July 2, 2001
CONTENTS:
- Forger tricks Sotheby's with fake painting
- Mohammed al Fayed loses £1m statues 'to watchmen'
- Muslims say fresco must be destroyed
- Terra board OKs agreement
- Workshop on disasters
- Halon versus wet pipe system
- The Art Newspaper; this week's top stories
Forger tricks Sotheby's with fake painting
A FORGER has duped Sotheby's by passing off one of his fakes as a genuine painting by an early 20th-century French artist, writes Richard Brooks. Terry Bradley, who makes a living by selling copies of works legitimately to customers, sent the fake Jacques Villon for auction at Sotheby's last month. The auction house has admitted that several of its experts saw the painting before it was sold for £2,750 - more than four times the catalogue estimate. The ruse was discovered only after the buyer took the canvas to Paris where a Villon expert declared it was a forgery. Bradley said afterwards: "It just shows how easy it is to get a fake through."
He claims that "at least 50% of items sold in antique shops and auctions are forgeries" - a figure strongly contested by auction houses. Bradley admits that he has copied hundreds of works since the late 1980s - almost all of them works of "semi- obscure artists", bought and then presumably sold on by antique shops. Their sale price ranged from £50 to £1,000. He accused the shops of being "legalised fraudsters". Only once before, in 1990, has Bradley sold one of his "forgeries" through an auction house when he gave a copy of a work by David Bomberg, an early 20th-century cubist painter, to Hamptons Fine Art of Godalming, Surrey. It sold for £1,750 to a gallery which specialised in Bomberg's work.
His copy of the Villon was in pen and watercolour depicting a woman playing cards. Bradley had copied it from a book of etchings and offered it to Sotheby's auction rooms in Billingshurst, West Sussex, giving his name as "Mr T John". He went to the auction on June 12 and was amazed when the pre-sale estimate of between £400 and £600 turned into bidding of £2,750. Later, Sotheby's wrote to "T John" telling him of the "disappointing" fact that it was a "deliberate forgery." Sotheby's said last week: "This man deceived us deliberately." A spokesman acknowledged that it had not checked the provenance of the Villon, but added: "At that lowish price you don't."
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/
Mohammed al Fayed loses £1m statues 'to watchmen'
Harrods owner Mohammed al Fayed has been robbed of four bronze statues worth over £1 million by his own night watchmen at his home in Egypt. The watchmen allegedly replaced the statues with duplicates and sold the originals for around £20,000. According to the daily newspaper Al-Gumhurija, both of the men accused have worked for 68-year-old Fayed for more than 20 years. The businessman once paid for one of the suspect's wives to be brought to London for specialist medical treatment.
http://www.ananova.com/
Muslims say fresco must be destroyed
FROM RICHARD OWEN IN ROME
MUSLIM leaders in Italy are demanding the removal or destruction of a priceless 15th century fresco in Bologna that they say offends Islam by showing the Prophet Muhammad being cast into the flames of Hell. The row over The Last Judgment by Giovanni da Modena, in Bologna Cathedral, could threaten the already strained relations between the Roman Catholic Church and members of Italy’s Muslim community.
more: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,3-2001222211,00.html
Terra board OKs agreement
By Robert Becker, Tribune staff reporter
The nine-month legal battle over the future of the Terra Museum of American Art stumbled closer to conclusion Friday, with museum foundation board members approving a controversial agreement that will keep the museum in Illinois as well as add five new members to the board, according to sources familiar with the negotiations. By a 6-2 vote with three members absent, Terra Foundation board members agreed to a basic plan that will keep the museum's holdings and its foundation in Illinois for 50 years and allow it to relocate from its current home on North Michigan Avenue, as well as explore partnerships with other Illinois institutions, according to sources familiar with the deal. Another provision of the agreement calls for the 11 current board members to leave a year from now. Outgoing Terra Foundation chairman Paul Tucker, who would step down as part of the deal, blasted the agreement as "one more example of how Chicago power and politics overwhelms basic principles."
From: Mary Wood Lee mlee@mohawk.net
Subject: Workshop on disasters
The deadline for application for the Midwest Regional Emergency Response Workshop in Independence, MO from September 6-8, 2001 has been extended to the July 20. Application forms and information are available on line by contacting mlee@mohawk.net
From: "Warren RUDER" WRUDER@heard.org
Subject: Halon
Because of the ozone problem and Halon leakage over the years our Museum has switched from Halon gas to wet pipe fire suppression in all areas of the Museum. However, let's understand a few things. I have been in three Halon discharges and I am not dead! It did change my voice as if I had been breathing helium. My voice went back to normal after five minutes of fresh air. I never stayed in the rooms more than twenty minutes. The Halon gas did not replace the oxygen. There was no reason to "run for your life." Before we switched to total wet pipe we had one small wet pipe system (3,000 sq. ft.) installed in a basement area in the year of 1969. This was part of Collections storage. The system was removed in the year of 2000 because it was re-piped and became part of the newly completed total Museum wet pipe system. In those 31 years there was never an accidental leak or discharge.
From: newsletter@theartnewspaper.com
Subject: The Art Newspaper; this week's top stories
The Art Newspaper.com
http://www.theartnewspaper.com This week's top stories:
SETTING SUN OUTSHINES MORNING MISTS
LONDON. Monet's 1890 painting of a group of haystacks, blazing in the last light of the setting sun, set a new record for the series in London last week when it sold for £10,123,500 ($14.28 million) to an unidentified telephone bidder. The tense bidding battle lasted almost five minutes opposing Sotheby's specialist Melanie Clore, another telephone bidder and the dealer Ezra Nahmad, and the price was well above the pre-sale estimate of £5-7 million. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=6699 ART THEFT: NO RESPECT FOR THE SACRED
A report on “Looting in Europe” reveals the extent to which churches are being pillaged. Focussing on Italy, the Czech Republic, France and Hungary, the report by the International Council of Museums (ICOM) records the cases of 100 stolen masterpieces, as examples of what is being lost. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=6698 “UNSUITABLE” ART REMOVED FROM CATHEDRAL IN NEW YORK
NEW YORK. A buddhist-influenced work of art has been removed from the Cathedral of St John the Divine in New York, where it formed part of the group exhibition "Threshold of the Spirit”. Arlene Shechet, the author of the work, had been asked to drastically revise the work, or deinstall it. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=6697 FOUNDATION AND MUSEUM DISAGREE OVER LOOTED DRAWING
A looted drawing once owned by German banker Mr Eberstadt, who fled to the Netherlands in 1937, was donated to the Boijmans Foundation in 1942. Eberstadt’s grandson, Walter is claiming the drawing and the Rotterdam museum accepts his moral right to the work and would like it returned. However, the Boijmans Foundation argues that it acquired the drawing legally, and it does not feel under a moral obligation to make restitution. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=6696 WHY LAS VEGAS IS THE PLACE TO BE
With branches of the Guggenheim and the Hermitage due to open in September, the president of the Venetian Hotel, Rob Goldstein, tells us how art is a natural step forward for the hotel and city—after retailing and restaurants. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=6694 VISIONAIRE: MAGAZINE OR BRANDED AND BRANDING ART PRODUCT?
NEW YORK. Few magazines make it onto the block but Visionaire, a 10-year-old quarterly, has already racked up impressive prices in both Sotheby’s and Doyle’s salerooms, with collectors prepared to pay prices into thousands of dollars for back issues. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=6693 JAPANESE BUYERS OUT IN FORCE
LONDON. Japan may be suffering a prolonged recession and have bowed out of the international art market, but Christie's sale of the Manno Collection proved that both trade and private buyers are still prepared to splurge on Japanese art when the right things appear. And this sale certainly offered the right things: a group of over 80 Japanese swords, lacquerware and ceramics, deaccessioned from the Manno Museum in Osaka, including seven Important Art Objects that were not allowed to leave Japan. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=6692
Anna Somers Cocks, Editor
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