[CPProt.net] Art fraud isn't about flamboyant gentleman forgers but organised international gangs

Tue May 24 22:57:43 CEST 2005

Masters criminals 
Art fraud isn't about flamboyant gentleman forgers but organised
international gangs. But new money laundering regulations and banking laws
are helping to crack down on the crime, says Alex Wade

Alex Wade
Tuesday May 24, 2005

Guardian

Ronnie Anderson, gallery owner and Whistler biographer, was lamenting the
problem of forged Picasso paintings with Eardley Knollys, himself a minor
legend in British art. Knollys ran the Storran Gallery for many years in
London, selling works of masters and exhibiting his own well-regarded
paintings. Knollys had a cautionary tale for Anderson. 
"He told me that a very wealthy client rang to tell him she had just bought
a Picasso," says Anderson. "This was in the 1940s and the amount - £10,000 -
was a fortune. There was just one problem: Picasso had forgotten to sign the
painting. So the client rang Knollys and asked him if, next time he saw his
friend Picasso, he would make sure he signed the painting." 

Knollys agreed, and the client delivered the painting to the Storran
Gallery. Next time Picasso was in town, Knollys explained the problem.
Picasso said that of course he would rectify the omission, but upon looking
at the painting said that it was not by him. Knollys's brow must have looked
unusually furrowed, because Picasso then asked him: "How good a client is
the owner?" Knollys said that the lady in question was one of his best
clients. "In that case," said Picasso, "the painting is by me." Anderson
says: "He signed it and the painting has gone on to be authenticated as a
genuine Picasso. But it wasn't by him." 

The art world abounds with such stories of paintings that never were. Often
the tales are infused with an air of gentlemanly derring-do, as if to forge
or steal the work of a great master is forgivable or, at least, a lesser
crime than "ordinary" fraud or theft. 

Most notorious of all is the Dutch forger Han van Meegeren, who faked the
work of Vermeer. On trial after the end of the second world war for selling
a Dutch national treasure, Van Meegeren pleaded guilty to the lesser charge
of forgery. His claim to have forged "authentic" Vermeer paintings such as
Emmaus and The Adultress was met with derision. In his defence, Van Meegeren
painted a "new" Vermeer while in jail. Case proved: Van Meegeren became a
folk hero. 

But at a conference in London yesterday, the message from many experts was
that art and crime should not be a topic for Robin Hood whimsy. As Rosalind
Wright, who chairs the Fraud Advisory Panel (FAP), which hosted the
conference, says: "There is a massive amount of fraud involving art and
antiquities. It is perpetrated not by opportunist thieves but by organised
criminals. There is nothing 'gentlemanly' or 'white-collar' about it - these
are dangerous individuals." 

Wright, formerly head of the Serious Fraud Office, joined the FAP in 2003.
"Our remit is to draw public attention to trends in fraud," she says. "The
social cost of fraud is not highlighted enough. 

"Look at the Robert Maxwell case - people lost their pensions because of
fraud. The social impact of art fraud may not be so direct, but it is
undeniable. If nothing is done about it, dangerous criminals are encouraged,
and public confidence in the art market is diminished. How can you be sure
of what you're buying at an auction if its provenance is open to doubt?" 

Theft of fine art has become a highly organised industry, with international
gangs targeting high-value works of art held in public and private hands.
Experts suggest that between 10% and 40% of pictures for sale by significant
artists are bogus, or so over-restored as to render them fake. Extensive and
ingenious forged provenances have become commonplace, and yet art crime is
still treated as something akin to a glamorous Ocean's Eleven heist. 

Lord Bath's stolen Titian, Rest on the Flight into Egypt, is a case in
point. The painting, worth an estimated £5m, was lifted from Longleat on
January 6 1995. Lord Bath was offered £1m by his insurers, but refused to
touch the money in the hope that one day the Titian would be recovered. It
was tracked down with the help of retired Scotland Yard detective Charles
Hill, after Lord Bath offered a £100,000 reward. A middleman contacted Hill
after the reward was announced, saying that he might be able to help in
tracing the painting's whereabouts. 

It all made for fascinating copy, with the implicit suggestion of ransom
money, and one newspaper reporting that the painting had, early in its life
away from Longleat, appeared at the foot of the hospital bed of a famous
celebrity by way of atonement for wrongdoing. Ultimately, the painting
turned up in a plastic bag at a bus stop in Richmond. 

Bunny Smedley, arts editor of the online Electric Review, castigated the
media for treating the saga as "light entertainment", arguing that the
problem stemmed from the image of art-related crime. 

"Most people have no personal experience of owning fine art. Lord Bath's
loss seems less real than the loss of a car or a mobile phone, and less
important than violent crime. 

"Art is generally stolen either from institutions or from those who are
assumed, rightly or wrongly, to be very rich. Either way, there is a feeling
that people can afford to lose whatever it is that they have lost. No one is
going to riot over an aristocrat losing one of his pictures." 

Mark Dalrymple, a director of loss adjusters Tyler & Co, says that the world
of art and antiquities is well-suited to crime. "Things get moved around a
lot, from country to country, making for an international currency in
artistic objects. Almost everything will have a value in the western world."

But Dalrymple, who spoke at the FAP conference, believes that while art and
crime have formed an unholy alliance, we might be in for a lull: "New
banking laws, Financial Services Authority requirements and money laundering
regulations have combined to make criminal activities involving large sums
of cash more difficult. Any cash transaction over £10,000 has to be
reported, including those of auction houses and dealers, making it more
difficult for the Fagins of the world to launder money. This should have a
deterrent effect on those lower down the criminal ladder." 

Dalrymple also believes that the internet is helping to combat art crime:
"It's become easier to check the provenance of paintings and credibility of
who you're dealing with." 

But he regrets that the government has yet to implement a national database
of stolen property: "There seems to be a lack of interest in doing this,
despite the fact that it would assist hugely in ensuring compliance with
money-laundering regulations and in fighting art crime." 

One man once at the sharp end of art crime is former forger John Myatt, who
spent four months in Brixton prison in 1999 for fraud. Myatt faked a series
of paintings by masters such as Giacometti and Roger Bissiere, conning
experts for years before being caught. Key to Myatt's success was fake
documentation produced by his accomplice John Drewe, used to convince buyers
of the provenance of the paintings. 

A poacher turned gamekeeper, Myatt now helps combat art fraud: "Brixton
changed me, and I never want to go back there. The FAP must look at the
paperwork; and the overall standard of expertise in the art world needs to
be improved. I knew it was only a matter of time before I was caught - after
all, I painted with household emulsion paint." 

Ronnie Anderson says that a dealer's willingness to provide comeback in the
event of problems with an artwork is vital: "A dealer has to be able to
stand over the painting and say, 'If there are any problems, bring it back.'
If he won't, you have to ask why." 

Anderson recounts his own cautionary tale. "Samuel Beckett told me how he
had always wanted the Irish artist Jack Yeats to give him a painting. Yeats
never did, so Beckett went and bought one. 

"Years later, Yeats was in Beckett's Paris apartment and saw his painting on
the wall. He stared at it, then said: 'I should never have given you that
painting.' With that, he took the painting and disappeared." Theft? Perhaps.

Meanwhile, John Myatt is facing a new problem. Someone out there is faking
his fakes. Things are rarely, it seems, clear in the art world. The Fraud
Advisory Panel was founded by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in
England and Wales. Its conference, Art Criminals - Trade Secrets Exposed,
was co-hosted by the Arts Club. 