside Spain," a police spokesman in Barcelona said. Art galleries in Madrid, Murcia, Barcelona and Bilbao were all raided. The fake artworks, which included both lithographs and silk screen prints, were also exported across Europe and to the United States and Japan. "The copies are very good," a police spokesman said. They were first spotted by experts at the Miró Foundation in Barcelona. "There are hundreds of people who have bought from this gang who still do not know that the picture on their wall is fake," he added. Prices for individual prints started at £2,000. They included a series of Warhol prints of Marilyn Monroe, which were on offer for £3,000 each. Police said that the gang had been operating for at least three years.
Times, London

Background information, April 1999:

Dali aide seized on forgery charges. Dali is alleged to have been made to sign thousands of blank canvases

Spanish police have arrested a former close aide to the late surrealist painter Salvador Dali on suspicion of selling thousands of forgeries of his work.
Daniel Schweimler reports: "The latest twist in a long-running and complicated tale"
John Peter Moore, who worked as Dali's personal secretary, was arrested along with his wife after a tip-off from an unnamed man who worked with them, Spanish state radio reported. He was detained following a complaint by the Gala-Dali Foundation, which holds the rights to proceeds from sales of Dali's work. Police said they had discovered a cache of what appeared to be forgeries of the artist's work after a search of Mr Moore's home, several art centres and a museum run by the couple in Dali's native Catalonia. "Thousands of prints have been seized, many of which are signed by Dali and conveniently numbered, with some ready for sale at the price of 180,000 pesetas ($1,155) each," police said in a statement. 'I have all the real Dali I need' Local reports suggest that as many as 10,000 allegedly forged lithographs had been seized. Art experts were examining the works to determine whether they were authentic, police said. However Mr Moore was quoted by the Efe news agency as saying: "I was Dali's assistant for 20 years and I don't need to do forgery, I have all the real Dali I need."

The surrealist at work

Dali met Mr Moore, a British citizen, in Rome in 1955 when Mr Moore was working for the film director Alexander Korda. He had arranged to deliver money to Dali for the purchase of a portrait of actor Laurence Olivier as Richard III. The pair immediately hit it off and Mr Moore became the painter's personal secretary. The former aide, dubbed "Captain Moore", is reputed to be an expert on Dali and has put together an important collection of his works, including "The Apotheosis of the Dollar," which he sold to the Gala-Dali Foundation, and the artist's 1974 sketch of the Statue of the Liberty. Salvador Dali's works have long been associated with fraud. Late in his life and after his death from heart failure in 1989 there was a string of alleged and actual forgeries of his paintings. Blank canvases signed The roots of the problem lie in the last five years of Dali's life, after he suffered severe burns in a fire. He became something of a recluse, and friends and the Spanish Government feared that he was being manipulated by his aides. It was in particular alleged that the mustachioed painter was made to sign thousands of blank canvases, which led experts to question the authenticity of some of his later works. Lee Catterall, author of The Great Dali Art Fraud and Other Deceptions, reported that according to Mr Moore's estimates, Dali signed some 350,000 blank sheets of paper at a rate of 1,800 autographs per hour. The estate he left behind after his death is estimated to be worth some $87m, but the exact value is difficult to pinpoint because of the erratic prices of 20th Century art and the widespread existence of forgeries.
(BBC)

From: IntlArtCop@aol.com
Subject:

Re: query MUSEUM SLEEPOVER

Gene:
This was a fad a few years ago. I have been asked about it on several occasions by clients. My advice has alway been that if a sleepover MUST occur, then you need guards on duty to compensate. Think of it this way: The kids are less of a problem in the building asleep than running wild like they do all day. Set up an area where the group will be. It must include rest room access, etc. Keep alarms on in other parts of the building. Staff up so this portion of the building can remain guarded while alarms are off. Provide staff to meet any likely contingency such as escorting people to other parts of the building if necessary, medical response, etc. Guard the galleries at daytime or special event levels in addition to any other special guards you need as runners, escorts, medical experts, etc. Liability is not your concern unless it is, in fact, your official job. You made your point known to the museum now let the Director lose sleep over it. Your job is to staff up for the event like any other event. Your major task is to convince the Director that if they insist on having this event, you will need enough manpower to protect the building and the sleepover participants. This will certainly mean bringing on more help, probably on overtime. If they feel it is worth the extra cost, then that is a management decision. Develop a plan for dealing with alarm response or incidents such as fires while the group is present. The need for escorts through a dark museum in a fire is, by itself, justification for added guards on duty during the event. If your alarm response policy involves calling city police, using armed guards, using dogs, or any other tactical response that could become problematic with visitors present, then alter your plan and explain to the management how this diminishes security. Provide for someone to pre-search outgoing parcels such as bedrolls simply by witnessing the packing of bedrolls and other parcels and escorting them out of the building so an actual outgoing search isn't necessary but security is still maintained. Make sure visitors are clearly instructed on your rules particularly about leaving the area they are assigned to. Make it clear that the building is alarmed and alarms are all taken seriously. No adult or child is to decide on their own to take a 2 am self conducted tour. Modify your tour routes to compensate for the disruption. Your only concern is if and when they tell you to turn off all the alarms, send the guards home, and let the little darlings run wild all night around the building. Remember: You can do magic. Magic just costs a little more. Let them get it out of their system and the problem will go away.
Steve Keller
Security Consultant

From: "Brand, Ross" RBrand@royalbcmuseum.bc.ca
Subject:

Minimum Security?

Feeling a financial squeeze I have been asked to look at reducing Security costs. The number needed to clear and secure all the galleries and the building dictates the number of Security staff we have. This means that during the off season it would appear that we have an excess of security staff. I could do a sequential closing which would reduce the numbers, but could leave us seriously short in an emergency evacuation. I would like some feedback from list members on their experience and how they determine the minimum number of Security staff.
I need advice to change, or a good argument not to change

Ross Brand
Facilities Manager
Royal British Columbia Museum
675 Belleville Street.
Victoria, BC
V8V 1N2
(250)-387-2104
Fax (250)-952-6825
www.rbcm.gov.bc.ca

Dali works damaged in muse's fatal fire

By Harry de Quetteville in Paris
PAINTINGS by Salvador Dali were damaged in a fire that swept through the home of the artist's former muse in southern France, killing her husband and a 20-year-old friend. Up to 15 works by the Spanish surrealist were damaged when the blaze destroyed two- thirds of the large farmhouse belonging to the artist and model turned pop singer Amanda Lear and her husband, Alain-Philippe Malagnac d'Argens, a former nightclub owner. Mme Lear, who in the Seventies become a familiar face on the arms of British rock stars including Bryan Ferry and David Bowie, was in Italy at the time of the blaze. Neighbours in the southern French village of Saint-Etienne-du-Gres, near Avignon, told police that they were woken by "hammering" and the barking of Mme Lear's dog early on Saturday and saw a thick pall of smoke above the four-storey house. Fireman took two hours to bring the flames under control. Didier Dieufis, a cat breeder and close friend of the couple, was killed along with M d'Argens. Police said yesterday that the paintings and other artworks salvaged from the ruins had been moved into an undamaged part of the house and were under the guard of local gendarmes. Mme Lear, who was Salvador Dali's model and close companion for 15 years in the late Sixties and Seventies, was seen on Saturday and Sunday by investigators trying to establish the cause of the blaze. Despite the presence of specialist units from the criminal investigation unit at Marseille, initial reports from the scene suggested that an electrical fault or a chimney fire might have been to blame. Mme Lear, 55, studied painting in Paris in the early Sixties before moving to London where she became friendly with musicians and artists, including the Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones. On her return to Paris her exotic looks, inherited from her Anglo-French father and Asian mother, made her a favourite model of the fashion designers Paco Rabanne, Yves Saint Laurent and Mary Quant. She also attracted Dali and quickly became one of his closest friends, prompting a welter of speculation about the exact nature of their relationship. In a book published in 1985 about her time with Dali, Mme Lear added to the rumour and gossip, writing: "Dali is a genius who likes ambiguity and he tends to talk to women as if they were men." By the Seventies she had become part of the British rock scene, but her own career in pop music never took off in England. Nevertheless she became immensely popular on the Continent where her albums sold millions of copies and made her a gay icon. Her status ensured she was a star at the parties hosted in the late Seventies by her future husband at his hotel particulier near Paris, where the French authors Francoise Sagan and Roger Peyreffite mixed among Paris high society. Police yesterday refused to give details of the total value of the damage. They said Mme Lear was being interviewed as a witness and was still in shock. A friend.said: "In the house there were photos of her with John Lennon and David Bowie, as well as several of her own canvasses which were about to go on display at a gallery in Germany. This has totally broken her heart."
(Daily Telegraph, London)