March 4, 2010
Filed under: Art crime — Alan @ 5:56 am
A new documentary that explores the controversy surrounding who gets control of the $25b modern art collection that was owned by the deceased Albert C Barnes serves as an excellent reminder of just how hard to chase the dream of creating a legacy can be for the extremely wealthy.
The documentary, titled Art of the Steal, focuses on how Barnes wished to leave his collection behind to an institution that would permanently house his European paintings, but over time due to the disagreements that have arisen over how his collection should be placed his vision has become quite blurred.
Now as a result Barnes’ plans to preserve his paintings so that his estate will live on has turned into a new arrangement that will leave the paintings in a public facility located in Philadelphia, which is highly ironic given that it is directly next door to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which Barnes openly hated.
The manipulation and borderline illegal interpretations of wills are common among Americans who are rich and even though the rich may be able to draw up strict instructions that leave them satisfied that their wills will be carried out correctly, often this does not happen. Instead, power struggles in the legal system afterwards often lead to the exact opposite happening.
In fact, the problem has become so large that the patriarchs of richest families have even taken steps to leave behind 6% of their fortunes to estate lawyers to guarantee that their wishes will be followed after they pass; the film shows the struggles of Barnes to have his wishes fulfilled.
February 2, 2010
Filed under: Art crime — Alan @ 7:53 am
The fine art world was rocked by the loss of a Rolf Harris painting back in 2005, when the artwork valued at around £100,000 disappeared from a warehouse. The painting titled Lovers on the Seine II is known as one of the best work by Harris.
Since its loss at a Warwick museum, the widow of Dean Hardy, Maxine Hardy, has fought to find out what happened to it.
In June of 2009 Judge Simon Brown once again stirred up scandal when he ruled that the Washington Green Fine Art Publishing company of Birmingham had ‘dishonestly appropriated’ it.
The judge ruled that Udi Sheleg, the managing director of Washington Green, knew where the painting is or knew what had happened and thus was responsible for its loss. After the court case closed Washington Green was fined £135,000 which included £95,000 due to Hardy for reparations.
This Monday however Washington Green challenged the ruling in the London Civil Appeal Court claiming that there was not any evidence that proves Washington Green ever had possession of the piece or that at any point Sheleg may have done something dishonest.
QC for Washington Green, Philip Marshall, attacked Judge Brown’s previous ruling as ‘perverse’ stating that he was so intent at looking for a conspiracy involving Sheleg he overlooked the more obvious fact that a third party may have stolen the painting or it simply may have been lost.
The last time the painting was seen was in October of 2005.
January 26, 2010
Filed under: Art crime — Alan @ 5:51 am
Over 100 fake works valued at a few million pounds will go on public display all the items come from police-seized t forged art.
The works range from Barbara Hepworth sculptures to Lowry paintings and will make up an exhibition premiering at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The collection, which includes fakes of works by Banksy and Thomas Moran would be valued at around four million according to experts, if they were real.
The display is set up to look like the garden shed of Shaun Greenhalgh, who was captured in 2007 by police and jailed for a little over four years after police discovered his wide array of forged works outside in his Bolton cottage garden.
Among the fakes that Greenhalgh created was Roman silver tableware, Lowry pastels, Egyptian statues, and a supposedly ‘lost’ duck sculpture by Barbara Hepworth.
Forged work by Robert Thwaites and John Myatt will also be part of the exhibit.
The head of the Met’s art and antiques unit, Detective Sergeant Vernon Rapley, stated that art crime affects more than just the famous and rich, due to the fact most forgers focus on works that are less than £10,000, as they are not likely to be checked as thoroughly, and do not receive as much attention.
Rapley also stated that art fakery still remains a popular underground business. He continued to say that the display will help show that art crime is not just a historical problem, because it will show that the crime occurs often and will help the public learn what to look out
January 14, 2010
Filed under: Art crime — Alan @ 5:49 am
Pop artist Jason Eric Kay, attempted to profit from Tiger Woods sullied image, but only succeeded in getting charged with product tampering by the American Justice Department on Wednesday.
Kay was charged for taking the labels off of Gatorade, which he replaced with labels he created that show Woods and wife Elin Woods on one side of the bottle with the word ‘unfaithful’ plastered on the other. The criminal complaint states that he was able to distribute 67 bottles to Denver stores.
The Justice Department took Kay into custody on Wednesday and charged him with altering food labels to cause damage to the person featured as well as misbranding. He faces a sentence that carries fines up to $450,000 and five years in prison.
Before he was taken into custody Kay wrote to PepsiCo, the owner of Gatorade, and proposed that they send him on a multi-city tour that would involve Kay dressing up in Gatorade apparel and handing out the tampered bottles to consumers. After PepsiCo received several complaints from the public about the tampered bottles they contacted the FDA.
Daniel Burke, a Special Agent of the FDA Office of Criminal Investigations, said that when he questioned Kay he commented that he knew his scheme was illegal but that he did not think that anyone would make a big deal about it.
Woods numerous affairs appeared in the news back in December after which Gatorade announced that it would not continue to manufacture its Tiger Woods branded drink. Despite the timing, Gatorade spokesmen said the endorsement deal was not dropped because of recent events.
January 5, 2010
Filed under: Art crime — Alan @ 5:42 am
Researchers have developed a new way to identify fake and imitation artwork known as ‘sparse coding.’
In short, the new methods creates a virtual library of known works by an artist and then breaks down each paintings visual elements to identify their style. Artwork that is identifiable will contain the same simple elements while imitation works will not.
The study of artworks using mathematical analysis is a new subject area that gained attention when it was found in 1999 that many of the ‘drip paintings’ by Jackson Pollock were created in patterns that existed in fractal mathematics.
There is still controversy however about whether the same mathematical analysis could actually identify works by the prominent artist.
Over the last few years many scientists have taken many different approaches to delineating the true origin of several pieces of art, each with different results.
However, Daniel Rockmore and colleagues at the US Dartmouth College now believe that sparse coding may be in fact the most veritable technique yet known.
‘Sparse coding’ takes digital blocks of a piece of art dividing a piece into 144 squares of 12 rows by 12 columns. Then each set is given black and white forms and assigned a pattern.
Each piece is then modified by a computer until the pieces can be combined proportionally to create the piece in question. The smallest possible set of details that can be used to create a piece are known as the ‘sparset’ which identifies an artist’s general painting style and asserts the validity of a painting.
December 18, 2009
Filed under: Art crime — Alan @ 8:22 am
An art student from the Edinburgh College of Art received a £200 fine for smashing in a gallery window as part of his art project.
Kevin Harman age 27 smashed the window of The Collective Gallery on Cockburn Street with a pole and recorded it. Later he showed the footage of his vandalism on the Brunswick Street New Haven Gallery.
Harman did the project on his own volition, according to the Edinburgh College of art, and he admitted to the charges of breaching the peace and disorderly conduct.
Malcolm Stewart, the fiscal deputy, stated that he wrote to the art gallery and told them that he would be bashing the window in for an art project he titled Brick. Harman did not write to the gallery again to let them know when the action would occur, which left staff unprepared for the incident.
The “art work” actually occurred on November 23rd while the museum was closed for a meeting. Stewart stated that the gallery occupants were upset, even though they were expecting the event.
After breaking the window Harman was prepared with a glazier and immediately fixed it. His defence solicitor stated that while he was not given permission to break the window, he also was not told not to either.
Harman quickly repaired the window with the glazier in 25 minutes and took caution to make sure that no one was harmed. After he left court he stated that he planned to apologize for his action.
December 7, 2009
Filed under: Art crime — Alan @ 3:16 am
Italian investigators made something of a coup this past weekend after repeated attempts to get at the assets from the Parmalat collapse, by seizing art and paintings valued at around £90m.
The works belonged to the group’s founder Calisto Tanzi.
The group has been nicknamed the Enron of Europe since its collapse in 2003 leaving behind debts that total up to 14 billion euro. Parma police said they found the assets after a series of telephone intercepts were made. One of the paintings discovered by police was about to be auctioned off.
The art included many famous works by Degas, Picasso, Gauguin, Van Gogh, and Cezanne. The artwork was all found in homes of the Tanzi family’s friends.
Chief Parma prosecutor, Gerardo Laguardia, stated that they have had some suspicions about certain people for a while, which is why they tapped the phone lines. After further investigation they found that one of the Monet’s was involved in negotiations for sale.
Parmalat was the largest corporate bankruptcy in Europe’s history. Its founder, Tanzi, is serving his ten years in prison after sentencing last year for his part in the fraud.
The company came back from bankruptcy in 2005 and is not run by the administrator Enrico Bondi.
Bondi has been searching for the lost assets to repay debts since the collapse, while also going after international investment banks that had a role in advising the company on bond issues.
The fraud affected about 100,000 shareholders in Italy who lost their life savings.
November 17, 2009
Filed under: Art crime — Alan @ 7:53 am
Friday a new law was passed that allows national museums to return pieces of art stolen by the Nazis back to their original owners or to their rightful descendents.
The bill is titled the Holocaust (Stolen Art) Restitution Act and was introduced by Labour MP Andrew Dismore, who stated that its purpose is to correct an injustice that has been allowed to stand for too long.
According to Dismore while he cannot foresee that the act would be used in many cases, it is a moral law that allows those who need closure on an aspect of the appalling events of the Holocaust to seek legal support in doing so.
Across Britain it is estimated that there are around 20 pieces of confiscated art in museums that were savagely looted from Jewish homes by Nazis.
Now the owners of these pieces can step forward and agree to take financial compensation or the pieces of art back.
In the past several of the prominent British national museums offered heirs compensation if they could prove that a family member owned the artwork in question during World War II.
The Culture Minister, Margaret Hodge commented that the bill’s passage marked a wonderful day for those that had suffered so much lose during WWII. Hodge continued to say that at least now families could get something back that was taken from them by the Nazis.
Co-chair of the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, Anne Webber, also commented that it was a great step forward and that the act shows that the UK is committed to pursuing justice.
October 2, 2009
Filed under: Art crime — Alan @ 7:26 am
“Spiritual America,” a Richard Prince exhibition at the Tate Modern London, was delayed from opening Thursday after Scotland yard issued a warning to the museum that a photograph taken of Brooke Shields in the nude at age ten, may violate obscenity laws.
The Prince exhibition was set to be part of the program at the gallery entitled “Pop Life: Art in a Material World” but did not open after press reviews about the display and the Shields feature drew police attention.
The photograph was first seen in 2007 at the Guggenheim Museum.
It was a photograph that was authorized by Shield’s mother and was printed originally by Gary Gross.
Tate Modern released a statement saying, that for the moment the exhibition will remain closed, and that all items in the catalog are also not for sale at the moment.
October 1, 2009
Filed under: Art crime — Alan @ 9:04 am
Under suspicion that the artworks in Frida Kahlo books are fraudulent the Mexican authorities have decided to launch a probe to get to the bottom of the situation.
Mexican prosecutors became alarmed about the artist’s work when they received a complaint by artist’s trust that over 1,000 of the items in the books were not authenticated.
However, the publishers of the book claim that the book is not legally in the wrong, since the book states in the notes that not all of the items contained within it have been authenticated 100%.
Kahlo is known for stunning self portraits in the nude and was portrayed in a biopic in 2002 by Salma Hayek.
Despite the statement by the publisher, a large group of art historians and the Frida Kahlo Trust stated at a Mexico City press conference, that it would be damaging to the art world to allow the books to be sold to consumers.
The opponents claim that the book commercializes false works, and will present an inaccurate picture of the works by Kahlo.
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