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January 31, 1999

Gunmen carefully select, then steal Tamayo art from Mexican gallery

Copyright c 1999 Nando Media Copyright c 1999 Reuters News Service
MEXICO CITY (January 30, 1999 1:50 p.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com)
- Armed robbers have stolen 12 paintings by one of Mexico's greatest artists, Rufino Tamayo, in an apparent steal-to-order heist, newspapers said on Saturday.

The paintings, which had been on show with 40 others to commemorate the centenary of the revered artist's birth, had a collective value of about $2 million, La Jornada newspaper said. Owners of the Lopez Quiroga gallery in the expensive Mexico City suburb of Polanco said five men entered the gallery on Thursday evening, threatened the staff with guns, slipped the chosen Tamayo artworks into plastic bags, and made off with them in a van. "It's a fact that the people who entered the gallery to steal the paintings knew very well what they were doing," said Mauricio Tornero Salinas, director of Mexico City's judicial police charged with investigating the crime. "It looks like this is a robbery to order," added art critic Raquel Tibol, referring to the timing of the theft, 24 hours before the show was due to close, and the choice of works. The gunmen took no drawings nor any of three oil paintings on loan from Mexico's Museum of Modern Art. La Jornada said such a theft was unprecedented in Mexico. The 12 small oils that disappeared belong to private U.S. and Mexican collectors as well as to the painter's widow Olga Tamayo, the paper said. Rufino Tamayo was born in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca in 1899. Best known for his whimsical portraits and still lives, he also painted murals, including one for the conference room of the United Nations' Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris.
The 12 stolen works were painted between 1929 and 1988 and include such titles as Sandias (Watermelon), Abejas agresivas (Angry bees) and Perfil amarillo (Profile in yellow). Interpol has been alerted and international warnings sent out to prevent the resale of the stolen works, newspapers said.

From: Dario Sanchez Dsanchez@CRA-USA.com
Subject:

TWELVE PAINTINGS BY RUFINO TAMAYO STOLEN IN MEXICO CITY Date

sent: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 16:36:50 -0800
TWELVE PAINTINGS BY RUFINO TAMAYO STOLEN IN MEXICO CITY

We would like museums, galleries and collectors to take note that on January 28, 1999, twelve oil paintings by Tamayo were stolen from Galería López Quiroga, in Mexico City. All this paintings were part of the exhibition, Tamayo, obra en pequeño formato 1925-1989, dedicated to celebrate Tamayo's hundreth birthday. This exhibition was first presented by Latin American Masters, in Beverly Hills, California, during the last autumn, and since December 9 in Galería López Quiroga. The exhibition was scheduled to close in January 30, 1999. We will appreciate each and every effort that museums, galleries, collectors and institutions may contribute in order to make the twelve images of these masterpieces well known to every person interested in Rufino Tamayo's work. We are trying to get these paintings back to their legitimate owners and, at the same time, trying to prevent them from being illegaly sold.
Sincerely
Ramón López Quiroga
For more information please check
http://www.monasterio.com/StolenArt.htm
************************************************

ROBO DE DOCE CUADROS DE RUFINO TAMAYO EN LA CIUDAD DE MEXICO

Por medio de este boletín queremos hacer del conocimiento de museos, galerías y coleccionistas que el día 28 de enero de 1999 fueron robados de la Galería López Quiroga, en la ciudad de México, doce óleos pintados por el maestro Rufino Tamayo. Todos estos cuadros pertenecían a la exposición homenaje Tamayo, obra en pequeño formato 1925-1989, que se realizó con motivo del centenario de su natalicio. La exposición fue presentada en el otoño de 1998, en la galería Latin American Masters, de Beverly Hills, California, y desde el 9 de diciembre hasta el 30 de enero del presente año en la Galería López Quiroga. Mucho agradeceremos a los museos, galerías, personas e instituciones que conocen y aprecian la obra de Rufino Tamayo el que boletinen por todos los medios posibles la noticia y las imágenes de estas obras maestras robadas con el fin de lograr su recuperación y evitar así que sean vendidas fraudulentamente. Agradecemos de antemano su ayuda y su comprensión, y quedamos en espera de cualquier noticia o sugerencia que nos pudieran brindar para manejar de la mejor manera posible tan lamentable y penosa situación. Atentamente,
Ramón López Quiroga
Información http://www.monasterio.com/StolenArt.htm
Stolen art / Piezas robadas

List / Lista

1. Los caracoles, 1929, Oil on canvas, 59 x 23 cm
2. Abejas agresivas, 1953, Oil on canvas, 40 x50 cm
3. Constelacion, 1958, Oil on canvas, 38 x 54.5 cm
4. Cabeza flotando, 1960, Oil on canvas, 30.5 x 25.5 cm
5. Perfil amarillo, 1961, Oil on canvas, 30 x 25.5 cm
6. Sandias, 1965, Oil on canvas, 45 x 60 cm
7. Hombre confrontando el infinito, 1967, Oil on canvas, 50 x 40 cm
8. Dos perfiles, 1971, Oil and sand on canvas, 25.5 x 40.5 cm
9. Figura, 1972, Oil and sand on canvas
10. Hombre y mujer, 1988, Oil on canvas, 30 x 55 cm
11. Payaso, 1958, Oil on canvas, 64.8 x 54 cm
12. Naturaleza muerta, 1930, Oil on canvas, 49.5 x 49 cm

Exposed: auctioneers value new goods as antique (Times of London)

by Paul Nuki and John Harlow

LEADING British auction houses are valuing modern reproduction artefacts as antique. A Sunday Times investigation has uncovered evidence that Christie's, Bonhams and Phillips are risking their reputations by selling new goods as old to unsuspecting customers. Experts accuse the auction houses of carelessness verging on negligence and say their once-prestigious salerooms now resemble "glorified car boot sales". They blame the problems on a move down-market by the auctioneers and pressure from shareholders to increase the volume of lots passing through their books. Acting on complaints from dealers, undercover reporters posing as sellers took a range of cheap reproductions to each of the big four auction houses. Three wrongly credited the items with age and grossly overestimated their true value. Examples included: A Christie's expert who described a modern lantern worth UKP: 300 as an "early 20th-century gilt bronze lantern" which would fetch up to UKP: 600 at auction. A specialist at Phillips who disregarded modern chipboard and screws in the base of a UKP: 150 reproduction table lamp and judged it to be almost a century old. An expert at Bonhams who estimated that a pair of tea-stained reproduction plaster busts were worth up to UKP: 250 - more than six times their true value. Of the four auction houses visted by reporters, only Sotheby's correctly identified and rejected four reproduction items placed in the back of an estate car among various genuine antiques. Christie's rejected two but accepted two, while Bonhams and Phillips each took on three "fake" items. If all the reproduction goods had been sold at auction at the highest prices estimated by the experts, the reporters would have turned an outlay of UKP: 1,110 into a lump sum of UKP: 2,690. The auction houses would also have taken a 30% slice of the hammer price. "I would think you are probably looking at a 1910-20 piece," said Louise Grant, at Christie's, when presented with a brand-new brass table lamp. "It is not 1970s or 1980s - it is nothing as recent as that. It is something we would sell for you." Experts say the auction houses are able to get away with making such mistakes because the small print in their conditions of sale makes it all but impossible for misled buyers to sue them for damages. Their catalogues also make ample use of phrases such as "in the style of". These are phrases traditionally used and may suggest to prospective buyers that an item has age. However, in a strictly literal or legal sense the term implies only a resemblance. Antique dealers and other experts believe the big auction houses have been falling foul of the "knit one, purl one" principle - where reproduction goods are put up for sale with originals - for some time. Jonathan Gash, author of the Lovejoy novels, said that as few as 5% of all antiques are absolutely genuine, allowing plenty of room for both genuine and not-so-genuine mistakes. "Get-out words like style cover a multitude of sins," said Gash. Christie's, Phillips and Bonhams denied any negligence last week. They insisted that all the reproduction items they took on would have been spotted and re-described before they reached the showrooms. Christie's said its procedures were thorough and added that the bogus items had been left with the auction house for only a short period.
+++++++++++++++

Auction men take repro antiques at face value

by John Harlow and Paul Nuki

What we were bid

THERE was no doubting his abilities, it seemed. Daniel Edmonds, an antiques expert at Bonhams, one of Britain's "big four" auction houses, exuded confidence from his goatee beard to his shiny brogues. As soon as the young man's eyes settled on an assortment of dusty objects in the back of a Volvo estate parked outside one of his firm's prestigious London offices, he offered a list of "facts" about their background, quality and value.
"Turn of the century," he pronounced on a brand new marble frieze bought at a shop 200 yards up the road. Two UKP: 20 plaster busts, stained not with age but PG Tips and cigarette ash, were deemed to be "UKP: 250-the-pair".
Edmonds, a furniture, lighting and sculpture specialist with Bonhams, exhibited a level of expertise that was far from exceptional, as revealed by undercover reporters at the "front desks" of the country's top auction houses.
The Sunday Times investigation was prompted by antique dealers who complained to the newspaper that the auction houses were competing unfairly by selling reproduction artefacts as old. "That's a nice light," said Edmonds, holding a weighty brass table lamp. "It is Charles X. It is 1860. You are looking at between UKP: 600 and UKP: 800." In fact, Charles X ruled France between 1824 and 1830; the lamp Edmonds had in his hand was manufactured last year for UKP: 150. The big four auction houses - Christie's, Sotheby's, Bonhams and Phillips - dominate Britain's antiques trade as never before, accounting for more than a third of the annual UKP: 2.5 billion sales. In the Sunday Times operation, genuine antiques and modern replicas were offered to the auction houses where staff issued receipts indicating their opinions on "provenance" - the artefacts' history and age - as well as likely value.
At Christie's, Bonhams and Phillips, the histories were often wrong and estimates far exceeded their true value. If the top-end estimates had been realised at auction, bogus artefacts bought for UKP: 1,110 from the manufacturers would, in one morning, have been turned into UKP: 2,690 worth of "antiques" with receipts from the auction houses to verify their "authenticity".
Christie's receipt for one lamp described it as "empire-style" - a meaningless phrase which litters the sales catalogues of the auction houses. It suggests the lamp was made during the reign of Napoleon III but, in fact, it could have been produced any time since and merely resembled the style.
A brass lantern, also new, was described as "early 20th century" and given an estimated value of up to UKP: 600 - nearly twice the price charged by the company which made it. Louise Grant, an expert at Christie's Vauxhall offices, gave a brisk assessment of the assorted items in the car. The plaster busts were rejected but a brand new brass table lamp fared better. "I would think you are probably looking at a 1910-1920 piece," said Grant of the UKP: 150 reproduction. "It is not 1970s or 1980s - it is nothing as recent as that. It is something we would sell for you." At Phillips it was a similar story. Michael Lake, an expert at the firm's Bayswater offices, wrongly described the table lamp and a plaster bust as having been made at the turn of the century. Even when he removed the felt bottom to reveal a chipboard base and modern screws, he did not recoil. "It must have been re-wired and re-weighted," he said.
Of the lantern, he added: "This is the early part of this century. What makes it nice is the bowed glass. Anything bowed is much more expensive. It's got some age to it. It's not brand new." In fact, bowed glass is available from the Bent Glass Company in London's East End. Bob Draysey, whose east London shop, the Antiques Exchange, specialises in reproduction furniture, was not surprised to learn that upmarket auction houses were unable to distinguish new items from old. He said that it was well known in the trade that "Charley Chippendale was alive and well" and that the "knit one, purl one principle" - whereby a bogus artefact is slipped in with the genuine article - was widely used in the antiques business. "We sell a fair bit of early Whipsnade and late Flange down here and the broken-wrists in the West End do too. What you have to remember is that you can't do too much for the Americans so far as antiques are concerned. The wooden planks [Yanks] like their antiques brand new," he said.
The only auction house to reject all the reproductions was Sotheby's. One of its experts, Jeremy Smith, was twice tempted out of the firm's Bond Street offices to examine "treasures" in the back of the car. On both occasions the fakes were identified as modern and rejected, albeit with the utmost courtesy. Traditionally, major auction houses have concentrated on the top end of the market, trading in fine art and museum-quality furniture. But the rise of affluent Wall Street collectors and the threat of new taxes in Europe is driving much of the trade abroad, particularly to New York.
It has not helped that Britain is rapidly running out of top quality antiques. Based on the scale of manufacture and customs records, experts estimate that the vast majority of genuine fine Georgian furniture had been exported by the 1920s. The auction houses, requiring smaller, more frequent sales to make up for the big bonanzas of the past, have gone "down-market" in pursuit of anything "old" - from toys and comics to household goods dismissed as the realm of the amateur collector 20 years ago. Where has this left the amateur? The wrong identification of an artefact may mean embarrassment for an auction house but heartbreak for the unwary buyer. One housewife who travelled from Hampshire to Christie's paid more than UKP: 300 for an "empire-style" lamp, only to discover the truth from a local antiques dealer when she got home. "I learnt that 'empire-style' can cover anything made between 1850 and 1999 and I had bought a nice but overpriced fake. "I have seen an identical lamp in the King's Road at half the price. It is frustrating but the 15 pages of small print in the back of the sales catalogue mean I cannot take it back." Peter Nahum, a director at Sotheby's for 17 years before setting up his own gallery and appearing regularly as an expert on BBC television's Antiques Roadshow, said he was not surprised by the victims' plight.
"The auction houses spend a fortune promoting themselves to the general public as blueblood experts and, more importantly, honest brokers. An honest broker is defined as someone who does not have an interest in a sale; they take 15% from both buyer and seller. Is that a disinterested party?" Nahum added that 10 years ago the top auction houses declared they were going to drive antiques dealers out of business. "They used to be slightly fusty places where expertise was, by and large, the key value to keep customers coming back. "Now they are all the same: they employ young, hungry salesmen rather than experts, especially on the front desks, who are desperate to clinch a commission."
When presented with the evidence by The Sunday Times last week, the auction houses said they had issued receipts based on first impressions of the goods and insisted they would have detected them as replicas before they were entered in the sales catalogues. Bonhams modified its description of the lamp, describing it as "Charles X-style" while saying it had already rejected the marble frieze. Phillips said there was no intention to mislead the public: "Our Bayswater salesroom handles 40,000 lots a year and every effort is made to ensure that correct descriptions apply to the goods.
"Very rarely do errors of this nature occur." Christie's said its procedures were thorough: "In this instance, the items had only been with us for a few days and in the second case, one hour."

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